Incomplete markets and the output–inflation tradeoff

This paper analyses the effects of money shocks on macroeconomic aggregates in a tractable flexible-price, incomplete-markets environment that generates persistent wealth inequalities amongst agents. In this framework, current inflation redistribute wealth from the cash-rich employed to the cash-poor unemployed and induce the former to increase their labour supply in order to maintain their desired levels of consumption and precautionary savings. If the shocks are persistent, however, they also raise inflation expectations and thus deter the employed from saving and supplying labour. We relate the strength of these two inflation taxes to the underlying parameters of the model and study how they compete in determining the overall sign and slope of the implied ‘output–inflation tradeoff’ relation.     

Time to invest in corporate social responsibility and the value of CSR operations: The case of environmental externalities

The radical restructuring of the German utility giants RWE and E.ON in the wake of Germany's shift to renewable energy motivates the need of a formal model of corporate social responsible (CSR) investment appraisal with environmental externalities. We offer in this paper a model that uses the tools of decision analysis to value the option to postpone the project. We show that adding a CSR dimension to projects generating negative environmental externalities can induce the firm to invest immediately, whereas it always postpones projects without CSR activities. According to the project's attributes, the paper also determines the optimal level of effort in CSR.     

A Participatory Simulation to Facilitate Farmers' Adoption of Livestock Feeding Systems Based on Conservation Agriculture in the Uplands of Northern Vietnam

In the mountain areas of northern Vietnam, extensive husbandry of large-ruminants is limited by the lack of natural forage. Since 2000, the Mountain Agrarian System Program has been concerned with this issue and has evaluated technical alternatives aimed at sustainable integration of crop-livestock systems. One alternative consists of feeding systems for largeruminants based on cropping systems with plant cover. Diffusion of information about the new system is supported by a set of interactive communication tools for use between farmers and researchers. A participatory simulation method was developed that combines a compartmental model of the village territory with five technical innovations. Farmers simulate the adoption of the innovations they choose among food-forage cropping systems in rotation or in association, and urea-treated straw. They evaluate the quantity of forage that can be grown for their herd using the chosen set of techniques.

Simulations revealed farmers' constraints and objectives in adopting sustainable cropping systems on the hillsides while maintaining a small animal husbandry system. The results obtained by each farmer provide a useful basis for discussion about the implementation of innovation. This participatory simulation method could be more widely used to facilitate the diffusion of innovations such as integrating livestock feeding systems with conservation cropping practices.     

Productivity,technical efficiency and technological change in French agriculture during 2002-2015: a Färe-Primont index decomposition using group frontiers and meta-frontier

The objective of the article is to assess productivity change in French agriculture during 2002–2015; namely, total factor productivity (TFP) change and its components – technological change and efficiency change. For this, we use the Färe-Primont index which verifies the multiplicatively completeness property and is also transitive, allowing for multi-temporal and -lateral comparisons. We investigate the extent of heterogeneity within each type of farming sub-sample in terms of TFP change, with the help of the Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HHI). In addition, to compare the technologies among the five types of farming considered, we extend our analysis to the meta-frontier framework. Results indicate that during 2002–2015, all farms experienced TFP progress. The smallest average increase was experienced by the dairy farms and the largest by the field crop farms and the beef farms. The latter had the strongest technological progress but a deterioration in efficiency, while the opposite was found for field crop farms. The analysis of HHI reveals that sheep or goat farms are the most homogenous in terms of the direction of TFP change experienced over the period 2002–2015. The meta-frontier analysis shows that field crop farms’ technology is the most productive of all the types of farming.     

Strategic Environmental Policy and International Trade in Asymmetric Oligopoly Markets

This paper examines optimal cooperative and non-cooperative environmental taxes for the case in which a polluting input is used to produce an internationally-traded finished product. The model allows for terms-of-trade effects under oligopoly and employs a general specification of the environmental damage function that encompasses special cases of local, global, and transboundary externalities. The model has several implications for public finance. For example, inefficiently high environmental taxes may be optimal for a net exporting country in non-cooperative circumstances, as the motive to shift rent by selecting an inefficiently low tax rate is countervailed by the incentive to shift the burden of the tax to foreign consumers. The findings identify the important role of asymmetric trade flows (denominated in both goods and pollution exchange) in determining optimal cooperative and non-cooperative tax policy under oligopoly.     

Project Mechanisms and Technology Diffusion in Climate Policy

The paper deals with the diffusion of GHG mitigation technologies in developing countries. We develop a model where an abatement technology is progressively adopted by firms and we use it to compare the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) with a standard Cap and Trade scheme (C&T). In the presence of learning spillovers, we show that the CDM yields a higher social welfare than C&T if the first adopter receives CDM credits whereas the followers do not. The analysis leads us to suggest two CDM design improvements: relaxing the additionality constraint for projects which generate significant learning externalities, and allowing collective CDM projects which could internalize learning externalities.     

What Drives the International Transfer of Climate Change Mitigation Technologies? Empirical Evidence from Patent Data

Technology transfer plays a key role in global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In this paper, we characterize the factors that promote or hinder the international diffusion of climate-friendly technologies using detailed patent data from 96 countries for the period 1995–2007. The data provide strong evidence that lax Intellectual Property regimes have a strong and negative impact on the international diffusion of patented knowledge. Restrictions on international trade and foreign direct investment also hinder the diffusion of climate-friendly technologies. Surprisingly, local technological capabilities tend to discourage transfers. While broad indicators of technology capabilities are expected to facilitate transfers, this latter result stems from our technology-specific definition of local capabilities, which makes it possible to capture a substitution effect between local and foreign inventions.     

Modelling the dimensionality effects on brand placement effectiveness in stereoscopic 3-D versus 2-D sports games

ABSTRACT

This current study explores how stereoscopic three-dimensional (3-D) dimensionality affects the process by which viewers’ memory of brand names embedded in a soccer game is formed compared to the memory process in traditional 2-D display. To this end, we conduct two studies: a qualitative observation using an eye tracker; and an experiment to identify the difference and similarity of the viewing process across these two display technologies. Statistical test results reveal that sports involvement enhances viewers’ attention to a sports game, which is moderated by game enjoyment and negative viewing experience generated from the media features. Most importantly, it is found that as viewers pay more attention to a sports game in stereoscopic 3-D display, they are less likely to remember the brands embedded in the stadium, while the opposite is found in 2-D display. More findings and implications are discussed in the discussion section.     

From risk to vulnerability: the role of perceived adaptive capacity for the acceptance of contested infrastructure

Infrastructure projects such as repositories for nuclear waste or hazardous waste sites impose risks (in the form of potential burdens or losses) over extensive timescales. These risks change dynamically over time and so, potentially, does their management. Societies and key actors go through learning processes and subsequently may be better able to deal with related challenges. However, social scientific research on the acceptance of such projects is mainly concerned with (static) risk perception issues and does not include dynamic aspects. Adaptive capacity, which is part of the concept of vulnerability, therefore represents a promising complementing facet for this line of research. The aim of this paper is to examine the role of perceived adaptive capacity (PAC) for the acceptance of contested long-term infrastructure for the two issues of nuclear and hazardous waste. In an online experimental survey (N?=?300) examining either the acceptance of a nuclear waste repository or of a hazardous waste site, we demonstrate that (i) PAC can be separated empirically as a psychological construct from risk and benefit perception, and (ii) PAC explains a significant additional share of variance in the acceptance of both waste types beyond risk and benefit perception. Furthermore, we report what adaptation mechanisms of PAC participants expect to occur in the future. We conclude that such a dynamic perspective yields important insights in understanding individual decision-making regarding long-term infrastructure projects.     

Reciprocal value propositions in practice: Constraints in digital markets

The value proposition concept, while forming a central foundational premise of service-dominant (S-D) logic, has nevertheless been treated somewhat ambiguously. Recent work in attempting to address this has focused through a S-D logic lens on the reciprocal nature of value propositions. Important to this work has been a focus on communicative interactions and resource integration between network suppliers and customers. Overall, value proposition thinking has not studied in detail their adoption and use in practice. Considering the compelling notion of reciprocity, there have been recent calls for research to consider reciprocal value propositions in practice. The overall aim of this paper, therefore, was to explore how reciprocal value propositions are developed (or not) in practice at the network level. The study was set in the mobile television (TV) sector, which, as an internet-driven sector, is viewed as particularly pertinent. To conduct the study an S-D logic and Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) Group framework are integrated for the first time. A key finding is that while the reciprocal value proposition concept is theoretically intuitive, it is by no means inevitable in practice. Reciprocal value propositions were found to be simultaneously constrained, and, potentially enabled by these constraints in practice. At an overall level this paper contributes to the ongoing collaborative process, which aims to move S-D logic from a framework to a theory. More specifically, we provide new insights into the development of reciprocal value propositions in practice.