On the Value of Environmental Certification in the Commercial Real Estate Market

A significant part of the global carbon externality stems from the real estate sector. Environmental certification is often hailed as an effective means to resolve the information asymmetry that may prevent markets from effectively pricing the energy performance of buildings. This study analyzes the adoption and financial outcomes of environmentally certified commercial real estate over time. We document that nearly 40% of space in the 30 largest U.S. commercial real estate markets holds some kind of environmental certification in 2014, as compared to less than 5% in 2005. Tracking the rental growth of 26,212 office buildings, we measure the performance of environmentally certified real estate over time. We document that certified office buildings, on average, have slightly higher rental, occupancy and pricing levels, but do not outperform non‐certified buildings in rental growth over the 2004–2013 period. Further performance attribution analysis indicates that local climate conditions, local energy prices and the extent of certification lead to significant heterogeneity in market pricing. On aggregate, these findings provide some evidence on the efficiency of the market in the adoption and capitalization of environmental characteristics in the commercial real estate market.     

Profits,dividends and industry restructuring: the Swedish paper and pulp industry between 1945 and 1977

This paper explores the role of profit distribution in the restructuring of the Swedish paper and pulp (P&P) industry between 1945 and 1977. In addressing this issue, we will draw on the life-cycle theory and market imperfection arguments to examine whether the less profitable firms shared more of their profits as dividends, or remained on the market longer by reinvesting the majority of the profits. Our study shows that an increasing share of the profits was distributed to owners over time, and thus less profit was reinvested in industrial renewal. We find that the observed general upward trend in dividends can be attributed to the decline in profit and firm legacy, as firms in the Swedish P&P industry kept dividends up while reducing reinvestment as their profit margins decreased over time. Our study shows that the market imperfections related to capital taxation and investment funds increased rather than decreased dividends.     

Residential energy use and conservation: Economics and demographics

Energy consumption in the residential sector offers an important opportunity for conserving resources. However, much of the current debate regarding energy efficiency in the housing market focuses on the physical and technical determinants of energy consumption, neglecting the role of the economic behavior of resident households. In this paper, we analyze the extent to which the use of gas and electricity is determined by the technical specifications of the dwelling as compared to the demographic characteristics of the residents. Our analysis is based on a sample of more than 300,000 Dutch homes and their occupants. The results indicate that residential gas consumption is determined principally by structural dwelling characteristics, such as the vintage, building type, and characteristics of the dwelling, while electricity consumption varies more directly with household composition, in particular income and family composition. Combining these results with projections on future economic and demographic trends, we find that, even absent price increases for residential energy, the aging of the population and their increasing wealth will roughly offset improvements in the energy efficiency of the building stock resulting from policy interventions and natural revitalization.     

Two-way trade between unequal partners: The EU and the developing countries

Two-Way Trade between Unequal Partners: The EU and the Developing Countries. — This paper analyses the intra-industry trade specialization between the EU and the developing countries between 1980 and 1992. It shows that EU intra-industry trade with the developing countries has greatly increased and that the traditional measure of intra-industry trade, the Grubel-Lloyd index, is inappropriate when applied to trade between developed and developing countries. By and large, the empirical analysis confirms that intra-industry trade between the developed and the developing countries increases with average and per capita income, and with reduced differences in economic size and capital-labour ratios.     

Entwickeln sich wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Forschung und Politikberatung auseinander?

Most German economists show strong patterns of professional specialisation. In their work, they either focus on basic research or on policy consultancy. The evidence provided by Haucap und Mödl has been used to question work incentives in academia. The suggestion to change work incentives, however, is not supported by Richter, who rather calls into question the German tradition of research funding. He argues that Germany should devote more competitive funding to research projects and less to institutions. Schmidt et al. explore the question the other way around: do policy consultants publish in top journals? They conclude that they do. Güth/Kliemt show how precarious and limited our (technologically useful) knowledge is. The discussion of alternative policies among economic experts should be used to tease out the controversial arguments to allow for better informed political judgements. Wagner/Fratzscher take a historical view, showing that when modern economic research (and economic research institutes) apply a more pluralistic paradigm than that which prevailed in Germany for a long period after the Second World War, economic research will automatically have a more significant impact on politics, since policy advisors will produce more varied advice with the potential for realisation. Koll also claims that policy advice must not be based on a single supply-side oriented mainstream point of view. By drawing lessons from the crisis, economics must identify a new mainstream providing reliable guidance and policy advice.     

Mining external R&D

Open Innovation presses the case for timely and thorough intelligence concerning research and development activities conducted outside one’s organization. To take advantage of this wealth of R&D, one needs to establish a systematic “tech mining” process. We propose a 5-stage framework that extends literature review into research profiling and pattern recognition to answer posed technology management questions. Ultimately one can even discover new knowledge by screening research databases.Once one determines the value in mining external R&D, tough issues remain to be overcome. Technology management has developed a culture that relies more on intuition than on evidence. Changing that culture and implementing effective technical intelligence capabilities is worth the effort. P&G's reported gains in innovation call attention to the huge payoff potential.     

Rational Partisan Theory: Evidence for Seven OECD Economies

According to the Rational Partisan Theory of business cycles ("RPT"), ex ante uncertainty about the outcome of elections will generate post-election output growth fluctuations. This paper employs vote prediction equations and opinion polls to compute election win probability estimates for 62 elections in seven OECD economies. The probability estimates are used to calibrate partisan intervention terms entered in output growth regressions. For the UK and, to some extent, Canada and Australia, our results are supportive of the RPT. For the US, the calibrated intervention terms are dominated by a partisan dummy variable turned on after each election.     

Comparing Lives

The construction of quality of life indicators seeks to transform a fundamentally subjective and experiential concept - the quality of lives as lived by actual people - into an objective and globally applicable measuring instrument. The article critiques some of the assumptions that are necessary to construct such a measure, and makes a plea for the use of a more appropriate and felicitous procedure for comparing variations in the quality of life.