The simulation of planning decisions

An approach to the simulation of planning decisions is presented in which techniques based on control systems analysis are used. Planning decisions are defined to be those taken by officially instituted bodies subsequent to the adoption of an official plan and in order to implement it. These decisions are in response to applications for action from the public. These decisions are assumed to be adequately represented by the mean and standard deviations of the distribution of time delays involved. These two parameters are in turn posited to be influenced by feedback, feedforward and comparison with a standard plan effects. These influences are subsumed in a Monitoring functional block, which is modelled by a set of multiple linear regression equations. The decision-making or Regulation functional block is represented by Laplace functions which makes it convenient for computer simulation. Input functions are derived from the hypothesis to be tested or theoretical considerations. The advantages of the method appear to lie in its concise form and ease of manipulation even though the system simulated is an adaptive control system. Computer simulation models are notorious for their unwieldy size (number of equations) which in turn makes intervention and manipulation of parameters impractical. The proposed model attempts to alleviate this problem by simplifying the procedure involved.     

Regional debt in monetary unions: Is it inflationary?

This paper studies the inflationary implications of interest bearing regional debt in a monetary union. Is this debt simply backed by future taxation with no inflationary consequences? Or will the circulation of region debt induce monetization by a central bank?We argue here that both outcomes can arise in equilibrium. In the model economy, there are multiple equilibria which reflect the perceptions of agents regarding the manner in which the debt obligations will be met. In one equilibrium, termed Ricardian, the future obligations are met with taxation by a regional government while in the other, termed Monetization, the central bank is induced to print money to finance the region's obligations. The multiplicity of equilibria reflects a commitment problem of the central bank. A key indicator of the selected equilibrium is the distribution of regional debt holdings. We show that regional governments, anticipating central bank financing of their debt obligations, have an incentive to create excessively large deficits. We use the model to assess the impact of some policy measures within a monetary union as well as dollarization.     

Zur Kritik der Kapitalmarktunion

This article examines the European Commission’s proposal to establish a Capital Markets Union through facilitated marketbased financing, prominently cross border securitisation. However, facilitated securitisation might raise systemic risks through a deteriorated term transformation, imperfect risk transfer and excessive leverage. It might create a new liquidity glut completely separated from the needs of the real economy. In addition, this concept is contradictory to previous efforts to properly supervise, regulate and control the European financial markets. The essay favours a regulation and control approach combined with extensive EU reforms of the financial sector.     

Labour commodification,differentiation, and marginalization of the peasantry in Sella Limba (Sierra Leone) from 1950 to the present

In Sierra Leone, migration to diamond fields and the development of cash crops have contributed to the increasing integration of the peasantry in the national and global economy. Based on the study of a small northern chiefdom, Sella Limba, we describe how the labour commodification have led to the perversion of “traditional” social relations based on anteriority, and to the break‐up of large domestic groups into smaller, more precarious ones. At the same time, manual agriculture has been marginalized by massive cheap rice imports and remained very low in capital intensity. In this context, we show how low labour productivity curtails opportunities for long‐term social and economic differentiation. Farmers combine “modern” and “traditional” social relations, developing hybrid accumulation strategies that are sometimes close to mere survival.     

Mean–field moral hazard for optimal energy demand response management

We study the problem of demand response contracts in electricity markets by quantifying the impact of considering a continuum of consumers with mean–field interaction, whose consumption is impacted by a common noise. We formulate the problem as a Principal–Agent problem with moral hazard in which the Principal—she—is an electricity producer who observes continuously the consumption of a continuum of risk‐averse consumers, and designs contracts in order to reduce her production costs. More precisely, the producer incentivizes each consumer to reduce the average and the volatility of his consumption in different usages, without observing the efforts he makes. We prove that the producer can benefit from considering the continuum of consumers by indexing contracts on the consumption of one Agent and aggregate consumption statistics from the distribution of the entire population of consumers. In the case of linear energy valuation, we provide closed‐form expression for this new type of optimal contracts that maximizes the utility of the producer. In most cases, we show that this new type of contracts allows the Principal to choose the risks she wants to bear, and to reduce the problem at hand to an uncorrelated one.     

Fiscal Federalism in a Monetary Union: The No-Cooperation Pitfall

Open Economies Review - The relative merits in a monetary union of a fiscal federalism scheme and intergovernmental fiscal cooperation without a federal authority are assessed using a standard...     

Identifying and analysing the drivers of heterogeneity among ecosystem builder accelerators

In response to convergent and dynamic market developments, established firms use corporate accelerators to open their innovation processes to start‐ups. Among different accelerator themes, the ecosystem builder theme introduced by recent research plays a crucial role in furthering our understanding of the heterogeneity of accelerators due to its broad objectives. By interviewing 20 leading experts from 16 German corporate accelerators, we first identify heterogeneity among different ecosystem builder accelerators based on the differences in the process of selection, business support, and graduation. Second, we further structure the observed heterogeneity by depicting five different ecosystem builder accelerator types instead of a single ecosystem builder theme. These ecosystem builder accelerator types show important differences and similarities in terms of strategies, design elements, and processes within each of the process steps. Our findings hold meaningful research and managerial implications by providing (1) a consistent and systematic conceptual understanding about ecosystem builder accelerators, their strategies, design elements, and processes and (2) guidance to design and position ecosystem builder accelerators with regard to a long‐term corporate strategy.