Uncertain Climate Change in an Intergenerational Planning Model

A three-generation planning model incorporating uncertain climate change is developed. Each generation features a production activity based on capital and an exhaustible resource. An irreversible climate change may occur in period two or three, reducing the productivity for this and the remaining generation. The model is solved by stochastic dynamic programming. If the climate impact and climate change probability is constant, the optimal period one (and two) resource extraction is larger than for the reference case of climate stability. If, however, climate impact and climate change probability increases with increased aggregate resource use, this result is reversed.     

On the fundamental thought behind voting rules

The theme is Arrow's requirement in his theorem of 1951 on methods for group choice, that the choice be independent of irrelevant alternatives. The attention is drawn to (1) his own explanation of this requirement in 1972, which is a quite different understanding than has been discussed in the voluminous literature on the theorem, (2) that Arrow, in fact, in 1985 showed an understanding for how irrelevant alternatives might in a meaningful way influence the group choice, (3) that admittedly the border-line between irrelevant and relevant alternatives in Arrow's original statement is arbitrary, and (4) that Arrow, if he had observed the final thought in the origin of the group theory by Borda, which he admittedly did not, might have realized that Borda's method stringently estimates the relevance of each alternative for the result.The author expresses his surprise that a theoretical conclusion based on an arbitrary fundament has been admired so long.     

Business ethics: Restrictive or empowering?

There is a tendency in the business ethics literature to think of ethics in restrictive terms: what one should not do, and how to control this. Drawing on Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral development, the paper focuses on, and draws attention to, another more positive aspect of ethics: the capacity of ethics to inspire and empower individuals, as well as groups. To understand and facilitate such empowerment, it is argued that it is necessary to move beyond Kohlberg's justice reasoning so as to appreciate the value and importance of feeling and care. Accordingly, we draw upon case study material to review the meaning of Kohlberg's higher stages — 5, 6 and 7 — to question the meaning of ethical reasoning. With such deeper understanding of particular ethical codes or practices, it is thought that members of organisations may come closer to thespirit, as opposed to the letter, of ethical conduct in organisations. This, we argue, is consistent with the degree of trust and integrity demanded by leaner, post-bureaucratic ways of organizing and conducting business as well as being personally beneficial to the people involved.Bjørn Kjonstad has recently completed his Masters dissertation. He has subsequently been ordained in the Western Buddhist Order and is currently devoting himself full-time to the work of the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order.Hugh Willmott is Reader in the Manchester School of Management having previously held appointments at the Aston Business School and Copenhagen Business School. He has taken refuge in the Kagyu Order of Tibetan Buddhism. His most recent books have beenLabour Process Theory (Macmillan, 1990 co-edited with David Knights),Critical Management Studies (Sage, 1992, co-edited with Mats Alvesson) andSkill and Consent (Routledge, 1992, co-edited with Andrew Sturdy and David Knights) andMaking Quality Critical (Routledge, 1994 co-edited with Adrian Wilkinson). Their common theme has been a critical examination of the changing organization and management of work in modern society.     

The World Is Not Enough! Small Open Economies and Regional Dependence

In this paper, we explicitly introduce regional factors into a global dynamic factor model. We combine new open economy factor models (emphasizing global shocks) with the recent findings of regional importance in the business cycle synchronization literature. The analysis is applied to a large panel of domestic data for four small open economies. We find that global and regional shocks explain roughly 30 and 20 percent, respectively, of the business cycle variation in all countries. While global shocks have most impact on trade variables, regional shocks explain a relatively large share of the variation in cost variables.     

A Tutorial on Palm Distributions for Spatial Point Processes

This tutorial provides an introduction to Palm distributions for spatial point processes. Initially, in the context of finite point processes, we give an explicit definition of Palm distributions in terms of their density functions. Then we review Palm distributions in the general case. Finally, we discuss some examples of Palm distributions for specific models and some applications.     

Life‐Cycle Consumption and Children: Evidence from a Structural Estimation

I estimate by maximum likelihood a dynamic model of optimal intertemporal allocation of consumption in the presence of children using high‐quality Danish longitudinal data. The number and age of all children can affect the marginal utility of consumption while income uncertainty, credit constraints and postretirement motives also influence household behaviour. While I estimate that children have a surprisingly small effect on the marginal utility of non‐durable consumption, data simulated from the estimated model replicates similar correlations between log consumption growth and changing household composition as found in the Danish data and typically found in UK and US data. To reconcile the results with existing studies, I illustrate how ignoring precautionary motives increases the estimated importance of children. The results indicate that precautionary motives might play a larger role than children in explaining the observed consumption age profile.     

Can environmentally oriented CEOs and environmentally friendly suppliers boost the growth of small firms?

The core question addressed in the natural resource‐based view (NRBV) of the firm is how to develop and exploit resources beneficial for both the natural environment and firm performance. Due to the resource constraints and increased competition facing small manufacturing firms, achieving this is a challenge for such companies. Building on the NRBV and resource orchestration literatures, we examine the relationship between green purchasing capabilities (GPCs), CEO's environmental orientation (EO), and firm growth. Results from 304 Swedish small manufacturing firms indicate a significant relationship between GPC and growth, and this relationship is positively moderated by the EO of the CEO.