Prior Commitment and Uncertainty in Complex Economic Systems: Reinstating History in the Core of Economic Analysis

Conventional ‘neoclassical’ economics is very useful in understanding how prices are determined but less so as a general basis for understanding the economic behaviour we observe. What is not taken into account is that economic systems are dissipative structures that are complex, but incompletely connected, networks of rules. It is explained why a degree of prior commitment in decision‐making is inevitable in complex economic systems and the implications of this are examined. It is argued that economic analysis must begin with the reality that choices are made in relation to pre‐existing commitments, both with regard to economic structures built in the past and to prevailing systems of belief, when deciding what to do in a future characterised by uncertainty. It is explained how conventional economic incentives can be dealt with in such a complex historical context building upon the neoclassical perspective of Alfred Marshall over a century ago. It is argued that econometric modelling remains viable and useful in understanding behaviour in complex economic systems. It is shown how we can design and interpret time series econometric modelling from a complex systems perspective.     

The Impact of Modelling and Simulation Technology on Engineering Problem Solving

The paper focuses on the use of modelling and simulation technology in the design and development of engineering projects. Using case studies, the authors examine the experiences of engineers and designers working with these tools. The paper provides insights into how this technology is reshaping the way engineers work and solve problems. Engineering design remains a highly uncertain activity and the costs of failure can be high. It was found that the use of modelling and simulation helps engineers to better understand physical properties and behaviour—quickly, cheaply and accurately—before they construct artefacts and systems. Such tools can help engineers ‘learn-before-doing’ and experiment with the integration of different technologies and components. Modelling and simulation helps build the ‘design conversation’ between contributors to an engineering project, including customers and regulators. It provides opportunities for feedback and learning and can promote open, interdisciplinary and collaborative working styles. These findings are related to existing literature on problem solving in engineering design and a future research agenda is proposed that examines the opportunities for and limitations of these technologies.     

The Impact of Modelling and Simulation Technology on Engineering Problem Solving

The paper focuses on the use of modelling and simulation technology in the design and development of engineering projects. Using case studies, the authors examine the experiences of engineers and designers working with these tools. The paper provides insights into how this technology is reshaping the way engineers work and solve problems. Engineering design remains a highly uncertain activity and the costs of failure can be high. It was found that the use of modelling and simulation helps engineers to better understand physical properties and behaviour—quickly, cheaply and accurately—before they construct artefacts and systems. Such tools can help engineers 'learn-before-doing' and experiment with the integration of different technologies and components. Modelling and simulation helps build the 'design conversation' between contributors to an engineering project, including customers and regulators. It provides opportunities for feedback and learning and can promote open, interdisciplinary and collaborative working styles. These findings are related to existing literature on problem solving in engineering design and a future research agenda is proposed that examines the opportunities for and limitations of these technologies.     

生态工业中的废物交换系统探讨

生态工业是基于产业生态学理论兴起的全新工业运作模式．它强调的是工业共生与资源循环利用．通过物质流、能量流和信患流的相互联系．使一个企业的废物作为另一个企业的原料加以利用，达到社会经济和环境效益的最大化。本文通过分析三种不同生态工业中的废物交换，并对其管理手段、经济效益和环境效益进行对比．显示建立工业生态废弃物交换系统有利于实现资源利用效率的最大化和污染排放的最小化。基于互联网的生态工业废物交换系统可以有效降低企业废物交换的时间和成本，增强生态工业链的秉性抗风险能力。     

Materials-product chains: Theory and an application to zinc and PVC gutters

A framework is presented for the analysis of economic and environmental impacts of policies applied to materials-product (MP) chains. This is based on materials flows, product flows, costs, prices and optimal management of an MP chain. The main differences compared with other studies focusing on materials flows is that here the link between products or services and materials is explicitly dealt with. The framework is developed on the basis of materials balance conditions, production functions allowing for substitution, and recycling of both materials and products. After presenting theoretical MP chain-models and analytical results, an application to the problem of choosing between zinc and PVC gutters is discussed. Here optimal MP chain management decisions are presented for various policy and strategy scenarios.     

The Social Cost of Environmental Solutions

This article assesses the social consequences of efforts by multinational corporations to capture business value through recycling, reusing materials and reducing waste. Synthesising evidence from the global environmental justice and feminist and international political economy (IPE) literatures, it analyses the changing social property relations of global recycling chains. The authors argue that, although recycling more would seem to make good ecological sense, corporate programmes can rely on and further ingrain social patterns of harm and exploitation, particularly for the burgeoning labour force that depends on recyclables for subsistence living. Turning the waste stream into a profit stream also relies on prison labour in some places, such as in the United States where the federal government operates one of the country's largest electronics recycling programmes. The ongoing corporatisation of recycling, the authors argue further, is devaluing already marginalised populations within the global economy. Highlighting the need to account for the dynamism between social and environmental change within IPE scholarship, the article concludes by underlining the ways in which ‘green commerce’ programmes can shift capital's contradictions from nature onto labour.     

关联供应链——面向可持续发展的新型供应链管理模式

面对可持续发展的要求，本文提出了一种面向资源和环境的供应链之间的合作模式——关联供应链，旨在通过供应链之间的协作来实现废弃物的再利用，是一种兼顾资源环境绩效和经济绩效的管理模式。文章阐述了关联供应链的概念及特点．提出了我国实施关联供应链管理的过程构建策略，最后分析了关联供应链在我国的实施前景。     

天津某电池收储场地铅污染及其健康风险评价

对天津市某电子垃圾回收站内的7个电池收储场进行土壤铅污染监测,应用美国环境保护局提供的健康风险评价模型对监测结果进行评价,结果显示:回收站蓄电池收储场地的表层土壤非致癌风险已经超过人类健康生存所能承受的限度,需要及时采取适当措施对该回收站的污染土壤进行治理和修复。     

On the conception and measurement of technology: A case study of the aircraft design process

This study is aimed at the development of a theory of the measurement of technology. Several distinct contributions are offered: (1) The existing approaches to the measurement of technological change, including the economic theory of quality change, are concluded to be inappropriate. A statistical version of dimensional analytic theory is presented as an alternative approach and is applied to the illustrative case of aircraft. (2) A dimensional analytic framework is proposed as an alternative to the neoclassical economic conception of the production function. (3) A theory is proposed and substantiated stating that once the basic configuration is established, the evolution of technological systems proceeds in small steps. The role of fundamental knowledge in the process of design appears to be relatively small and fundamental shifts in individual production functions are far less frequent than is commonly believed. (4) It is shown that a dimensional analytic approach transforms the characteristics of different systems to a common domain that also makes comprehensive measurement of intertechnology change a possibility.     

The Institutional Quality Effect on Credits Provided by the Banks

Research on developing economies is deficient in analysing institutional quality dimensions that are beyond standard determinants of the provision of credits by banks. This study fills this gap by adopting a broad-based modelling approach in examining the effects of institutional quality on credit provided by banks for a large sample of developing economies. A structural model, including balanced annual panel data from the World Bank World Development Indicators and Worldwide Governance Indicators for the period 2004 to 2017, was estimated using panel-corrected standard errors and two-stage least squares estimation techniques. The core variables determining the credit provided by banks were controlled for in the estimation phase. The findings showed that the rule of law, regulatory quality and the strength of legal systems are significant determinants of credit provided by banks, among other factors. Investments in improving institutional quality can be beneficial for credit diffusion by the banks. This study is distinct from previous empirical studies of the developing economies as it directs attention to institutional quality measures on bank credit expansion in an inclusive modelling framework. It makes a significant positive contribution to the finance institutional nexus literature in terms of understanding the value and role that institutional quality plays in fostering bank credit provision in developing economies.

     

PRICE AND SUBSTITUTION IN RESIDENTIAL SOLID WASTE

Many per-unit curbside recycling and garbage collection pricing systems were implemented in the 1990s. A detailed data set is used to estimate the effect of an increase in the per-unit price change for a long-running pricing system across time in one city. A fixed-effects regression controls for collection district and explanatory variables including weather, time, and employment changes. The elasticity estimate is within the range of previous work but with a higher cross-price elasticity to recycling. This shift to recycling results in significant financial benefits to the city and a small decrease in social welfare. ( JEL Q5, Q53)     

Terminal conditions as a means of ensuring unique solutions for rational expectations models with forward expectations

Terminal conditions are imposed on rational expectations models as a means of finding a unique solution among a continuum of potential solutions. It is argued that using terminal conditions is superior to invoking stability. The method can be applied to non-linear as well as linear systems.     

基于MFCA的废弃物回收优先排序方法及应用研究

随着资源环境问题的日益凸显,废弃物回收再利用引起了广泛关注。基于物质流成本会计（MFCA）及物质流转平衡原理,建立了将隐性成本嵌入生产工序流程的废弃物回收优先排序方法。为了验证该方法的实用性及科学性,以A钢铁企业为例进行了案例研究。结果表明：根据各工序环节的隐性成本测算结果可以确立废弃物回收优先次序,该方法能有效促进A钢铁企业环保效益与经济效益协同提升。     

Assessing the economics of auto recycling activities in relation to European Union Directive on end of life vehicles

Technical requirements for car design and minimum reuse and recovery rates for end-of-life vehicles (ELV) are the subject of a new EU Directive on ELV. This Directive is expected to induce changes in the infrastructures required for ELV processing, and presents a challenge to maintain such economically viable infrastructure.Technical-cost models of ELV processing operators were developed to interpret the changing economics of auto recycling activities under the new EU Directive on ELV.The results obtained show that the recycling targets defined in the EU Directive for 2006, require the removal of an increased number of plastic parts from an ELV. In particular, removing up to 14% of the ELV mass results in a recycling rate over 80%, even for vehicles with a ferrous content up to about 65%. These operations can be performed economically by dismantlers, provided that they may get a steady flow of ELV hulks, free of charge, and that the international quotation for steel scrap does not come significantly below 120 €/ton.In the long term, developing separation technologies for automotive shredder residues and finding recycling possibilities for the products gained from the separation, might be a valuable scenario to meet the 2015 recycling quotas.     

Seasonal fractional components in macroeconomic time series

Seasonal fractional models are shown in this article to be alternative credible ways of modelling the seasonal component in macroeconomic time series. A testing procedure that allows one to test different orders of integration at zero and at each of the seasonal frequencies is described. This procedure is then applied to the Italian consumption and income series, the results being very sensitive to the way of modelling the I(0) disturbances.     

An EU Recycling Target: What Does the Dutch Evidence Tell Us?

The European Union (EU) advocates a household waste recycling rate of more than 65 %. Although the Netherlands has already invested heavily in recycling policies, this is still a big challenge as nowadays this rate is approximately 50 % on average and very few no municipalities have a rate above 65 %. Given this practice, it is possible to learn from the Dutch experience which policies are effective in increasing recycling rates. Based on a large panel data set for the Netherlands, we show that unit-based pricing, avoiding a duo-bin for unsorted and compostable waste, and reducing the frequency of collecting unsorted and compostable waste at the curbside are effective in raising the recycling rate. However, only a bag-based pricing system has a substantial effect, but this policy can have some adverse effects. Other unit-based pricing systems have effects of less than 10 % points. In nearly all cases, changing the frequency of collection of recyclables has no or very small effects. Moreover, the complementarity between unit-based pricing and curbside service is low. Overall, it seems very difficult to reach the EU goal of 65 % with the policies applied.     

工业循环经济的4R原则

Traditional 3R-rulea have been regarded as behaviour rules.for developing recycling economy. However. with the development of modern advanced manufacturing techniquea, the important vatue of remanufacturing in promoting recycling economy has been given more and more attention to in revere years. Remanufaeturtng engineering technology, which utilizes advanced sub;face engineering and forming technology, produces directly with useable components of scraped machines. It can conserve the most of materials （about 83%-95%） and energy （about 80-85%） of ortginal prodacts with less pollution. By remamifacturing, we can reduce resources consumption under the condition of meeting the needs of social and economic development. Remanufacturing is an advanced method for recycling economy in industry Therefore, we think that the rules of .ecycting economy in industry could be extended from 3 R-rules to 4R-rules. The 4R-rules optimal sequence would be reduce,reuse. remanufacture, and recycle.     

The impact of offering two versus three alternatives in choice modelling experiments

Researchers designing choice modelling experiments have some latitude over the number of choice alternatives that can be offered in each choice set. There is some evidence that design dimensions, including the number of alternatives available in each choice set, can influence model outcomes. A key issue is whether referendum formats with binary options are preferable to choice sets with multiple alternatives.A choice modelling experiment was performed where questionnaires delivered to two split samples differed only according to whether two or three alternatives were offered to respondents in each choice set. The results indicate that more robust models could be constructed from the three-alternative split compared to the two-alternative split. One reason for the difference is that respondents tended to display serial non-participation in the two-alternative format, choosing an alternative consistently without regard for changes in the attributes. For practitioners of the CM technique, the results suggest that it may be preferable to offer more than two alternatives in a choice set that includes a status quo option.     

Waste, recycling, and “Design for Environment”: Roles for markets and policy instruments

Households sometimes have two recycling options. Curbside recycling collections are convenient, but do not provide payment. Alternatively, payment might be available from ‘reverse vending machines’ or drop-off centers, but some transaction costs would be incurred. We examine policies to encourage efficient product design and recycling in a setting with these two recycling options plus the option of putting recyclables in the trash. We find value in having two parallel recycling options. Constrained optimal outcomes can be attained by combining a ‘deposit–refund’ with a modest disposal fee. Furthermore, producers should not be permitted to keep deposits, that are not claimed by consumers.     

Strategies for Modelling Nonlinear Time-Series Relationships*

Building models of nonlinear relationships are inherently more difficult than linear ones There are more possibilities, many more parameters and thus more mistakes can be made. It is suggested that a strategy be applied when attempting such modelling involving testing for linearity, considering just a few model types of parsimonious form and then performing post-sample evaluation of the resulting models compared to a linear one. The strategy proposed is a ‘simple-to-general’ one and the application of a heteroskedasticity correction is not recommended