Innovation in the bioeconomy – dynamics of biorefinery innovation networks

The bioeconomy has become a central concept in many strategies for future economic development, emphasising an increasing need for collaboration across industries and sectors for innovation. This paper unpacks aspects of collaboration in the bioeconomy by looking at the development of innovation networks for biorefinery technologies from 2004 to 2014 based on innovation project data from Swedish public funding agencies using a stochastic actor-oriented model for network analysis. The analysis shows that although the network grew significantly during the time period, indicating an increasing interest in biorefinery technology innovation, inter-sectoral collaboration is not favoured over intra-sectoral collaboration. As is known from previous work on social networks trust-building is a key driver for collaboration, as actors tend to form collaborations with previous partners or indirectly connected partners, creating clustered networks.     

Conditional utility

Summary The motivation for this paper starts out with a decision situation under risk where the decision-maker has to choose among various lottery tickets. We will ask what happens to a person's lottery choice if he is given additional information in terms of probabilities on some states of nature which might affect his choice among lottery tickets. In other words, in evaluating his decision situation, a person should not only consider the probability of a certain prospect to be realized but also the problem how and to which extent some state(s) of nature modify the utility of this prospect. This problem has not been dealt with in Bernoullian utility theory.We state several conditions which are necessary and sufficient to treat conditional utility as Bernoullian utility. Then we show as a main result that it is possible to represent expected utility of decision acts (in Savage's terminology) by conditional expected utility of prospects which preserves well-known properties of expected utility with the exception of linearity.We give a potential application of the notion of conditional utility to the estimation of the value of information as a residual value of prior and posterior utility.     

(Non-)existence and Scope of Nash Networks

For the connections model of strategic network formation, with two-way flow of information and without information decay, specific parameter configurations are given for which Nash networks do not exist. Moreover, existence and the scope of Nash network architectures are briefly discussed. We would like to thank two referees for helpful comments.     

The market’s view on the probability of banking sector failure: cross-country comparisons

Hall and Miles (1990) suggest an approach of estimating default probabilities of banks using stock market information, and in this paper we apply an aggregated version of their approach to banking sectors around the world in both developed and emerging economies. We study the market’s assessment of the probability of systemic banking crises world wide over the last decade, including the Asian crisis 1997–1998. In addition, we investigate whether there is a relationship between the failure probability and institutional features of the actual banking sector. The quality of governance and the degree of law and order in a country is found to be significantly negatively related to the market based failure probabilities as is an explicit deposit insurance during periods of crisis.     

Is capital a collusion device?

Summary. We examine how irreversible capital reduces the possibility of a duopoly to sustain implicit collusion by grim strategies, when the product is homogenous and firms compete in quantities. Compared with the case of reversible capital, there are two countervailing effects: Deviation from an existing collusion is less attractive, because capital once installed causes costs forever. But the punishment will also be less severe due to the high capacity the deviating firm can build before punishment starts. The last effect dominates, meaning that the commitment value of capital is negative for all firms. If capital is irreversible, collusion breaks down for realistic magnitudes of interest rates. Received: April 30, 1999; revised version: November 30, 2001     

Two characterizations of the uniform rule for division problems with single-peaked preferences

Summary The uniform rule is considered to be the most important rule for the problem of allocating an amount of a perfectly divisible good between agents who have single-peaked preferences. The uniform rule was studied extensively in the literature and several characterizations were provided. The aim of this paper is to provide two different formulations and corresponding axiomatizations of the uniform rule. These formulations resemble the Nash and the lexicographic egalitarian bargaining solutions; the corresponding axiomatizations are based on axioms of independence of irrelevant alternatives and restricted monotonicity.The authors are grateful to Jeffrey Banks, Steve Ching, Vincent Feltkamp, Bezalel Peleg, Sang-Young Sonn, William Thomson and an anonymous referee for helpful comments.     

A constraint-free approach to optimal reinsurance

Reinsurance is available for a reinsurance premium that is determined according to a convex premium principle H. The first insurer selects the reinsurance coverage that maximizes its expected utility. No conditions are imposed on the reinsurer's payment. The optimality condition involves the gradient of H. For several combinations of H and the first insurer's utility function, closed-form formulas for the optimal reinsurance are given. If H is a zero utility principle (for example, an exponential principle or an expectile principle), it is shown, by means of Borch's Theorem, that the optimal reinsurer's payment is a function of the total claim amount and that this function satisfies the so-called 1-Lipschitz condition. Frequently, authors impose these two conclusions as hypotheses at the outset.     

Strategic Regulation Policy in the Internet

Some countries are importers while others are exporters of global backbone connectivity. At the same time, input components such as local access are non-traded. This paper analyzes a non-cooperative regulatory game between importing and exporting countries, assuming that the prices of both traded and non-traded inputs can be regulated. We show that exporting countries choose a more restrictive regulation of non-traded goods than importing countries do. We further show that a requirement of international non-discrimination may hurt importing countries, and give firms producing traded inputs incentives to invest in quality degradation.     

BUILDING SOCIAL CAPITAL FOR SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP

ABSTRACT: By entrepreneurial combinations of voluntary resources, project means from public and private sources, commissions on contracts and other ways of financing, the youth house Fryshuset, with a great number of social activities for primarily young people in Stockholm, Sweden, has been able to allocate resources for establishing and expanding its activities. This development would not have been possible without struggle against established norms, values, traditions and institutions, not least the ‘close to monopoly’ that the public sector in practice was having on the fields in which Fryshuset emerged. Step by step, Fryshuset has built partnerships and alliances with public, private as well as civil actors. Expressed in a general way, Fryshuset has built a new social capital and created new norms and values. The aim of the paper is to investigate how Fryshuset has managed to build social capital through, and for entrepreneurial efforts aiming to facilitate young peoples’ development.     

New ventures in Cleantech: Opportunities,capabilities and innovation outcomes

Facing the challenge of climate change, innovations that imply environmental benefits create business opportunities for entrepreneurs. This paper analyzes innovation capabilities of startups in Cleantech and how the innovation outcomes of those startups develop over time. Based on the Mannheim Foundation Panel and applying propensity score matching, a cohort of 567 Cleantech startups is analyzed and compared with a control cohort of non‐Cleantech startups. We find that startups in Cleantech have, on average, higher technological capabilities compared with all other startups. Our econometric evidence shows that Cleantech startups are more likely to combine existing technology in a novel way. Finally, we find that Cleantech startups develop more market novelties in subsequent years when compared with their control group peers.