Ecological aspects of structural change

Structural change in advanced industrialized countries has followed a very ambivalent course, with the resulting reductions in environmental stress in one area often being cancelled out by increases in another. What role has been played in this to date by industrial and economic policy? What options are open to policy-makers for the future?     

A capability perspective on indigenous autonomy

This paper argues that the capability approach can add to the concept of autonomy (as defined in international law) as a means to provide larger freedoms to indigenous peoples. We show that autonomous regimes established within nation-states – by opening up a space for self-governance – provide a means to facilitate indigenous peoples’ pursuit of their own paths of development. However, such regimes frequently face, and their effectiveness can be reduced by, various problems such as tensions between individual and collective rights, the definition of the ideal scope of autonomies, and the lack of proper implementation. This is illustrated with case studies from Colombia, Mexico and Nicaragua. We argue that the capability approach, and in particular its focus on the freedom to choose a life path one has reason to value, can be used to address such problems confronting autonomous regimes.     

Same Work,Different Pay? Evidence from a US Public University

Abstract

This study examines detailed data for faculty at a typical public research university in the United States between 1995 and 2004 to explore whether gender wage differentials can be explained by productivity differences. The level of detail – including the number of courses taught, enrollment, grant dollars, and number and impact of publications – largely eliminates the problem of unmeasured productivity, and the restriction to one firm eliminates unmeasured work conditions that confound investigations of wider labor markets. The authors find that direct productivity measures reduce the gender wage penalty to about 3 percent, only 1 percentage point lower than estimates from national studies of many institutions and with fewer productivity controls. The wage structure for women faculty differs markedly from the wage structure for men. Interpreted against the institutional features of wage setting for this population, the paper concludes that penalties for women arise at the department level.     

Regulation,Profit Variability and Beta

Many tests of the Peltzman hypothesis that regulation buffers the firm's cash flows examine the firm's equity beta. We model the asset beta and show that it (and the equity beta) are a function of several variables beyond those found in previous tests. Since these variables are also affected by regulation, tests of the Peltzman theory that do not hold these factors constant will be biased. The empirical tests in this paper hold other determinants of beta equal and find evidence consistent with the Peltzman buffering hypothesis and the model of beta.     

The Event Study Methodology Since 1969

This paper discusses the event study methodology, beginning with FFJR (1969), including hypothesis testing, the use of different benchmarks for the normal rate of return, the power of the methodology in different applications and the modeling of abnormal returns as coefficients in a (multivariate) regression framework. It also focuses on frequently encountered statistical problems in event studies and their solutions.     

Und Aktion! – Konzeptualisierung der Rolle individuellen Akteurshandelns in sozio-technischen Transitionen am Beispiel der regionalen Energiewende im bayerischen Allgäu

The German “Energiewende” is one of the most ambitious societal transition projects in recent times. It causes fundamental political and economic changes in the energy system in Germany and the whole of Europe. These great societal and technological changes of the current energy regime are of particular interest for research on sustainability transitions. In this research strand, however, the role of individual agency for socio-technical transitions is hardly considered. What drives actors who decisively pushed the regional energy transition? Which strategies and types of action do they choose to foster the transition? How do individual strategies and actions depend on the socio-technical system environment and how does the socio-technical system environment react to the individual actions? To analyse these questions, we apply the Human-Environment Systems (HES) Framework (Scholz, 2011) for the first time to socio-technical systems. Based on an exemplary analysis of the regional energy transition in the Allgäu region in Germany, we propose an adaptation of the HES Framework for socio-technical systems. Finally, we reflect on how the adapted HES framework for socio-technical systems can contribute to a better understanding of individual agency in systemic transitions.