A Welcome Revolution in Innovation

This review considers a major new book on von Hippel’s concept of user innovation. Von Hippel’s work has led to a welcome revolution in the economics of innovation. When producers are the innovators, there is an important difference in the interests of innovators and users. This can lead to dysfunctional innovation, especially in mature markets that are monopolised. In contrast, when users innovate, there are no such problems, as the innovator and the user are the same. User innovation can help enhance the power of innovation in wealth creation, and this edited collection helps to establish user innovation as a fully fledged field of the economics of innovation.     

A general model to compute activity-based waste disposal costs for health care products

ABSTRACT

Hospitals are large producers of solid waste, of which some is benign, some is extremely hazardous, and much is in between. The cost of segregating and disposing of products in these waste streams is high, and studies have shown there is considerable potential to reduce these costs while simultaneously decreasing environmental impact. In this article we develop an activity-based costing method that assigns waste disposal costs proportionally to each product. By providing disposal cost information at this level of aggregation it is possible to directly influence purchasing decisions, identify priority products for focused interventions, and determine the ratio of a product's purchasing cost to disposal cost. The method is tested on products with different purchasing costs, disposal costs, physical characteristics, and disposal processes.     

Energiewende: Alles eine Frage der Partizipation? Governance-Herausforderungen zwischen Zentralität und Dezentralität

The interaction of centralised and decentralised elements is not only a challenge for the technical und functional implementation of the energy transition, but also for the political and social assignment of developing adequate governance strategies for future energy systems. While “participation” is of capital importance for all governance approaches mediating centralising and decentralising trends, it is far from clear, how participation is to be realized in order to promote energy transition and avoiding pitfalls and flaws of participative decision making processes. Against the backdrop of a multi-dimensional understanding of “participation” comprising procedural, factual, legitimatory and meta-reflective functions, the paper considers the tense relations of participation and efficiency, legitimacy and professionalized expertise, thereby identifying structural challenges for participation in democratic societies. Finally, some suggestions are made, how the governance of the energy transition can be shaped in the future.     

A method for reducing information asymmetry in destination–airline relationships

We propose a measure of business risk in air travel demand at the route level that can reduce information asymmetry during route development negotiations between tourism destinations and airlines. Aviation-exposed risk (AER) conveys information about the level of uncertainty with regard to air travel demand from an airline’s perspective. Using AER, tourism destinations and air service development teams can evaluate their risks from the perspective of the airline and its network. From there, an assessment can be made as to the value of air services in certain circumstances, including whether a direct underwrite or risk share between airlines and destinations is viable and necessary. By applying a portfolio analysis to an airline’s network, we find evidence that AER does indeed mimic the actual capacity distribution of the network. This provides support for AER as a useful risk measure to be used in practice.     

The public house and its role in society's margins

The aim of this conceptual paper is to explore the contribution of the British public house (pub) to marginalised sections of the community. There is a long tradition that celebrates the pub's quasi-egalitarian ethos as welcoming people from all walks of life. However, increased financial pressures on the pub sector dictate an evolution in this role, especially towards disadvantaged sections of society. This situation merits further examination by researchers, managers and policy makers. The paper draws on evidence from different traditions of research including management, sociology, history and geography, to develop a conceptual framework highlighting the issues facing these stakeholders in today's business environment.     

COMPETITION VERSUS STABILITY IN BANKING

COLLECTED WORKS OF WALTER BAGEHOT: THE ECONOMIC ESSAYS, VOLUMES IX—XI, edited by Norman St John Stevas