Contaminant,Commodity and Fuel: A Multi-sited Study of Waste's roles in Urban Transformations from Italy to Austria

This article traces the flow of municipal solid waste from southern Italy through a waste-to-energy facility and district heating system in Austria, examining the roles that waste's transformation from contaminant to commodity to fuel plays in interconnected, distributed, and contested urbanization processes. It contends that, while metabolic circulation hides socioecological costs in one place to facilitate valorization in another, specific spatial configurations emerge through territorialization—of waste economies, in this case—providing the spatial base to realize metabolic flows and to anchor political narratives. A decisive effect is that certain patterns of urbanization become locked-in, impeding alternative metabolic transitions and spatial configurations. Attending to the coproduction of three sites—Naples, Italy; Zwentendorf, Austria; and St Pölten, Austria—through the circulation and transformation of waste and energy the article provides an empirical multi-sited case study of a political ecology of urbanization.     

Integrated reporting and cost of capital: The moderating role of cultural dimensions

Since its introduction, integrated reporting (IR) has triggered a rich debate covering several aspects, from the structure and the features of a document to the effects of its publication. Very recently, scholars have examined the negative relationship between IR and the cost of capital for firms, completely missing the opportunity to understand whether this fact is contingent on the cultural context that adopting companies operate in. We fill this gap by resorting to a panel sample of 211 adopters from 31 countries over the period spanning 2009–2017, counting 1,455 observations. Our evidence confirms that adopters, on average, benefit from a 1.4% decrease in the cost of capital. Yet, more importantly, IR effectiveness is exalted in countries with low power distance, strong collectivism values, and high level of masculinity, while uncertainty avoidance, long‐term orientation, and indulgence do not seem to play any moderating role.     

The effects of environmental,social and governance disclosure on the cost of capital in small and medium enterprises: The role of family business status

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosure has become a critical component of corporate reporting. However, the effectiveness of this type of disclosure remains poorly explored among small and medium enterprises (SMEs), despite the fact that these businesses represent the majority of firms around the world. By leveraging on a dataset of Italian listed SMEs, we fill this gap to shed new light on the effects of nonfinancial disclosure on the cost of capital. The study reveals that, in stark contrast with the evidence on large companies, environmental disclosure for SMEs is bound to provoke an increase in the cost of capital. Yet this pattern is capsized when the company is a family SME, as it benefits from environmental disclosure, as large companies do.     

TRADE ASSOCIATIONS: WHY NOT CARTELS?

The relevance of special interests lobbying in modern democracies can hardly be questioned. But if large trade associations can overcome the free riding problem and form effective lobbies, why do they not also threaten market competition by forming equally effective cartels? We argue that the key to understanding the difference lies in supply elasticity. The group discipline, which works in the case of lobbying, can be effective in sustaining a cartel only if increasing output is sufficiently costly—otherwise the incentive to deviate is too great. The theory helps organizing a number of stylized facts within a common framework.     

Agrobiodiversity,farm profits and land fragmentation: Evidence from Bulgaria

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the role of land fragmentation, crop biodiversity and their interplay with farm profitability. Original primary data are drawn from a survey conducted in the Plodiv region of Bulgaria. The econometric results stress the ambiguous role of land fragmentation on farm profitability. On one hand, land fragmentation reduces farm profitability. On the other hand, land fragmentation fosters crop diversification. We also find that crop biodiversity plays a beneficial role in farm profitability. Policies that aim to increase land consolidation and reduce fragmentation may overlook the positive link between diversity and plot heterogeneity. Policies that encourage land consolidation should, therefore, consider the crucial role that this has on other variables such as farm biodiversity.     

Social capital,risk preference and adoption of improved farm land management practices in Ethiopia

Many developing countries grapple with high rates of farmland degradation and low agricultural productivity amidst increasing climate variability. Considerable efforts have been exerted to promote the diffusion of improved farmland management to address these challenges. Despite these efforts, adoption rates, especially of soil conservation and water harvesting technologies, are still low, which has been the subject of investigation in several studies in Ethiopia and elsewhere. Most studies on the adoption of these technologies, however, tend to focus on economic incentives only, paying little attention to the role of social capital. This article provides evidence of the effects of different dimensions of social capital on innovation adoption across households holding different levels of risk aversion. We address this issue by using cross section and panel data from Ethiopia. Results show that social capital plays a significant role in enhancing the adoption of improved farmland management practices. We also find evidence that the effect of social capital across households with heterogeneous risk taking behavior is different.     

Institutions Meet Mind: The Way out of a Deadlock

The crucial importance of institutional analysis in economics and the social sciences in general is well understood. Yet, institutional economists have only a limited understanding of individual behavior in institutional settings, the emergence and spread of innovative behavior, and of how individual behavior influences the creation of norms, and vice versa. This paper elaborates on the work of Douglas North, who emphasized the importance of the connection between the evolution of the mind and the evolution of institutions, and highlights the need to investigate the cognitive mechanisms of individuals. We focus, therefore, on the field of modern cognitive science and discuss some of its findings. This approach should be given priority in the development of institutional analysis. Research results in the cognitive sciences, and in particular cognitivism and connectionism, are of vital interest here. In this context, the work of the Austrian school, especially Hayek's The Sensory Order, is extremely relevant and seems to foreshadow future developments. It thus deserves reappraisal.     

Subjective Diversity and Social Learning: A Cognitive Perspective for Understanding Institutional Behavior

This paper deals with a controversial problem in the economics of institutions: how do regularities emerge and evolve out of the social interaction of various agents? Referring to arguments developed in a previous work (Rizzello and Turvani 2000) in which the Austrian Economics' views about the spontaneous emergence of institutions is connected to and enriched by recent findings in the cognitive sciences, the authors here extend the institutional-cognitive approach by incorporating the social cognitive theory of Albert Bandura. Accordingly, rather than being described as ‘instruments’ for social coordination, institutions are depicted as ‘structures’ emerging from the subjective process of generation of knowledge within a social context. Institutional behavior, its emergence and evolution is thus anchored to the mechanisms creating subjective diversity and those producing social learning.     

Limited factor substitutability,economic dualism,and non-saving constraints on growth

Limited substitutability has previously been defined as responsiveness of factor proportions within a certain factor-price range only, or as fixed coefficients in some sectors combined with variable proportions in others. This article explores a third definition: substitutability between some factors, combined with complementarity between those and other factors. The notion of economic dualism is thereby expanded to encompass a possible surplus not only of labor, but of any resource. The conclusion is that a non-saving constraint does not require fixed coefficients across the board, the economic dualism may therefore emerge even when commodity and factor markets are competitive.