Eco‐innovation motivations and ecodesign tool implementation in companies in the Nordic textile and information technology sectors

The current sustainability challenges and the required systemic transformation highlight the need for innovations on multiple levels. Ecodesign integrates environmental aspects into product and process design to reduce environmental impacts, whereas eco‐innovation also concerns nontechnological solutions. In this paper, we formulate a model that combines eco‐innovation targets ad mechanisms with sustainability maturity, which also concerns stimuli and barriers faced by companies and ecodesign tools used. The results are based on a questionnaire sent to 902 textile and information technology (IT) companies (N = 104) in the Nordic countries. The tools that Nordic textile and IT companies use in particular are life cycle assessment, type I ecolabel, and carbon footprint. Internal stimuli, especially general willingness, were important for eco‐innovativeness, while legislation and customer demand also pushed companies forward. Specific no‐go barriers were not identified, although increase in costs was a common barrier. The respondents focus often on technological product innovations, but rarely on functional innovation, renting of products, and so forth. This highlights the need to address the availability of the right kind of tools to support a broader suite of innovation that can drive toward the circular economy.     

Income diversification,wealth, education and well-being in rural south-western Madagascar: Results from the Mahafaly region

Rural households in the Mahafaly region of south-western Madagascar have to contend with low economic development and a risky natural environment. A survey of 665 households in the region was designed to address three research questions: what is the relationship between diversification of income sources and household wealth; how does education influence access to non-farm income sources and diversification; and how does household wealth and diversification affect well-being? The results show that the overwhelming majority of households follow a diversification strategy. Household wealth is associated with larger fields, greater crop diversity and higher diversification of income source categories. Education enhances access to high-return, non-farm income sources. Self-reported well-being is positively affected by both wealth and diversification. Better education and measures to improve inhabitants’ existing strategies for compensation of yield losses in farming are crucial for securing local livelihoods in the face of decreasing precipitation due to climate change.     

BUSINESS CYCLES AND ADMISSIONS TO SUBSTANCE ABUSE TREATMENT

We study the effect of business cycles on admissions to specialty substance abuse treatment using administrative data between 1992 and 2015. We proxy business cycles with the state unemployment rate and apply a panel fixed‐effects model. While previous economic research has shown that substance abuse is counter‐cyclical, we observe no change in the total number of admissions across the business cycle. However, focusing on average effects misses important heterogeneity. In substance‐specific regressions we find statistically significant evidence that heroin‐related admissions are counter‐cyclical while stimulant‐related admissions are procyclical. Our findings add to the literature on business cycles and health. (JEL I1, J2)     

COHERENCE AND ELICITABILITY

The risk of a financial position is usually summarized by a risk measure. As this risk measure has to be estimated from historical data, it is important to be able to verify and compare competing estimation procedures. In statistical decision theory, risk measures for which such verification and comparison is possible, are called elicitable. It is known that quantile‐based risk measures such as value at risk are elicitable. In this paper, the existing result of the nonelicitability of expected shortfall is extended to all law‐invariant spectral risk measures unless they reduce to minus the expected value. Hence, it is unclear how to perform forecast verification or comparison. However, the class of elicitable law‐invariant coherent risk measures does not reduce to minus the expected value. We show that it consists of certain expectiles.     

Bankable emission permits under uncertainty and optimal risk-management rules

This article proposes a theory of banking of emission permits under conditions of regulatory uncertainty. Based on a two-period partial equilibrium framework, we examine the effects of increasing risk–in the sense of a mean preserving spread–regarding a future permit allocation at the firm level. We also examine the role of an agency to pool risks by re-allocating permits for a group of firms. Our results are twofold. First, an increase in risk may lead to changes in a firm’s banking strategy, depending on the third partial derivative of its production function with respect to pollution. Second, we define an optimal risk-sharing rule between agents to respond to political decision changes. Our results overall suggest that the bankability of permits may be used as a risk-management tool.     

Discursive Confusion over Sustainable Consumption: A Discursive Perspective on the Perplexity of Marketplace Knowledge

This paper works towards a discursive, practice-based perspective on explaining the “knowledge-to-action” gap observed in the consumer policy literature on sustainable consumption. Based on an empirical study that focuses on fashion and clothing markets, the objective is to elaborate on the nature and implications of the discursive polyphony that consumers face when striving for more sustainable consumption practices. Overall, it is concluded that part of the gap can be attributed to the discursive confusion that arises from a simultaneous existence of multiple, continuously changing and partly clashing discourses of sustainable consumption as well as the associated discursive struggle that consumers need to deal with when trying to make sense of their roles and responsibilities in sustainable development.     

Foreword

Journal of Consumer Policy -     

Conceptualizing coopetition as a process: An outline of change in cooperative and competitive interactions

This study discusses how and why cooperative interactions between competitors change as their coopetitive relation develops over time. Such cooperative interactions are conceptualized to depend on the existence of agreements between competitors, or rules for cooperating and competing, which are formulated based on past experiences from mutual interaction. The purpose is to develop a framework which explains change in coopetitive interactions and particularly in inter-organizational rules for interaction. This framework distinguishes three mechanisms underlying change: inter-organizational learning manifested in cooperation between competitors, intra-organizational learning based on confrontations between conflicting experiences among organizational members, and the development of the external environment. Based on this generic framework, three scenarios are developed that delineate the nature of the change process in relations characterized respectively by strong competitive and cooperative dimensions, and in relations characterized by equal and moderately strong levels of cooperation and competition. These scenarios further suggest that rules for interaction change in a predefined or discontinuous manner depending on the balance and strength of the cooperative and competitive interactions.