COMPARING PPP WITH TRADITIONAL PROCUREMENT: THE CASE OF SCHOOLS PROCUREMENT IN IRELAND

Advocates of public‐private partnerships (PPPs) argue that they can deliver public infrastructure more efficiently than traditional procurement through timelier completion and superior value for money. Despite these claims comparative analysis of the performance of both procurement methods has received scant attention in the PPP literature to date. This paper addresses this issue by providing an in‐depth, case‐based comparison of PPP versus traditional procurement in the schools sector in Ireland. Through detailed semi‐structured interviews with key stakeholders and an examination of the available documentation, we assess whether the key objectives of using PPP have been achieved. Overall, we find no evidence that PPP leads to faster delivery of infrastructure when the overall procurement process from contract notice to delivery is accounted for. In addition, we find only limited evidence to suggest that PPP results in better value for money.     

Do technology externalities justify restrictions on emission permit trading?

International emission trading is an important flexibility mechanism, but its use has been often restricted on the ground that access to international carbon credits can undermine the domestic abatement effort reducing the incentive to innovate and, eventually, lowering the pace of climate policy-induced technological change. This paper examines the economics that is behind these concerns by studying how a cap to the trade of carbon offsets influences innovation, technological change, and welfare. By using a standard game of abatement and R&D, we investigate the main mechanisms that shape these relationships. We also use a numerical integrated assessment model that features environmental and technology externalities to quantify how limits to the volume, the timing, and the regional allocation of carbon offsets affect climate policy costs and the incentive to invest in innovation and low-carbon technologies.Results indicate that, for moderate caps on the amount tradable emissions permits and sufficiently high technology spillovers, global innovation and technical change would increase and that this additional innovative effort could lead to economic efficiency gains. The numerical analysis confirms that when constraints are close to 15% of domestic abatement, efficiency losses are small because they are partly compensated by more technological spillovers and lower energy prices. Under a broad range of parameters, restrictions are costly for the constrained countries, but always beneficial for unconstrained ones.     

PERIODIC SEQUENCES OF ARBITRAGE: A TALE OF FOUR CURRENCIES

This paper investigates arbitrage chains involving four currencies and four foreign exchange trader‐arbitrageurs. In contrast with the three‐currency case, we find that arbitrage operations when four currencies are present may appear periodic in nature, and not involve smooth convergence to a ‘balanced’ ensemble of exchange rates in which the law of one price holds. The goal of this article is to understand some interesting features of sequences of arbitrage operations, features which might well be relevant in other contexts in finance and economics.     

Marxism,Crypto-Marxism and the Political Economy of Capitalism

ABSTRACT

This article conducts groundwork for a discussion of Marx’s influence through examining the boundaries of the specifically Marxian school of economics. This Marxian school extends well beyond the bounds of the self-identified Marxian school. Marx’s influence, Marxian themes and effectively Marxian theory can be found in several important heterodox traditions of economics, though this is often unacknowledged. A consideration of the proper boundaries of the Marxian school of economics is essential for a full understanding of Marx’s legacy and could contribute to the emergence of a more unified heterodoxy in economics.     

Internal brand commitment,a multi-dimensional construct? Case study evidence within a collaborative independent retail network context

Commitment and other relational constructs have predominantly been examined within the organisational studies literature, and in more recent times within the relationship marketing literature, but have been largely neglected within the retail and branding literatures. There is little empirical evidence of commitment as a multi-dimensional construct within the marketing domain. Brand commitment studies have largely adopted an external consumer-based perspective, with little attention afforded to internal brand commitment, and the dimensionality of the construct. This study addresses this deficit, and aims to explore the dimensionality of the internal brand commitment construct within the business-to-business context of a collaborative independent retail network. A qualitative case study methodology is adopted based primarily on interviews with owner-managers. The study provides empirical evidence of the multi-dimensionality of the internal brand commitment construct, with both attitudinal and behavioural dimensions. Although the importance of internal branding has been acknowledged for service sector organisations, this is the first empirical evidence to document the complexity of internal brand commitment in a retail context. The study concludes that while calculative commitment builds organisational commitment, internal brand commitment requires an affective dimension, which leads to what can be interpreted as brand citizenship behaviour and/or conceptualised as the formation of a brand community.     

A Good Opening: The Key to Make the Most of Unilateral Climate Action

In this paper we argue that when a subgroup of countries cooperate on emission reduction, the optimal response of non-signatory countries reflects the interaction between three potentially opposing factors, the incentive to free-ride on the environmental benefits of cooperation, the incentive to expand energy consumption, and the incentive to adopt the cleaner technologies introduced by the coalition. Using an Integrated Assessment Model with a game-theoretic structure we find that the equilibrium abatement of the coalition composed by OECD countries would be moderate, in line with the Pledges subscribed in Copenhagen, but increasing. The mitigation strategy would consist of investments in energy R&D and deployment of cleaner technologies with high learning potentials. International knowledge and technology externalities would facilitate the diffusion of cleaner technologies in non-signatory countries, offsetting the free-riding incentive and reducing their emissions. If the OECD group curbs emissions beyond the optimal equilibrium level, reaching reduction rates between 40 and 45 % below 2005 levels in 2050, the benefits of technology externalities would no longer compensate the effect of lower fossil fuel prices. Our results suggest that a moderate unilateral climate policy could induce a virtuous behaviour in non-signatory countries and that policies promoting the international transfer of technologies and knowledge could represent an effective complement to mitigation targets.     

Feedback as a two-way street: when and why rating consumers fails

In efforts to keep ill-behaving consumers in check, managers are increasingly implementing the practice of rating consumers. We develop and test an account of when and why the practice of rating consumers backfires. Study 1 shows that consumers are more likely to misbehave toward service providers after receiving a low rating (versus those who receive a high rating or those who are merely aware that they are being rated). These findings are robust to consumer inexperience. The negative impact of low ratings on subsequent behavior is especially likely to emerge when directed toward consumers (versus service providers; Study 2). Study 3 situates our findings in a real-world context through a survey of Uber customers. Taken together, we offer insight into how firms can realize the benefits of the practice of rating consumers while mitigating its risks.

     

The New Ruins of Ireland? Unfinished Estates in the Post‐Celtic Tiger Era

In the wake of the global financial crisis, and as Europe's financial and fiscal woes continue, Ireland's beleaguered economy has attracted a great deal of scrutiny, with much made of the country's status as one of the PIIGS and the fact that it was bailed out by the troika of the IMF, EU and ECB in November 2010. Whilst most attention has been directed at Ireland's banks and the strategy of the Irish government in managing the crisis, substantial interest (both nationally and internationally) has been focused on the property sector and in particular the phenomenon of so‐called ‘ghost estates’ (or, in official terms, unfinished estates). As of October 2011 there were 2,846 such estates in Ireland, and they have come to visibly symbolize the collapse of Ireland's ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy. In this essay, we examine the unfinished estates phenomenon, placing them within the context of Ireland's property boom during the Celtic Tiger years, and conceptualize them as ‘new ruins’ created through the search for a spatial fix by speculative capitalism in a time of neoliberalism. We detail the characteristics and geography of such estates, the various problems afflicting the estates and their residents, and the Irish government's response to those problems. In the final section we examine the estates as exemplars of new ruins, the remainder and reminder of Celtic Tiger excess.