Analysing the factors influencing clean technology adoption: a study of the Spanish pulp and paper industry

Technological change has a relevant role to play in the transition towards a sustainable industry. However, slow diffusion of clean technologies can be observed in OECD countries. The analysis of the determinants and barriers to clean technology adoption should be a main goal of economists and social scientists. This paper shows that three sets of interrelated factors prevent but also stimulate the widespread adoption and diffusion of clean technology: these are factors external and internal to the firm, conditions of the potential adopters and characteristics of the environmental technology. These factors are included in the so‐called ‘triangular model’, which is further applied to the analysis of clean technology adoption in the pulp and paper industry in Spain. The empirical study shows that clean technology adoption decisions are the result of an interaction between these factors, often involving contradictory signals for the potential adopter. The paper closes with some public policy recommendations for the effective and efficient promotion of clean technology diffusion. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Stock Price and Volume Effects Associated with Compositional Changes in European Stock Indices

This paper provides further evidence of price and volume effects associated with index compositional changes by analysing the inclusions (exclusions) from the French CAC40 and SBF120 indices, as well as the FTSE100. I find evidence supporting the price pressure hypothesis associated with index fund rebalancing, but weak or no evidence for the imperfect substitution, liquidity and information hypotheses. The results improve on recent evidence from the S&P500 index. The evidence for the FTSE100 additions shows, in particular, that markets learn about an imminent inclusion and incorporate this information into prices, even before the announcement date.     

Environmental protection versus economic growth

This paper presents and analyses the differences in the eco-models implemented worldwide （such as whether and how carbon taxes being ＂recycled＂）, or in their efficiency parameters （inconsistent parameter values that account for different results）. This is the assumption that a real tradeoff exists between the production of environmental goods. The present article empirically proves that something must be given up in order to gain something else, and once equations are specified to trace out the path of the economy over time, the natural economic formulation of such equations will embody the notion of economic and bio-tradeoffs.     

Dominance Statistics: A Simulation Study on the d Statistic

Quality &; Quantity - Cliff (1993) has proposed the use of a measure of effect size alternative to traditionalmean differences: δ {? = Pr(xi1 &;gt; xj2) - Pr(xi1 &;lt; xj2)}which,...     

Automatic balancing mechanisms for notional defined contribution accounts in the presence of uncertainty

The notional defined contribution model combines pay-as-you-go financing and a defined contribution pension formula. This paper aims to demonstrate the extent to which liquidity and solvency indicators are affected by fluctuations in economic and demographic conditions and to explore the introduction of an automatic balancing mechanism (ABM) into the pension scheme. We demonstrate that the introduction of an ABM reduces the volatility of the buffer fund and that, in most cases, the automatic mechanism that re-establishes solvency produces the highest value of the risk-adjusted notional factor.     

The many shades of ‘openness’: an application of item response theory to open innovation research

This study addresses one of the most basic research questions investigated in the Open Innovation (OI) literature: how open are firms? This question has remained partially unanswered given the challenges encountered by empirical research in assessing the relevance of specific OI practices within the OI model, as well as the types of activities perceived by managers as OI benefits or concerns. To provide an answer to this question, we suggest a framework using Item Response Theory to improve over current measures of firms' openness and test it on a sample of 383 technology‐based SMEs. Our theoretical model conceives openness as an instance of how firms make decisions regarding the adoption of different OI practices based on their evaluation of OI benefits and concerns. Focusing on the relationship between firm‐level differences in terms of openness and the types of OI practices adopted by these firms, we show that significantly different levels of ‘OI maturity’ are required to broaden the scope of external partnerships and to shift from non‐pecuniary OI modes (relation‐based approaches) toward pecuniary (transaction‐based) practices. Our results have relevant implications for the OI literature and provide new managerial insight into OI adoption.     

Can negative interest rates really affect option pricing? Empirical evidence from an explicitly solvable stochastic volatility model

The profound financial crisis generated by the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the European sovereign debt crisis in 2011 have caused negative values of government bond yields both in the USA and in the EURO area. This paper investigates whether the use of models which allow for negative interest rates can improve option pricing and implied volatility forecasting. This is done with special attention to foreign exchange and index options. To this end, we carried out an empirical analysis on the prices of call and put options on the US S&P 500 index and Eurodollar futures using a generalization of the Heston model in the stochastic interest rate framework. Specifically, the dynamics of the option’s underlying asset is described by two factors: a stochastic variance and a stochastic interest rate. The volatility is not allowed to be negative, but the interest rate is. Explicit formulas for the transition probability density function and moments are derived. These formulas are used to estimate the model parameters efficiently. Three empirical analyses are illustrated. The first two show that the use of models which allow for negative interest rates can efficiently reproduce implied volatility and forecast option prices (i.e. S&P index and foreign exchange options). The last studies how the US three-month government bond yield affects the US S&P 500 index.     

The influence of perceived risk on Internet shopping behavior: a multidimensional perspective

The present study analyzes the influence that perceived risk in online shopping has on the process of e‐commerce adoption by end consumers. With this aim, the Technology Acceptance Model is taken as a reference framework, proposing an Extended E‐Commerce Acceptance Model that includes the diverse constructs of perceived risk: financial, performance, social, time, psychological and privacy. Empirical evidence is obtained from two samples, one is composed by Internet users with no experience in web shopping and the other is formed by online buyers. The results obtained confirm that the intention to shop through the Internet is positively influenced by general attitude toward the system and negatively influenced by the risk associated with the Web. Regarding the importance of the risk dimensions considered in the study, the economic and performance facets are the ones that have a greater influence on e‐commerce adoption, while social and time dimensions are the less relevant.     

Mergers and Acquisitions and Market Volatility of Brazilian Banking Stocks: An Application of GARCH Models

The main objective of this research was to investigate the impacts caused by announcements of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) on the volatility of the returns of Brazilian bank stocks from 1994 to 2015. In order to achieve the proposed objective, this study applied Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedastic (GARCH) class models to the series to model their volatility. Our results confirmed the impact of the announcement of M&As on volatility. They suggest that M&A announcements are expected to cause a negative reaction if related to an expansion or a deal involving a less-well known bank, and a positive reaction if it involves well-known bank with good reputation—a higher level of confidence and a lower level of information asymmetry for investors.