Setting Upper Limits on Merger Related Efficiencies

The purpose of this paper is to show that a complementary entry analysis could be performed by the authorities when assessing the welfare impacts of a merger. In addition to analyzing the likelihood and impact of post-merger entry by other firms, the authorities could also study pre-merger alternatives for the insiders, that is, to study wether other concentration operations were available but not chosen by the merging or acquiring firms. This may be particularly useful when the authorities are faced with a concentration operation that raises anti-competitive concerns. Insiders will argue that cost reductions are likely to compensate these negative effects. However, if the cost reductions are not firm specific it is possible, in some circumstances, to establish an upper limit on the extent of cost reductions when there are other mergers available. If these mergers were admissible but were dominated by the present one, information is revealed about the extent of cost reductions. This information may lead to the authorities updating their beliefs on efficiencies. Such updates may lead to the modification of the decision to approve or reject the merger.     

The psychosocial behaviour of young Spanish smokers

This paper studies the psychosocial behaviour of Spanish smokers between the ages of 14 and 18, with the aim of identifying the factors associated with both the decision to consume tobacco and the quantities to consume. To that end, a Type II Tobit model is used, which is estimated by using data drawn from the Spanish Surveys on Drug Use in the School Population corresponding to 1994, 1996, and 1998. The results show that the two decisions are strongly associated with a number of psychosocial determinants. In particular, evidence was found that the probability of smoking and the quantity consumed are positively related to variables such as the age of the adolescent, his/her disposable income, or education failure. The estimates also show that the realization of informative campaigns about the risk of tobacco and other substance abuse reduces both the proportion of smokers and the number of cigarettes consumed.     

Horizontal Mergers,Entry and International Trade

We use a two‐country trade model to analyze an authority's decision to approve or reject a merger followed by entry, when the entrant can choose where to locate. We show that approval of a merger in the small country followed by timely, likely and sufficient entry may lead to lower consumer welfare than its rejection: when the alternative to such entry is entry into another country that also benefits consumers through trade, then the gains of attracting entry are small. In this context, we discuss differences between optimal decisions by the small country's authority, large country's authority and supranational authority.     

An assessment of the equality of access and no-regulation approaches to next generation networks

The European Commission believes that for the regulation of next generation fixed telecommunications networks the continuity approach is preferable to the equality of access approach and the no-regulation approach. According to the European Commission, (i) functional separation eliminates discrimination and promotes competition, but should only be used as a measure of last resort because it involves various complex trade-offs, whereas (ii) the no-regulation approach fosters investment, at the cost of sacrificing competition. The article agrees that functional separation involves complex trade-offs but disputes the assertion that functional separation necessarily eliminates discrimination and promotes competition. In addition, the article also establishes conditions under which the no-regulation approach does not reduce competition.     

Sweetpotato—Biotechnology in different guises on a broad range of scales

Orange-fleshed sweetpotatoes offer the promise of addressing a serious nutritional deficiency in African diets: chronic Vitamin A deficiency, which can cause blindness in children and many complications in adults. Although the official public health policy in Mozambique emphasizes meeting this deficiency through Vitamin A capsules, a group of scientists, mostly women, is championing the cultivation of orange-fleshed sweetpotatoes as an alternative. Not only do the potatoes address the vitamin deficiency; they provide culturally appropriate starchy nutrition and an opportunity to market any surplus the household produces. Creative applications for the powdered sweetpotato, such as in flour for bread, have been developed. Plant tissue culture can support this movement by providing disease-free planting material, making high-yielding, disease-free cultivars more broadly available. Currently, NGOs are purchasing the plantlets on behalf of poor farmers, but eventually, plant tissue culture could become a complementary business in a growing agriculture-based economy, providing rural livelihoods in one of the world's poorest countries. The distributional consequences of the technology of plant tissue culture thus depend on its place in a network of farmer empowerment and rural development as well as on its technical characteristics.     

Working with Corporate Social Responsibility in Brazilian Companies: The Role of Managers’ Values in the Maintenance of CSR Cultures

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) refers to the duty of management to consider and respond to issues beyond the organization’s economic and legal requirements in line with social and environmental values. However, ‘management’ is constituted by real people responsible for routine decisions and formulation and implementation of policies. It can be said therefore that the ethical ideals and beliefs of these individuals – in particular their personal values – play an important role in their decisions. It is contended in this article that the personal values of managers may contribute to the creation and maintenance of ‘CSR cultures’ in their organizations; that is, organizational cultures focused on ensuring environmental and social sustainability. Based on an exploratory study carried out in Brazil in 2008, this article explores the perceptions of five CSR managers in relation to the influence of their personal values on their work. The first part discusses the notion of CSR within the context of Brazilian society, the second provides a brief literature review on the link between values and organizational cultures and the third explores the perceptions of the participating managers, identifying the main thematic patterns that emerged in the study.     

Domestic GHG emissions and the responsibility of households in Spain: looking for regional differences

The aim of this article is to analyze the responsibilities of Spanish households, as final consumers, for the generation of domestic greenhouse gases emissions (GHG), by region of residence, distinguishing between NUTS 1 and NUTS 2 (autonomous regions). The motivation is the process of convergence experimented by Spanish regions based on the strong economic growth experienced by the country until 2008, which could results in different emissions responsibilities because of different lifestyles and production structures. We examine in depth the relationships between a representative household in each region and its patterns of consumption. Although we do find a relationship between per capita income and regional responsibility for pollution generation, it is based on a demand scale effect, which overlaps the effects of the regional consumption patterns. Thus, in the richest regions (Madrid, Northeast, East), despite their having a less polluting pattern than other regions, the level of per capita embodied emissions is higher, due to their higher level of consumption. This scale effect, and the linkages between regional responsibilities for emissions and household consumption patterns are analyzed using linear models based on Social Accounting Matrices. The basis of the estimations is the regional emission intensity (average emission per euro spent by each type of regional home).     

Driving Factors for the Success of the Green Innovation Market: A Relationship System Proposal

This study aims to map out the relationships that make up green innovation initiatives in Brazilian industry. The sample comprised 100 managers at manufacturing companies, most of them operating in the business of farm machinery and equipment (45 managers) and steel structures (14 managers). To develop this study, Medeiros et al. (J Clean Prod 65:76–86, 2014) study, mapping critical factors that drive the success of green product innovation and the paradigm of complexity, was used as a reference study. Based on the results, it was possible to identify that the operational dynamic of the factors and variables that affect market success do not happen in an isolated or fragmented way; they occur systematically with different contingencies and structured basic and intermediate skills in order to meet the expectations of consumers, laws, and environmental legislation. Initially, the technological expertise factor was noted as very important for sustaining green product innovation. Furthermore, since proactive leaders are an important factor for successfully developing environmentally sustainable products, it must be added to technological expertise as the foundation for developing green innovation. After defining the basis for green product innovation, the intermediary conditions necessary for using the available technology appropriately were mapped out. In this sense, variables such as “elimination of cultural barriers,” “capacity for critical reflective analysis,” and “experimentation” are also very important. In addition, some of the variables of the cross-functional collaboration and market knowledge factors were a part of the structure that organizations need to transform potential into developing green products, which is the basis for the third level of the model. The fourth level of the model has the “meeting consumer expectations” and “following law and legislation” factors, which make up the main goals for developing environmentally sustainable products according to a number of surveys that were conducted.