Envirox™ fuel-borne catalyst: Developing and launching a nano-fuel additive

The paper presents a product case study tracing the challenges of commercialization from research and product development to market launch. Envirox™ is a diesel fuel additive containing nanoparticles of cerium oxide, which enables fuel efficiency gains alongside reductions in harmful emissions such as black carbon (soot). The case traces developmental stages from lab experimentation and performance data sets, to raising finance, securing manufacturing capability and market testing in Hong Kong and the UK. The paper raises a number of generic and specific issues facing innovative small, university spin-out companies engaged in introducing nano-products to the market-place.     

‘A holiday is a holiday’: practicing sustainability,home and away

‘Behaviour change’ is one of the major concerns for academics and practitioners concerned with tackling climate change. Research amongst tourism geographers has conventionally focussed on the various choices that individuals can make, both before and during their holidays, to reduce environmental footprints, specifically through the use of sustainability criteria. However, whilst there is a developing understanding of the motivations for sustainable tourism practices, there is less appreciation of the relationship tourist practices have to everyday environmental activities in and around the home. This latter issue has been researched extensively by social psychologists and environmental sociologists. Accordingly, the paper will draw upon these two existing bodies of research to argue that a holistic understanding of ‘sustainable lifestyles’ is needed if effective behavioural change strategies for climate change are to be developed, revealing the complexities of contemporary environmental practices. Using data from a recent British Academy research project, the paper will explore the changing nature of sustainable lifestyles and will demonstrate the relationships between home- and tourism-based environmental practices. The paper will argue that whilst individuals are relatively comfortable with participating in a range of environmental behaviours in and around the home, the transference of these practices to tourism contexts can be problematic. This is particularly the case for high-consumption activities such as low-cost air travel. The paper concludes by arguing that both academics and policy makers need to re-frame their notions of ‘sustainable lifestyles’, transcending a series of practices and contexts.     

Modelling the distribution of the extreme share returns in Singapore

This study aims to model the probability distribution of the extreme daily share returns in Singapore Stock Exchange over the period 1973 to 2005. For that reason the suitability of the Generalized Extreme Value (GEV), Generalized Pareto (GP) and Generalized Logistic (GL) distributions are investigated. The empirical results indicate that the GL distribution best fitted the empirical data over the period of study. Using the too much celebrated GEV and GP distributions for risk assessment could, therefore, lead to underestimation of the extreme risk which could potentially lead to inadequate protection against catastrophic losses.     

Myopic rationality in a Mania

The rationality of investors during asset price bubbles has been the subject of considerable debate. An analysis of the British Railway Mania, which occurred in the 1840s, suggests that investors may have been myopic, as their expectations were only accurate in the short-term, but they remained rational, as they acted in a utility maximising manner given their expectations. Investors successfully incorporated forecasts of short-term dividend changes into their valuations, but were unable to predict longer-term changes. When short-term growth is controlled for, it appears that the railways were priced consistently with the non-railways throughout the entire episode.     

Imperfect competition and the optimal combination of ad valorem and specific taxation

While it has long been recognized that under imperfect competition ad valorem and specific taxation differ in their effects, the optimal combination of the two instruments has received little attention. This paper shows how combining the two taxes can eliminate the welfare loss due to imperfect competition by inducing profit-maximizing firms to charge the appropriate Ramsey price.     

Monetary and Fiscal Stabilization of Demand Shocks Within Europe

This paper examines alternative macroeconomic stabilization rules for demand shocks, for a single open economy, and for an integrated European region. These questions are tackled in two ways. First a very simple macroeconomic model is used to focus on intercountry interconnections. Then the effects of shocks are simulated using the McKibbin Sachs MSG2 global economic model. The theoretical model analyzes just how much larger the disturbances caused by asymmetric shocks might be in a European Monetary Union, as compared with outcomes under floating exchange rates, especially (1) if rigid central monitoring and discipline of the fiscal policy prevents the full operation of the inbuilt fiscal stabilizers within individual European countries, and (2) if European monetary policy does not concern itself with fully European objectives. Simulations with the MSG2 model bear out the significance of these risks. They show that a demand shock like GEMU can have strongly negative effects on output in other European countries if either interest rates are raised to counter the demand shock in the originating country, or if, for some reason, fiscal stabilization is not allowed to be as strong as the inbuilt fiscal stabilizers.     

Donor commitment: An investigation of fundraising strategies in churches and mainstream charities

One of the central questions in relationship fundraising is how to convert someone who makes a small yearly donation into someone who is a major donor covenanting a substantial part of his/her income. Drawing on research among 200 major UK fundraising charities, this paper explores how far the issue, of donor commitment is used in mainstream fundraising strategies, and finds that only a minority of charities place emphasis on this. This finding is compared with an analysis of models of giving in churches. It is argued that while churches may lack sophisticated approaches to fundraising, they may have important experiences in the area of committed giving which are relevant to fundraising strategies in other organisations.