Urban economics and development

China’s policy of opening the door to foreign business has sometimes aroused excessive expectations. Both in China and abroad, overoptimism has now been replaced by a more realistic appraisal of what can be achieved in economic terms. Nonetheless, Deng Xiaoping’s aim of quadrupling industrial and agricultural output¹ by the year 2000 is still being pursued. Urban regions have been allocated a key role in this as the powerhouse of development. In the light of regional economic analyses,²this article examines whether the intended economic reforms go far enough to enable the conurbations to perform this function.     

Local compensation payments for agri-environmental externalities: a panel data analysis of bargaining outcomes

We analyse local compensation payments made to farmers for providinglandscape amenities in Alpine tourist communities. These paymentsresult from political bargaining at the municipal level. Paneldata estimation shows that the probability of introducing compensationpayments depends positively on the benefits of landscape amenities.Although no impact of service provision cost is found, transactioncosts at different levels of the bargaining process reduce theprobability of payments. Compensation payments mainly occurin communities where the provision of agricultural landscapeservices is perceived as relatively low and the diversity ofthe countryside seems to be endangered. We argue that municipalcompensation payments are an important supplement to nationaland European Union policy measures in support of less-favouredareas.     

The counter-effects of market regulation

Regulation can have counter-effects that work against the interests of those who advocate it, in both centrally-planned and market economies. Little research on these effects has been carried out so far, with the result that they have been ignored by policymakers.     

Industry-Level Wage Bargaining: A Partial Rehabilitation—The German Experience

In order to reduce unemployment, it is often recommended that industry-level wage bargaining in Germany should be replaced by a more decentralized system. This paper provides a critical assessment of the current wage bargaining institutions and re-examines the case for a more decentralized system. Based on a theoretical model integrating Insider–Outsider aspects into the comparison, the uniformly superior employment performance of a decentralized wage bargaining system is questioned. We conclude that, rather than solely trying to decentralize wage bargaining, a promising policy option may be to improve the skills of the unemployed by efficient labour market policies and to foster institutional reforms such that wage bargaining takes account of the long-run employment consequences of wage setting.     

Ukrainian gas transit game

This paper investigates the origins and reasons for the termination of the Russian natural gas flow from Russia to Europe through Ukraine in January 2009. It discusses the strategic interaction of the three players (Russia, Ukraine and the European Union) based on the dynamics of losses from confrontation. The objective is to interpret the situation in a stylized way and to derive outcomes using calibrated parameters for costs and benefits of the players. We show that the stakes are high for both Russia and Ukraine in choosing to follow their preferred strategies, as both countries would sustain moderate losses during the initial period of conflict. Meanwhile, Europe’s lack of reserves makes it less prepared for the energy deficit than Ukraine and Russia, causing wider and earlier suffering for European countries dependent on Russian gas. Therefore, the European Union has a strong incentive to intervene in the conflict. Its actions during the January confrontation between Ukraine and Russia included extortion and bribery, all of which affected the outcome of the conflict.     

What Makes a Family Firm Innovative? CEO Risk‐Taking Propensity and the Organizational Context of Family Firms

Investigating the new product portfolio innovativeness of family firms connects two important topics that have recently received considerable attention in innovation and family firm research. First, new product portfolio innovativeness has been identified as a critical determinant of firm performance. Second, research on family firms has focused on the questions of if and why family firms are more or less innovative than other organizational forms. Research investigating the innovativeness of family firms has often applied a risk‐oriented perspective by identifying socioemotional wealth (SEW) as the main reference that determines firm behavior. Thus, prior research has mainly focused on the organizational context to predict innovation‐related family firm behavior and neglected the impact of preferences and the behavior of the chief executive officer (CEO), which have both been shown to affect firm outcomes. Hence, this study aims to extend the previous research by introducing the CEO's disposition to organizational context variables to explain the new product portfolio innovativeness of small and medium‐sized family firms. Specifically, this study explores how the organizational context (i.e., ownership by top management team [TMT] family members and generation in charge of the family firm) of family firms interacts with CEO risk‐taking propensity to affect new product portfolio innovativeness. Using a sample of 114 German CEOs of small and medium‐sized family firms operating in manufacturing industries, the results show that CEO risk‐taking propensity has a positive effect on new product portfolio innovativeness. Moreover, the analyses show that the organizational context of family firms impacts the relationship between CEO risk‐taking propensity and new product portfolio innovativeness. Specifically, the relationship between CEO risk‐taking propensity and new product portfolio innovativeness is weaker if levels of ownership by TMT family members are high (high SEW). Additionally, the effect of CEO risk‐taking propensity on new product portfolio innovativeness is stronger in family firms at earlier generational stages (high SEW). This result suggests that if SEW is a strong reference, family firm‐specific characteristics can affect individual dispositions and, in turn, the behaviors of executives. Therefore, this study helps extend the knowledge on the determinants of new product portfolio innovativeness of family firms by considering an individual CEO preference and the organizational context variables of family firms simultaneously.     

Financial Markets and the Instability of General Equilibrium

The Hicksian general equilibrium with money and securities is the starting point for an expansion with numerous other financial variables. Disturbances to the system, partly observed from recent experience, are examined, and possible remedies are proposed. Walras’ Law, that the sum of excess demands for goods and basic factors is zero, no longer applies in an economy where financial variables are present. The main analysis is of a closed economy; the open economy, in the manner introduced by Mosak, is treated in an appendix.     

Resource extraction by cartels facing constraints on cooperation

This paper considers a non-renewable resource cartel facing constraints on cooperation. Although different kinds of constraints are conceivable and some of them are also investigated, the analysis focuses on the case in which cooperation is restricted to sufficiently high quotas. This approach of imposing constraints on cartelization complements papers that assume exogenously when a monopoly ends (in particular Benchekroun, H., Gaudet, G., Van Long, N., 2006. Temporary natural resource cartels. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 52, 663–674) in two aspects: an endogenous determination when the cartel breaks up and the consequence that it is impossible to shift resource sales between the two regimes.     

Intertemporal monopolistic pricing of non-durables

This paper provides a tractable analytical framework to study intertemporal equilibria between non-competitive supply and dynamic demand for non-durable goods. The basic hypothesis is that consumers enjoy utility from particular services rather than from commodities. Consumption of the non-durable good follows a dynamic pattern, because it depends on the stock of durables and energy demand provides the prototypical example, e.g., mobility, thermal comfort, etc. are the output of a combination of durable and non-durable goods. Indeed, turmoils in energy markets are to a great deal due to short run inflexibility and this gives this theoretical paper a topical flavour. The outcomes differ substantially across the strategic setups while differences in expectations (myopic versus rational) matter only transiently but not in the long run.