PHOTOVOLTAIC TECHNOLOGY AND MARKETS

Photovoltaics—"solar power"—retains a strong fascination as a future sustainable energy source for the planet some 120 years after its discovery, 80 years after Einstein explained its physics, 30 years after the first laboratory device was produced, and 25 years after its first commercial application. This paper examines the market for photovoltaics at prices above those required for competitive bulk grid-connected wholesale electricity, surveys current and possible future manufacturing technologies, describes the processes of technology introduction and manufacturing cost reduction, and discusses policy implications.     

Why Has U.S. Inflation Become Harder to Forecast?

We examine whether the U.S. rate of price inflation has become harder to forecast and, to the extent that it has, what changes in the inflation process have made it so. The main finding is that the univariate inflation process is well described by an unobserved component trend-cycle model with stochastic volatility or, equivalently, an integrated moving average process with time-varying parameters. This model explains a variety of recent univariate inflation forecasting puzzles and begins to explain some multivariate inflation forecasting puzzles as well.     

Baking for the common good: a reassessment of the assize of bread in Medieval England1

This article reassesses the structure of the assize of bread and its relevance for bakers and consumers in late medieval England. It has long been thought that the laws governing the manufacture and sale of bread, although adhering to a logical relationship between weight and price, were nevertheless ill‐considered in formulation, calculation, and enactment and did not, in reality, provide the stable allowance recommended for bakers. By examining the economic and moral ideology underlying the assize of bread it is possible to demonstrate that legislators were actually employing a rationale that best fitted contemporary circumstances and retail practices. There nevertheless remained one fundamental flaw in its construction, which was to have implications for its enforcement.     

The Internet and Civil Society: Environmental and Labour Organizations in Hong Kong

To what extent has the internet strengthened civil society? In which ways have civil society organizations (CSOs) used the internet to communicate their missions, enhance the discussion of public issues, extend networks and mobilize collective actions? This article seeks to answer these and related questions by reporting on an empirical study in Hong Kong. The study involves an analysis of the web pages launched by 14 environmental groups and 22 labour organizations on the one hand, and in‐depth interviews with representatives of five of these organizations on the other. Due to the lack of resources and low level of e‐readiness among most CSOs, as well as the prevalence of a parochial outlook among most labour organizations, the new technology has only found limited application in Hong Kong. At the same time, due to a top‐down management orientation, the leaders of these CSOs have been more inclined to use the technology to communicate with each other than to build networks with rank‐and‐file members and supporters. Nonetheless, the findings of this study suggest that the technology has much potential for pluralizing public discourse, involving more people in rational‐critical discussion of key public issues, as well as enhancing the capacity of existing CSOs to develop a sense of community and get mobilized. The technology also facilitates the emergence of novel types of collective action and as such taps into resources that are otherwise unavailable. In addition, the new technology makes it possible for individual activists to seek each other out, further cultivate their sense of community and launch collective actions on issues ignored by existing CSOs. Finally, it is through the synergy of online/offline discourses and activities that the internet exerts much of its positive impact on the expansion of civil society. Dans quelle mesure internet a‐t‐il renforcé la société civile? Comment les organisations de la société civile (OSC) ont‐elles utilisé internet pour annoncer leurs missions, améliorer le débat sur les questions publiques, prolonger les réseaux et mobiliser des actions collectives? Pour répondre à ces questions et à d’autres, l’article rend compte d’une étude empirique sur Hong‐Kong. Celle‐ci couvre, d’une part, l’analyse de pages Web créées par 14 groupes environnementaux et 22 organisations syndicales et, d’autre part, des entretiens approfondis avec des représentants de cinq de ces entités. La pénurie de ressources et le faible niveau de maturité en nouvelles technologies au sein de la plupart des OSC, ainsi que la vision étriquée de la plupart des organismes syndicaux, ont conduit à des applications limitées de ces technologies à Hong‐Kong. Parallèlement, à cause d’un fonctionnement hiérarchisé, les dirigeants de ces OSC ont eu davantage tendance à recourir à la technologie pour communiquer entre eux que pour bâtir des réseaux avec des membres de base et des partisans. Néanmoins, d’après l’étude, la technologie peut permettre de diversifier le discours public en impliquant davantage de personnes pour débattre de manière rationnelle et critique des problèmes publics essentiels et en renforçant la capacité des OSC existantes à développer un sens communautaire et à mobiliser. De plus, la technologie facilite l’apparition de nouveaux types d’action collective, puisant ainsi dans des ressources par ailleurs inaccessibles. En outre, la nouvelle technologie permet aux militants de s’adresser les uns aux autres, de nourrir leur sens communautaire et de lancer des actions communes sur des aspects délaissés par les OSC existantes. Pour finir, c’est grâce à la synergie des activités et discours en ligne et classiques qu’internet exerce une grande part de son impact positif sur l’essor de la société civile.     

The Determinants of Firm Profitability in Australian Manufacturing

This study provides new evidence on the determinants of the profitability of Australian manufacturing firms by analyzing a unique firm-level data set of firm performance over the period 1984-93. The panel nature of the data permits the estimation of dynamic profitability models over the business cycle, to test both the persistence and cyclicality of firm profitability. Econometric results suggest that lagged profitability is a significant determinant of current profit margins, and that industry concentration is positively related to firm profit margins. Also, profit margins are found to be procyciical in concentrated industries but counter-cyclical in less concentrated industries.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
Christopher A. Conte, Highland Sanctuary: Environmental History in Tanzania's Usambara Mountains .
Alfredo Saad-Filho and Deborah Johnston (eds.), Neoliberalism: A Critical Reader .
Stephen J. Russell, Agriculture, Prosperity and Modernization of French Rural Communities, 1870–1914. Views from the Village .
David Mosse, Cultivating Development: An Ethnography of Aid Policy and Practice .
Kees Jansen and Sietze Vellema (eds), Agribusiness and Society: Corporate Responses to Environmentalism, Market Opportunities and Public Regulation .
Gareth Austin, Labour, Land and Capital in Ghana: From Slavery to Free Labour in Asante, 1807–1956 .     

Non‐legal‐tender paper money: the structure and performance of Maryland's bills of credit, 1767–75

In this article, Maryland's non‐legal‐tender paper money emissions between 1765 and 1775 are reconstructed to determine quantities outstanding and redemption dates, providing a substantial correction to the literature. Over 80 per cent of this paper money's current market value was expected real asset present value and under 20 per cent was liquidity premium. It was primarily a real barter asset and not a fiat currency. The liquidity premium was positively related to the amount of paper money per capita in circulation. This paper money traded below face value due to time‐discounting, rather than depreciation. Past scholars have simply confused depreciation with time‐discounting.     

Inventory Shocks and the Great Moderation

Why did the volatility of U.S. real GDP decline by more than the volatility of final sales with the Great Moderation in the mid‐1980s? One explanation is that firms shifted their inventory behavior toward a greater emphasis on production smoothing. We investigate the role of inventories in the Great Moderation by estimating an unobserved components model that identifies inventory and sales shocks and their propagation in the aggregate data. Our estimates provide no support for increased production smoothing. Instead, smaller transitory inventory shocks are responsible for the excess volatility reduction in output compared to sales. These shocks behave like informational errors related to production that must be set in advance and their reduction also helps explain the changed forecasting role of inventories since the mid‐1980s. Our findings provide an optimistic prognosis for a continuation of the Great Moderation, despite the dramatic movements in output during the recent economic crisis.     

Mixed Integer Programming Revealed Preference Tests of Utility Maximization and Weak Separability of Consumption,Leisure, and Money

Swofford and Whitney (1987, 1988, 1994) investigated the validity of two key assumptions underlying representative agent models of macroeconomics. These assumptions are utility maximization and weak separability. Using mixed integer programming, we check revealed preference conditions for these assumptions. We find that M1, money defined by Friedman and Schwartz (1963), and a broad aggregate are weakly separable. We find that consumption goods and leisure and nondurables and services are weakly separable. We find that M2, M3, and MZM are not weakly separable. Finally, we find three categories of consumption, durables, nondurables and services, do not form an aggregate.