Casino regulations and economic welfare

Abstract This paper studies the entry and tax regulation of oligopolistically competitive privately run casinos and government‐run casinos in a jurisdiction. We highlight three important external effects from casino‐style gambling: non‐casino income creation, social disorder costs, and cross‐border gambling. The laissez‐faire equilibrium need not be overcrowding compared with regulated or government‐run regimes. Entry regulation may lead to higher jurisdiction welfare than tax regulation. Government‐run casinos always operate on a larger scale and achieve higher welfare than other regimes, given the same number of casinos. With an endogenous fraction of external gamblers, a dispersed casino configuration yields higher welfare than a centralized one.     

Exploring technology paths: The development of alternative transport fuels in Sweden 2007-2020

By using socio-technical scenarios, we investigate how present policy choices may affect the development of alternative transport fuels in Sweden. One important choice for policy lies in the balance between general tax exemptions stimulating the market for alternative fuels, and funding of research and development more directly promoting new technology. The implications of this choice are illustrated with four diverging development paths until 2020. In the market-oriented scenarios, we illustrate consequences of breaking the dominance of entrenched technologies and demonstrating a growing market potential for alternatives, but also the risks with a large focus on first generation renewable fuels. In the technology-oriented scenarios, we point out the value of keeping variety among niches in this stage of the transition. In conclusion, if policy is implemented without taking the dynamic forces within the system into account, there is a risk that any measure leads the system into a dead end. But if policy strives to balance the development in different parts of the technological system while making use of various prevailing forces of change, a multitude of different efforts can contribute to the development of a more sustainable transport system.     

Avoiding arbitrary exclusion restrictions using ratios of reduced-form estimates

We show how to obtain coherent structural-form (SF) exclusion restrictions using the reduced-form (RF) parameter ratios. It will be shown that an over-identified SF corresponds to a group of regressors sharing the same RF ratio value; those regressors should be excluded jointly from the SF. If there is no group structure, then the SF is just-identified; in this case, however, it is no longer clear which regressor should be excluded. Hence, just-identified SF’s are more arbitrary than over-identified SF’s in terms of exclusion restrictions. This is in stark contrast to the notion that the former is less arbitrary than the latter, because the former excludes fewer regressors. We formalize these points, and then suggest to find the number of modes in the estimated RF ratios as a way to find groups in the ratios. For this purpose, an informal graphical method using a kernel nonparametric method and a formal modality test are employed. An empirical example with selling price in a residential real estate market and duration on the market as two endogenous variables is provided. The authors are grateful to the editor and two anonymous referees for their comments     

Functions of innovation systems as a framework to understand sustainable technological change: Empirical evidence for earlier claims

Understanding the emergence of innovation systems is recently put central in research analysing the process of technological change. Especially the key activities that are important for the build up of an innovation system receive much attention. These are labelled ‘functions of innovation systems’. This paper builds on five empirical studies, related to renewable energy technologies, to test whether the functions of innovation systems framework is a valid framework to analyse processes of technological change. We test the claim that a specific set of functions is suitable. We also test the claim made in previous publications that the interactions between system functions accelerate innovation system emergence and growth. Both claims are confirmed.     

Conceptual niche management of grassroots innovation for sustainability: The case of body disposal practices in the UK

The grassroots has recently been identified as an alternative site for the development of innovations that may contribute to shifts towards more sustainable systems of consumption and production. While the characteristics of these innovations have been elaborated, it remains unclear how these alternative ideas and practices can be purposively supported to populate incumbent systems. This is especially so in light of the difficulty the grassroots face in connecting forcefully with the mainstream.This article will address this issue by outlining an adaptation of conceptual niche management - an approach that focuses on the embedding of guiding principles used to fulfill basic societal needs - that is sensitive to grassroots innovation. The framework will be applied to the current UK body disposal system to illustrate how such transformative sustainability ideas may be capitalised on.     

A framework for mapping industrial emergence

The industrial landscape is becoming increasingly complex and dynamic, with innovative technologies stimulating the emergence of new applications, business models and industries. This paper presents a framework for mapping science and technology-based industrial emergence, in order to better understand the nature and characteristics of such phenomena, as a basis for improved strategy development. A full lifecycle perspective is included, emphasizing early stage phases associated with scientific and technological developments, together with key transitions between phases related to the conversion of scientific knowledge to technological capability, application, industrial activity and economic value. Roadmapping concepts are used to map industrial emergence phenomena from various perspectives that cover value creation and capture activities together with demand and supply-side factors. The framework has been tested by developing more than 25 diverse ‘emergence maps’ of historical industrial evolution, building confidence that the framework might be applicable to current and future emergence. Common characteristics of industrial emergence have been identified, including key events and milestones, focusing on a chain of demonstrators that delineate the various phases and transitions.