Linking sustainable business models and supply chains — Toward an integrated value creation framework

Extant literature on sustainable business models highlights that value creation stems from resources exchanged in relationships between a focal firm and its stakeholders. In this context, the literature has, so far, focused on direct relationships. However, despite the acknowledged relevance of sustainability issues in supply chains, this relational view of the focal company and its direct stakeholders has not been extended toward value creation for and with indirect stakeholders, such as stakeholders of suppliers. Addressing this gap, this conceptual article integrates a relational view of sustainable supply chain management into the management of sustainable business models. It extends the scope of sustainable business models from relationships between the focal firm and its direct stakeholders to indirect relationships with stakeholders of suppliers. A framework is developed that supports analysis and management of value-creating relationships between the focal firm, suppliers, and stakeholders of suppliers. By extending the conceptualization of sustainable business models to consider relationship chains beyond direct relationships, this article proposes that a focal firm has to actively manage interactions both with suppliers and with suppliers' stakeholders.     

Anonymous voting and minimal manipulability

We compare the manipulability of different choice rules by considering the number of manipulable profiles. We establish the minimal number of such profiles for tops-only, anonymous, and surjective choice rules, and show that this number is attained by unanimity rules with status quo.     

Sequential communication with ex post participation constraints

This paper examines an informed principal-agent game with ex post participation constraints for the agent. It shows that the players do not lose by communicating in turn among themselves rather than simultaneously if and only if the principal communicates first. It then considers every Bayesian incentive compatible allocation rules that assign non-negative payoffs for one player in a bilateral asymmetric information framework. It provides necessary and sufficient conditions for sequential communication to be as efficient as simultaneous communication in implementing these allocation rules when the player with unbounded payoffs moves first.     

Uncertainty and sustainability in the management of rangelands

We analyze a dynamic and stochastic ecological-economic model of grazing management in semi-arid rangelands. The ecosystem is driven by stochastic precipitation. A risk averse farmer chooses a grazing management strategy under uncertainty such as to maximize expected utility from farming income. Grazing management strategies are rules about which share of the rangeland is given rest depending on the actual rainfall in that year. In a first step we determine a myopic farmer's optimal grazing management strategy and show that a risk averse farmer chooses a strategy such as to obtain insurance from the ecosystem: the optimal strategy reduces income variability, but yields less mean income than possible. In a second step we analyze the long-run ecological and economic impact of different strategies. We conclude that a myopic farmer, if he is sufficiently risk averse, will choose a sustainable grazing management strategy, even if he does not take into account long-term ecological and economic benefits of conservative strategies.     

Federalism and decentralization—a critical survey of frequently used indicators

The economic effects of federalism are unclear: some papers find that federalism has strong positive effects on a number of economically relevant variables, others find negative effects. The results often crucially hinge on the proxies for federalism used. In this paper, we critically survey the existing indicators for both federalism and fiscal decentralization. We argue that federalism is a constitutional institution, whereas decentralization is the outcome of a policy choice, and that the two ought to be systematically distinguished because decentralization can also occur in nonfederally structured states. We further argue that institutional details are very important with regard to federalism and that dummy variables usually capture only very specific aspects of these institutional details. We use factor analysis to test whether the latent variables behind the observed indicators support these assumptions. More than two important factors are derived, implying that a more fine-grained differentiation beyond simply “‘federalism” and “decentralization” might be in order. The correlations of the most important proxies for various aspects of federalism and decentralization with a number of quasi-exogenous variables, as well as with institutional variables, are usually rather modest.     

The impact of stricter criteria for disability insurance on labor force participation

This paper studies the effect of a large-scale policy change in the Austrian disability insurance program, which tightened eligibility criteria for men above a certain age. Using administrative data on the universe of Austrian private-sector employees, the results of difference-in-difference regressions suggest a substantial and statistically significant decline in disability enrollment of 6 to 7.4 percentage points and an increase in employment of 1.6 to 3.4 percentage points. The policy change had important spillover effects into the unemployment and sickness insurance program. Specifically, the share of individuals receiving unemployment benefits increased by 3.5 to 3.9 percentage points, and the share receiving sickness insurance benefits, by roughly 0.7 percentage points.     

Housing and Health

Deprived housing is recognized as a source of poor health, but there is still little evidence of a causal relationship between housing and health. While existing literature identifies neighborhood effects and the individual dwelling as factors which affect health, it does not offer a joint examination of these factors. Moreover, endogeneity is a concern in analyses of both problems. Thus far, studies addressing endogeneity have done so through experimental design or instrumental variables. The first approach suffers from problems of external validity and the latter from the lack of reliable instruments. We therefore adopt an alternative strategy which considers both sources of endogeneity in order to identify the effects of housing on health by estimating fixed‐effect models. We reveal how housing problems affect health depending on living conditions and socioeconomic status. Our results therefore indicate that living in poor housing is an important short‐term socioeconomic determinant that directly affects health.     

The Importance of Tax Adjustments When Evaluating Wage Expectations*

Using elicited expectations of future gross salaries, we evaluate characteristics causing German students to make larger or smaller estimation errors. While students seem to underestimate actual salaries by 18 percent, we show that these errors are highly attributable to misconceptions of the progressive income tax. Developing a suitable adjustment procedure, we correct students’ estimates and find that errors decline by 12 percentage points. Conducting regression analyses, we reveal strong connections with students’ age, gender, work experience, secondary school track, and knowledge about student loans. These results change notably if not controlling for students’ misconceptions of the tax system.     

Saving Accounts versus Stocks and Bonds in Household Portfolio Allocation

We study the structure of household portfolios of financial wealth by analyzing both the determinants of total financial wealth and the choice between risky (stocks and bonds) and riskfree assets (saving accounts). The econometric specification is a generalized trivariate Tobit model, estimated on a cross section of 3,077 households in the Netherlands in 1988. We account for endogeneity of financial wealth and for selectivity due to nonreporting. Results show that the level of financial wealth and the marginal tax rate are major determinants of the allocation between riskfree and risky assets.     

The English Football Industry: profit,performance and industrial structure

The English (Association) Football League is a long established industrial cartel selling a highly popular product with only imperfect substitutes. Despite that, the majority of its member clubs lose money and the industry has faced successive financial crises over the last decade. This paper develops an empirical model of the financial performance of English League clubs using a high quality dataset of 48 clubs over the period 1974–89. The underlying model explains how rents are competed away through the maximising behaviour of club owners subject to production constraints. This model is parameterised by a system of equations which describe the behaviour of a maximising owner subject to demand and production constraints. The model is then used to examine the coordination failure which lies at the heart of the English Football League's decline and to assess the prospects for the Premier League.