Extended Producer Responsibility and the Evolution of Sustainable Specializations: Evidences From the e‐Waste Sector

Extended producer responsibility (EPR) is an environmental policy approach that could potentially have a positive impact on different determinants of the business environment, including scientific production. Despite that, direct and indirect impacts on those national research environments where EPR is not directly implemented are under‐represented in the current literature. Based on a dataset of 411 papers related to e‐waste published in the period between 2001 and 2011, our study explores the research dynamics of the e‐waste literature and presents a map of the main areas of interest. Two representations of the geographical time frames of research depict the on‐going reshaping of worldwide technical specializations and inform policy makers on the evolution of regional needs and competences. The conclusions highlight the importance of worldwide impact assessments of EPR in order to achieve both industrial and environmental goals. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Does foreign ownership matter?

The paper both compares productivity of Russian firms that have foreign direct investments with productivity of fully domestically owned firms and analyses spillovers from foreign‐owned firms to domestic firms. Foreign firms are found to be more productive than domestic ones, but productivity of the former is negatively affected by slow progress of reforms in the regions where they operate. It is also found that there are positive spillovers from foreign‐owned firms to domestic firms in the same industry, but negative effects on domestic firms that are vertically related to foreign‐owned firms. The stock of human capital in regions where foreign firms operate is one of the factors which help domestic firms to benefit from the entry of foreign firms.     

Shared autonomous vehicles and their potential impacts on household vehicle ownership: An exploratory empirical assessment

Emerging transportation technologies have the potential to significantly reshape the transportation systems and household vehicle ownership. Key among these transportation technologies are the autonomous vehicles, particularly when introduced in shared vehicle fleets. In this paper, we focus on the potential impact that fleets of shared autonomous vehicles might have on household vehicle ownership. To obtain initial insights into this issue, we asked a sample of university personnel and members of the American Automobile Association as to how likely they would consider relinquishing one of their household's personal vehicles if shared autonomous vehicles were available (thus reducing their household vehicle ownership level by one). For single-vehicle households, this would be relinquishing their only vehicle, and for multivehicle households (households owning two or more vehicles) this would be relinquishing just one of their vehicles. Possible responses to the question about relinquishing a household vehicle if shared autonomous vehicles are present are: extremely unlikely, unlikely, unsure, likely, and extremely likely. To determine the factors that influence this response, random parameters ordered probit models are estimated to account for the likelihood that considerable unobserved heterogeneity is likely to be present in the data. The findings show that a wide range of socioeconomic factors affects people's likelihood of vehicle relinquishment in the presence of shared autonomous vehicles. Key among these are gender effects, generational elements, commuting patterns, and respondents' vehicle crash history and experiences. While people's opinions of shared autonomous vehicles are evolving with the continual introduction of new autonomous vehicle technologies and shifting travel behavior, the results of this study provide important initial insights into the likely effects of shared autonomous vehicles on household vehicle ownership.     

Comparison of equilibrium actions and payoffs across players in games of strategic complements

This paper provides sufficient conditions for comparing the choices of different players in games of strategic complements. The main results require a weak ordering relation on the best responses of players in the game and their constraint sets. Under additional restrictions, we can also compare their relative payoffs. We offer three applications of our idea to industrial organization and new models of behavioral economics. Specifically, we study horizontal mergers in oligopolies, competition among firms with differentiated demands and costs of production, and a model of biased perceptions.     

The gift of being chosen

We report evidence from an experiment where an employer selects one of two workers to perform a task for a fixed compensation. Workers differ in their ability. The employer’s payoff depends on the worker’s ability and on a non-contractible effort that the worker exerts once employed. We find that selected workers exert an effort higher than the minimum enforceable one. When the employers can send a free-text form message to the selected worker, workers with low ability exert significantly higher effort than the workers with high ability. The difference in effort overcompensates the difference in ability.     

Diffusion of Corporate Responsibility Practices to Companies: The Experience of the Forest Sector

This qualitative study indentifies how corporate responsibility (CR) practices are diffused to companies, as well as the factors that influence this diffusion process. Forest companies, industry associations, non-governmental organizations, and academics in Brazil, Canada, and the United States participated in this interview-based study. Data emerging from a grounded theory approach revealed three factors influencing the diffusion of CR practices to companies: (1) external contextual characteristics, (2) connectors, and (3) experts and expert organizations. These three factors influence each other, meaning that the diffusion process of CR practices is somewhat cyclic. These interactions are usually manifested by companies and expert organizations influencing each other’s actions, being influenced by the external environment, and contributing to the CR trends that are observed in the external environment.     

The role of multinational production in a risky environment

This paper explores the aggregate consequences of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) on the opportunities for risk diversification available to consumers. The crucial difference between FDI and other international financial flows is that the former involves technology flows across countries. We present a model where firm-embedded productivity can be transferred costly across countries through the activity of multinational firms. We find that risk patterns affect multinationals' location decisions and, in turn, these decisions change the scope for international risk diversification even in a world with complete financial markets.     

The potential trade effects of an FTA between the EU and Russia

The Potential Trade Effects of an FTA between the EU and Russia.- This paper analyzes some of the potential economic effects of free trade agreements between the EU and Russia and the other European CIS countries using standard indicators of trade patterns. It confirms that it would not be feasible for the EU to conclude such an agreement with Russia alone. It is also shown that, if the current high tariff levels are maintained in the CIS countries, they may not benefit from an agreement with the EU. More generally, the authors question the economic motivation for countries such as Russia in seeking free trade agreements with industrial countries which already have low levels of external protection.     

Approximate value-at-risk calculation for heterogeneous loan portfolios: Possible enhancements of the Basel II methodology

This paper presents three possible methods by which the credit value at risk estimates coming from the Basel II IRB approach can be significantly improved upon. The feasibility of the suggested approaches is substantiated by applying it to an exemplary model portfolio.     

Fiscal disparity and equalisation in the Russian Federation

The regions of the Russian Federation are economically disparate. Differential endowment with energy resources drives much of this disparity and this translates into highly diverse fiscal capacities. Although regions do have some independent revenue-raising authority, all taxes are administered by the national Ministry of Taxation and a sizable share (roughly 45%) of total national revenue is transferred to regional and local government. The transfers, however, are not of equal importance to all regions. This article focuses on vertical and horizontal balance in the country. It examines differential revenue capacity and the extent to which national transfer programmes mitigate fiscal disparity.