Managing the Technological Transition to Sustainable Construction of Buildings: A Socio-Technical Perspective

The construction of buildings brings about a substantial ecological load: about 40% of energy consumption and about 25% of material moved by our economy is due to the construction of buildings. New construction technologies and new building components would allow us to reduce the ecological load of buildings to a fraction of its present value. However, the problem of making our building stock more sustainable is only to a minor extent a technical one. The required change of technologies can only be managed by simultaneously taking into account technical potentials and their social context. Social studies of technology, with their focus on the construction of technologies as an interactive effort of various actors and on the inseparability of the social and technical side of sociotechnical systems provide a perspective to better understand the processes involved in the construction and dissemination of sustainable buildings. A number of strategies to manage technical change towards sustainability will be discussed: better integration of various actors at the supply side, shift to a market for innovative and ecological building services, improvement of user-producer relationships and integration of consumers into the innovation process.     

Unilateral action by the EC against unfair trade practices

The European Community has a variety of instruments at its disposal to counter unfair trade practices, but there has long been considerable disagreement within the Community as to when and where they should be applied. To what extent would such measures endanger the benefits of international trade? Can any positive effects be expected?     

Problems of currency integration

In recent years, the discussion on the forms of organisation of the Franc Zone has again grown more controversial. The present article explains the functional structure of this currency association, and discusses the arguments of its critics.     

Debt-for-nature swaps: A review of the first experiences

The relatively new concept of debt-for-nature swaps is intended to take account of the connection between the indebtedness of developing countries and the destruction of the environment taking place there, the consequences of which are increasingly also perceived as a threat in the industrial countries. The idea has now been put to the test in practive in a number of cases. Against that background, the authors of this article point out the areas of potential and the limitations of debt-for-nature swaps.     

Debt contracts and collapse as competition phenomena

We study financial intermediation in which sufficient sorting is impossible. We identify a new type of market failure that may occur even when returns of investing entrepreneurs are verifiable. Moreover, we suggest that the nature of competition determines the contracts banks offer. A monopoly bank will offer equity contracts. In any pure strategy equilibrium when lenders compete à la Bertrand, however, only debt contracts are offered.     

Capital goods manufacture and the choice of technique in the maize - milling industry

The article discusses the structure of the market for milled maize products, emphasizing that products embody different levels of service as well as different physical characteristics. Different levels of capital intensity may be obtained by selecting alternative sources of supply for plant and machinery - this is especially important for a merchant mill producing a refined product, the core process of which is often regarded as technically rigid. A detailed comparison of Indian and West European equipment shows that for the market prices considered, the Indian equipment is likely to be preferred. The interrelationship between the structure of the capital goods sector, the rate of technical progress and choice of technique issues is discussed.