Green, Brown, and Now White Certificates: Are Three One Too Many? A Micro-Model of Market Interaction

In recent years, European environmental policy has focused primarily on the reduction of carbon emissions and on fostering the expansion of renewable energy production. In 2008, the EU established the 20/20/20 vision, demanding that carbon emissions and energy consumption both be reduced by 20%, and that the production of Green Energy be further increased in order to account for 20 percent of total energy production by 2020. Regarding the reduction of emissions, a cap-and-trade system (Brown Certificates) was implemented. for the fostering of so called renewable, i.e. Green, energy different nations chose different measures, such as direct subsidies, feed-in-tariffs (e.g. Germany), or Green Certificate markets based on a quota system (e.g. Denmark). Recently, a market-based instrument (White Certificates) intended to improve efficiency of non-commercial energy consumption is also on the agenda of several European nations (demand side management). All of these instruments are directed towards the energy market. Therefore, this paper deals with identifying interdependencies and trade-offs that might occur, if both, supply and demand side, of a single market are regulated by different policy measures. Our results show that, in fact, significant interdependencies and trade-offs exist. In our model, a feed-in tariff in combination with an emission cap or tax renders the most favorable results??in the absence of demand side management.     

Improving schedule reliability based on copulas: An application to five of the most congested US airports

This study, based Newark Liberty International, New York John F. Kennedy, New York LaGuardia, Chicago O’Hare International and San Francisco International in the US, provides a perspective on the predictability of on-time performance evaluation by applying an actuarial and financial method called copula. It is common for the percentage of on-time gate arrivals to be portrayed in daily news as an indicator of schedule reliability. However, the degree of interdependency between gate arrival delays and block delays may provide some indication of schedule reliability.     

Price relationships between qualitatively differentiated agricultural products: organic and conventional wheat in Germany

Organic agriculture, which produces commodities that can be qualitatively differentiated from conventional food products, has grown into an important market in many countries. The dynamics of commodity prices in both sectors are partly interdependent, but are also shaped by independent determinants and have rarely been studied. We analyze organic food markets and their interdependencies with conventional markets in the context of wheat markets in Germany, which have been subject to a number of fundamental changes during the last two decades. Based on institutional market characteristics, we suggest a flexible Markov‐switching asymmetric time series model. We find a pronounced temporal sequence of market phases that differ in their asymmetric dynamics and the extent to which the organic price is influenced by the conventional price. Organic wheat prices tend to be increasingly connected to prices of conventional wheat.     

Women’s Careers at the Start of the 21st Century: Patterns and Paradoxes

In this article we assess the extant literature on women’s careers appearing in selected career, management and psychology journals from 1990 to the present to determine what is currently known about the state of women’s careers at the dawn of the 21st century. Based on this review, we identify four patterns that cumulatively contribute to the current state of the literature on women’s careers: women’s careers are embedded in women’s larger-life contexts, families and careers are central to women’s lives, women’s career paths reflect a wide range and variety of patterns, and human and social capital are critical factors for women’s careers. We also identify paradoxes that highlight the disconnection between organizational practice and scholarly research associated with each of the identified patterns. Our overall conclusion is that male-defined constructions of work and career success continue to dominate organizational research and practice. We provide direction for a research agenda on women’s careers that addresses the development of integrative career theories relevant for women’s contemporary lives in hopes of providing fresh avenues for conceptualizing career success for women. Propositions are identified for more strongly connecting career scholarship to organizational practice in support of women’s continued career advancement.     

IS FINANCIAL SUPPORT FOR PRIVATE R&D ALWAYS JUSTIFIED? A DISCUSSION BASED ON THE LITERATURE ON GROWTH

Many economists have long held that market failures create a gap between social and private returns to research and development (R&D), thereby limiting private incentives to invest in R&D. However, this common belief that firms significantly underinvest in R&D is increasingly being challenged, leading the rationale behind public support for private R&D to be questioned. In this paper, we attempt to clarify the perspectives of two sources: the theoretical literature on endogenous growth, and its recent developments in integrating a geographical dimension, and the empirical literature that measures the social returns to R&D in relation to the private returns. Ultimately, we are able to clearly distinguish among different types of market failures and compare their relative impact on the gap between the private and social returns to R&D. Two main conclusions are reached. First, systematic firm underinvestment in R&D is not demonstrated. Second, even though instances of underinvestment do occur, they are mainly explained by surplus appropriability problems rather than by knowledge externalities. This suggests the need for a new policy mix that employs more demand‐oriented instruments and is more concentrated on identifying efficient allocations among activities rather than merely increasing global private R&D investment.     

Restructuring of the Hungarian Electricity Industry

Restructuring the monopolistic, state-owned, obsolete and polluting utility industries of post-socialist economies poses a challenge for the utility deregulation wave travelling around the world. Utility restructuring in the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) region is unique from several perspectives, including the domination of foreign capital vs. national resources as the only feasible vehicle for a drastic change in the industry and the ambitious goals of harmonisation with the EU liberalisation schedule to accelerate accession. It is also widely expected that deregulation will help bring down world-record high energy intensities in these economies. Hungary has been the pioneer among economies in transition in unbundling, deregulating and privatising the utility industries and taking the first steps towards EU-conforming market liberalisation within less than half a decade. The first stages of privatisation and restructuring have been declared a success story in the Western media. However, what is a success story from a foreign perspective may be seen differently from other viewpoints. The article describes the process of utility restructuring in Hungary and examines its impact from the economic, environmental and policy perspectives. The article also compares the pioneer Hungarian deregulation with other CEE countries' restructuring of their energy sectors. However, the lessons to be learned from the Hungarian electricity industry restructuring are not only vital for other economies in transition but are often universally applicable.     

Consumer motives for buying regional products: the REGIOSCALE

Marketing Letters - Consumers are increasingly turning towards regional products (RP). The Consumer Ethnocentric Scale (CETSCALE) has been widely used to examine consumer motives for buying...     

Going green,going clean: Lean‐green sustainability strategy and firm growth

Despite the widespread recognition of the paybacks of “going green” and “going clean,” limited research has focused on the impact of lean‐green strategy on firm growth. In this study, we contribute to strategy and environmental sustainability literatures by investigating the possibility that the influence on lean‐green strategy and firm growth is driven by different levels of industry competition, managerial power, and family ties. Using panel data from 732 firms in four major industrialized economies (the United States, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom), we found that lean‐green strategy positively relates to firm growth and this relationship is amplified at higher levels of competition, managerial power, and family ties. Theoretical and practical implications of the study are also discussed.     

Back to the future. Is industry 4.0 a new tecno-organizational paradigm? Implications for Latin American countries

ABSTRACT

The objective of this article is to establish a dialogue between the recent ‘Industry 4.0’ (I4.0) literature and evolutionary neo-Schumpeterean studies about techno-organizational paradigms. In that direction, we wonder whether I4.0 constitutes a new paradigm, as it is assumed by the first group of literature, or it represents – until the moment – an intensification of key features of the information and communication technology (ICT) paradigm, following the second group of studies. Some questions are raised about the implications of I4.0 for developing countries (DEC), afterwards. Specifically, we reflect on the possibilities of these countries to identify and take advantage of new windows of opportunity, opened by the development and diffusion of these technologies. In this regard, the review of recent Latin American experience raises strong concerns regarding I4.0 as a new source of intra- and international heterogeneity, linked to the severe difficulties these countries have in appropriating these technologies in the form of productivity gains and quasi-rents. It seems that this is partially derived from weak technological, organizational, and connectivity capabilities paths of accumulation between institutions and actors.