Berkeley Electronic Press

Bepress Announces First Graduating Class of Institutional Repository Manager Certification Course

bepress — Wed, 01 May 2013 15:54:34 PDT

This spring, bepress offered its first ever IR Manager Certification Course, and we’re proud to announce our first graduating class. Hailing from educational organizations from around the world, all twenty participants rated the course “extremely helpful” and indicated that they would recommend it to others.

Jean-Gabriel Bankier, CEO of bepress, was delighted with the response to the company’s first on-site training for repository managers, noting that enrollment exceeded expectations. “We had to have a waiting list. It clearly demonstrates the demand for this kind of training, and no one else is offering anything like it.”

Topics ranged from current trends in scholarly communications to best practices for digital collection development, copyright compliance, faculty engagement, and outreach. In addition, the course included workshops and training sessions where IR administrators worked directly with their Digital Commons Consulting Services representatives. Course participants gained hands-on experience with important tools for managing a repository and implemented immediate improvements to their individual IRs.

Participants praised both the comprehensive scope and the individualized attention the course offered. As Kristine Mudrick, Serials and Electronic Resources Librarian at Saint Joseph’s University commented, “It was really valuable to have one-on-one, real-time dialogue with my consultant.” Jeremy Watson, Digital Services Librarian at Fordham University, remarked, “I am totally inspired and ready to charge ahead with my repository more efficiently and dynamically.”

Based on positive feedback from our first graduating class, bepress will repeat the IR Manager Certification Course in the spring of 2014. For more information, please contact Ann Taylor (ataylor@bepress.com), Director of Outreach and Scholarly Communications, or Eli Windchy (ewindchy@bepress.com), VP, Consulting Services.

To read more about bepress University and upcoming courses, see http://digitalcommons.bepress.com/bepressu/ .

Die Schäden von Preiskartellen: Vom Partial- zum Totalmodell

Thomas Eger et al. — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 01:51:23 PDT

In Wissenschaft und Praxis scheint Einigung darüber zu herrschen, welche Schäden von Preiskartellen ausgehen. Dabei wird ausschließlich partialanalytisch argumentiert. Es wird nur derjenige Sektor betrachtet, in dem das Kartell besteht. Auswirkungen auf andere Sektoren und auf die Beschäftigungsseite werden nicht berücksichtigt. (Siehe dazu umfassend Ashurst 2004 sowie Oxera 2009).

Es wird zum einen behauptet, dass ausschließlich die Nachfrager (Endkonsumenten und Zwischenhändler) Geschädigte sind. Zum anderen wird gezeigt, dass deren Schaden aus der Summe von Gewinn des Kartells und deadweight loss besteht. Beide Aussagen sind in dieser Ausschließlichkeit nicht richtig.

In diesem Aufsatz werden Nachfragewirkungen auf andere Sektoren und Beschäftigungswirkungen mitberücksichtigt. Es wird gezeigt, dass zum einen neben den Nachfragern auch die Faktoreigner einen Schaden durch ein Preiskartell erleiden und dass zum anderen der Schaden für die Nachfrager auch nur aus dem Kartellgewinn bestehen kann oder sogar ganz verschwindet.

Directing Technical Change from Fossil-Fuel to Renewable Energy Innovation: An Empirical Application Using Firm-Level Patent Data

Joëlle Noailly et al. — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 01:17:16 PDT

This paper investigates the determinants of directed technical change in the electricity generation sector. We use firm-level data on patents led in renewable (REN) and fossil fuel (FF) technologies by about 7,000 European firms over the period 1978-2006. We separately study specialized firms that innovate in only one type of technology during the sample period, and mixed firms that innovate in both technologies. We find that for specialized firms the main drivers of innovation are fossil-fuel prices, market size, and firms' past knowledge stocks. Also, prices and market size drive the entry of new REN firms into innovation. By contrast, we find that innovation by mixed firms is mainly driven by strong path-dependencies since for these firms past knowledge stock is the major driver of the direction of innovation. These results imply that generic environmental policies that affect prices and energy demand are mainly effective in directing innovation by small specialized firms. In order to direct innovation e orts of large mixed corporations with a long history of FF innovation, targeted R&D policies are likely to be more effective.

Business Groups as Hierarchies of Firms: Determinants of Vertical Integration and Performance

Carlo Altomonte et al. — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 01:12:17 PDT

We explore the nature of Business Groups, that is network-like forms of hierarchical organization between legally autonomous firms spanning both within and across national borders. Exploiting a unique dataset of 270,474 headquarters controlling more than 1,500,000 (domestic and foreign) affiliates in all countries worldwide, we find that business groups account for a significant part of value-added generation in both developed and developing countries, with a prevalence in the latter. In order to characterize their boundaries, we distinguish between an affiliate vs. a group-level index of vertical integration, as well as an entropy-like metric able to summarize the hierarchical complexity of a group and its trade-off between exploitation of knowledge as an input across the hierarchy and the associated communication costs. We relate these metrics to host country institutional characteristics, as well as to the performance of affiliates across business groups. Conditional on institutional quality, a negative correlation exists between vertical integration and organizational complexity in defining the boundaries of business groups. We also find a robust (albeit non-linear) positive relationship between a group's organizational complexity and productivity which dominates the already known correlation between vertical integration and productivity. Results are in line with the theoretical framework of knowledge-based hierarchies developed by the literature, in which intangible assets are a complementary input in the production processes.

Heterogeneous Beliefs, Regret, and Uncertainty: The Role of Speculation in Energy Price Dynamics

Marc Joëts — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 01:07:20 PDT

This paper proposes to investigate the impact of financialization on energy markets (oil, gas, coal and electricity European forward prices) during both normal times and extreme fluctuation periods through an original behavioral and emotional approach. To this aim, we propose a new theoretical and empirical framework based on a heterogeneous agents model in which fundamentalists and chartists co-exist and are subject to regret and uncertainty. We find significant evidence that energy markets are composed by heterogeneous traders which behave differently depending on the intensity of the price fluctuations and uncertainty context. In particular, energy prices are mainly governed by fundamental and chartist neutral agents during normal times whereas they face to irrational chartist averse investors during extreme fluctuations periods. In this context, the recent energy prices surge can be viewed as the consequence of irrational exhuberance. Our new theoretical model outperforms the random walk in out-of-sample predictive ability.

Geoengineering and Abatement: A “flat” Relationship under Uncertainty

Johannes Emmerling et al. — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 01:07:19 PDT

The potential of geoengineering as an alternative or complementary option to mitigation and adaptation has received increased interest in recent years. The scientific assessment of geoengineering is driven to a large extent by assumptions about its effectiveness, costs, and impacts, all of which are highly uncertain. This has led to a polarizing debate. This paper evaluates the role of Solar Radiation Management (SRM) on the optimal abatement path, focusing on the uncertainty about the effectiveness of SRM and the interaction with uncertain climate change response. Using standard economic models of dynamic decision theory under uncertainty, we show that abatement is decreasing in the probability of success of SRM, but that this relation is concave and thus that significant abatement reductions are optimal only if SRM is very likely to be effective. The results are confirmed even when considering positive correlation structures between the effectiveness of geoengineering and the magnitude of climate change. Using a stochastic version of an Integrated Assessment Model, the results are found to be robust for a wide range of parameters specification.

Cost-Reducing R&D in the Presence of an Appropriation Alternative: An Application to the Natural Resource Curse

Klarizze Anne Martin Puzon — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 01:02:45 PDT

This study proposes a new mechanism for the resource curse: crowding-out of innovation due to the existence of an option to engage in conflict. Using a game theoretical framework, it is argued that an increase in the amount of natural resources (in the informal sector here conflict for a common-pool rent materializes) reduces the incentives of entrepreneurial groups to engage in cost-reducing R&D (in the non-resource sector where production occurs). Compared to most models of the resource curse, the impact of resource abundance on income and welfare was interestingly observed to be non-monotonic. An increase in the amount of resources in the common pool induces intensified conflict among groups and less R&D investment. Depending on the relative strengths of the income and diversion effects, three scenarios were exhibited. First, there is a 1.) Pure Blessing. This happens when both the extent of technological spillovers and the initial level of resource are low. Starting from scarcity, the increase in natural resource generates an overall jump in the groups' income levels. Even if an increase in resources decreases innovation in the formal sector, both income and welfare still go up. Meanwhile, for intermediate initial values of the natural resource, there is a 2.) Pseudo-curse. A resource boom induces an immediate income effect. However, this income gain is dominated by the indirect diversion effect due to lower output and higher price (because of less cost-reducing R&D). Consequently, while income increases, the welfare of the economy decreases. The range of resource levels where this occurs is greater when spillovers are high. Finally, a 3.) Double Curse occurs for extremely high initial levels of natural resources. Both aggregate income of the economy and welfare suffer.

An Exploration of the Link Between Development, Economic Growth, and Natural Risk

Stéphane Hallegatte — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 00:52:20 PDT

This paper investigates the link between development, economic growth, and the economic losses from natural disasters in a normative analytical framework, with an illustration on hurricane flood risks in New Orleans. It concludes that, where capital accumulates through increased density of capital at risk in a given area, it is optimal for (i) the probability of disaster occurrence to decrease with income; (ii) the capital at risk – and thus the economic losses in case of disaster – to increase faster than economic growth; (iii) the average annual losses to grow faster than income at low levels of development and slower than income at high levels of development. In that case, increasing risk-taking reinforces economic growth, and improving protections transfer risks from frequent low-intensity events to rarer high-impact events. These findings are robust to a broad range of modeling choices and parameter values, and to the inclusion of risk aversion. Risk-taking is both a driver and a consequence of economic development, and should not be indiscriminately suppressed. The observation of a trend in disaster losses should not be confused with the presence of excessive risk taking. In a descriptive framework, suboptimal decision-making (the introduction of prospect theory's decision weights, biases in risk perception and myopic expectations) may amplify these trends and lead to excessive or insufficient risk taking. In all instances, the world is very likely to experience fewer but more costly disasters in the future.

Macroeconomic Impacts of the EU 30% GHG Mitigation Target

Francesco Bosello et al. — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 00:47:28 PDT

Nonetheless, concrete and effective measures to reduce them are hardly implemented. One of the main reasons for this deadlock is the fear that unilateral actions will reduce a country’s competitiveness, and will benefit those countries where no GHG mitigation measures are implemented. This kind of argument is also often used to explain why some governments and many business leaders are not in favour of the EU 30% GHG mitigation target that has been proposed to replace the previous 20% GHG emission reduction objective approved by the EU within the well-known 20-20-20 climate and energy package. By developing and applying a recursive, dynamic, very detailed CGE model with energy generation from both fossil fuel and renewable sources, we address this issue by estimating the cost for different EU countries and industries of the EU climate and energy package under a set of alternative international scenarios on global GHG mitigation efforts. Results show that, thanks to the EU economic recession, achieving a 20% GHG emission reduction entails a moderate cost for the European Union - about 0.5% of EU GDP – even in the case of EU unilateral action. This cost could be reduced to almost zero if not only the European Union, but also the other major world economies, comply with the “low pledge” Copenhagen Accord. A 30% GHG emission reduction target would certainly be more costly: the total loss in the European Union would be 1.26% of EU GDP in the case of EU unilateral action, whereas the total cost would be 0.55% of EU GDP if all major economies reduce their own GHG emissions according to the “low pledge” Copenhagen Accord. Both border tax adjustments and free allocation of carbon permits are shown to be successful in reducing some adverse competitiveness effects of the EU GHG mitigation policy into energy intensive sectors, but at the expenses of the other economic sectors.

A Study on Industrial Green Transformation in China

Li Ping et al. — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 00:43:46 PDT

China’s speedy industrialization has undertaken mostly a crude path with extensive energy consumption and severe environmental damage. In face of the challenge of global warming and resource restrictions, it calls for urgent green transformation for the sustainable development of China’s industry. With huge potentials and more general benefits than costs, the industrial green transformation in China will have more positive effects and accelerate the whole process of the development of China’s green economy. From this perspective, China needs to adopt a comprehensive and open mechanism for green transformation with more strict environmental regulations, effective energy conservation and emissions reduction, green technology R&D and application, as well as international cooperation in the related fields with market-oriented reform, government strategies and regulations, proactive response from the industry sector, self-initiative of enterprises and active public participation.

Jurists, Clerics and Merchants - The Rise of Learned Law in Medieval Europe and its Impact on Economic Growth

Hans-Bernd Schäfer et al. — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 02:07:24 PDT

Between the years 1200 and 1600 economic development in most parts of Europe gained momentum. By the end of this period per capita income in Western Europe (excluding Orthodox countries) was well above the income levels in all other regions of the world. We relate this unique development to the resurrection of Roman law, which went hand in hand with the rise of law as a scholarly and scientific discipline. In this paper we investigate two competing hypothesis on the impact of these processes on economic growth in Medieval Europe: a) that the rules of Roman law were conducive to the rise of commerce and economic growth and b) that growth occurred not as a result of the reception of substantive Roman law but rather because of the rational scientific and systemic features of the new law and its training of jurists in the newly established universities. Using data on city population as a proxy for economic growth we find that the decisive impact for economic development was not primarily the content of Roman law, but the emergence of a legal method by glossators and commentators in their interpretation and systematization of the sources of Roman law (Corpus Juris, Digests), which originally consisted of a huge collection of cases. The endeavor to extract general normative conclusions from theses sources led to abstraction, methodology, and the rise of law as a scholarly discipline. Wherever law faculties were founded anywhere in Europe jurists learned new legal concepts and skills which were unknown before and conducive for doing business.

East Africa: The Next Game-Changer for the Global Gas Markets?

Manfred Hafner et al. — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 01:47:27 PDT

The geographical distribution of African natural gas resources is going through a period of profound change as new gas discoveries in East Africa emerge to reshape the continent's energy landscape. This region is rapidly establishing itself as a world-class natural gas province and two countries have already emerged as key-players of this new African natural gas renaissance: Mozambique and Tanzania. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the gas developments in the region, which could well become the next game-changer of the global gas market.

Energy Poverty Alleviation and Climate Change Mitigation: Is There a Trade off?

Shoibal Chakravarty et al. — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 01:42:14 PDT

Energy poverty alleviation has become an important political issue in the most recent years. Several initiatives and policies have been proposed to deal with poor access to modern sources of energy in many developing countries. Given the large number of people lacking basic energy services, an important question is whether providing universal access to modern energy could significantly increase CO2 emissions. This paper provides one of the few formal assessments of this problem by means of a simple but robust model of current and future energy consumption. The model allows mapping energy consumption globally for different classes of energy use, quantifying current and future imbalances in the distribution of energy consumption. Our results indicate that an energy poverty eradication policy to be met by 2030 would increase global final energy consumption by about 7% (or 19EJ). This is the same quantity of energy which would be added between now and 2030 by individuals with energy consumption above current European standards. The additional energy infrastructure needed to eradicate energy poverty would produce 16-131 GtCO2 over the 21st century and contribute at most 0.1C of additional warming.

Looking for Free-riding: Energy Efficiency Incentives and Italian Homeowners

Anna Alberini et al. — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 01:42:13 PDT

We examine the effect of energy efficiency incentives on household energy-efficiency home improvements. Starting in February 2007, Italian homeowners have been able to avail themselves of tax credits on the purchase and installation costs of certain types of energy efficiency renovations. We examine two such renovations—door/windows replacements and heating system replacements—using multi-year cross-section data from the Italian Consumer Expenditure Survey and focusing on a narrow period around the introduction of the tax credits. Our regressions control for dwelling and household characteristics and economy-wide factors likely to influence the replacement rates. The effects of the policy are different for the two types of renovations. With window replacements, the policy is generally associated with a 30% or stronger increase in the renovation rates and number of renovations. In the simplest econometric models, the effect is not statistically significant, but the results get stronger when we allow for heterogeneous effects across the country. With heating system replacements, simpler models suggest that the tax credits policy had no effect whatsoever or that free riding was rampant, i.e., people are now accepting subsidies for replacements that they would have done anyway. Further examination suggests a strong degree of heterogeneity in the effects across warmer and colder parts of the country, and effects in the colder areas that are even more pronounced than those for windows replacements. These results should, however, be interpreted with caution due to the low rate of renovations and the imprecisely estimated effects.

Food versus Fuel: Causality and Predictability in Distribution

Andrea Bastianin et al. — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 01:35:10 PDT

This paper examines the relationship between biofuels and commodity food prices in the U.S. from a new perspective. While a large body of literature has tried to explain the linkages between sample means and volatilities associated with ethanol and agricultural price returns, little is known about their whole distributions. We focus on predictability in distribution by asking whether ethanol returns can be used to forecast different parts of field crops returns distribution, or vice versa. Density forecasts are constructed using Conditional Autoregressive Expectile models estimated with Asymmetric Least Squares. Forecast evaluation relies on quantile-weighed scoring rules, which identify regions of the distribution of interest to the analyst. Results show that both the centre and the left tail of the ethanol returns distribution can be predicted by using field crops returns. On the contrary, there is no evidence that ethanol can be used to forecast any region of the field crops distribution.

Biofuels and Food Prices: Searching for the Causal Link

Andrea Bastianin et al. — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 01:28:01 PDT

We analyze the relationship between the prices of ethanol, agricultural commodities and livestock in Nebraska, the U.S. second largest ethanol producer. The paper focuses on long-run relations and Granger causality linkages between ethanol and the other commodities.The analysis takes possible structural breaks into account and uses a set of techniques that allow to draw inferences about the existence of long-run relations and of short-run in-sample Granger causality and out-of-sample predictive ability. Even after taking breaks into account, evidence that the price of ethanol drives the price dynamics of the other commodities is extremely weak. It is concluded that, on the basis of a formal, comprehensive and rigorous causality analysis we do not find evidence in favour of the Food versus Fuel debate.

Climate Policies: A Burden or a Gain?

Thierry Bréchet et al. — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 01:23:18 PDT

That climate policies are costly is evident and therefore often creates major fears. But the alternative (no action) also has a cost. Mitigation costs and damages incurred depend on what the climate policies are; moreover, they are substitutes. This brings climate policies naturally in the realm of benefit-cost analysis. In this paper we illustrate the “direct” cost components of various policies, and then confront them with the benefits generated, that is, the damage cost avoided. However, the sheer benefit-cost criterion is not a sufficient incentive to induce cooperation among countries, a necessary condition for an effective global climate policy. Thus, we also explore how to use this criterion in the context of international climate cooperation.

Flexibility for Germany's Energy Transition

Sönke Häseler — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 06:16:53 PDT

To continue balancing supply and demand for power is a major challenge on Germany’s path to producing 80% of its electricity from renewable resources by 2050. Large-scale investment into a range of technologies will be required to provide the flexibility necessary for balancing. The literature raises a number of concerns as to whether existing markets can generate sufficient incentives for such investment.

This paper offers two sets of proposals to address those concerns. Priority should be given to measures that enable existing markets to generate stronger rewards for flexibility. We thus call for financial incentives for variable electricity tariffs to elicit flexibility from consumers and for investment subsidies instead of feed-in tariffs for more demand-oriented renewable power generation. If additional explicit incentives for flexibility are necessary, the paper makes some suggestions on implementing a unitary market for flexibility. We conclude that only the combination of price-based and quantity-based incentives promises the provision of sufficient flexibility at low cost.

The Impact of Immigration on Portuguese Intra-Industry Trade

Nuno Carlos Leitão — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 01:33:20 PDT

This paper investigates the relationship between intra-industry trade (IIT) and immigration flows using a gravity model for the period 2000-2010 between Portugal and European Union’s Member States (EU-27). The present study uses the methodology of Kandogan (2003) for separating IIT into its components horizontal (HIIT) and vertical intra-industry trade (VIIT). Using a panel data approach, our study find that immigration has a positive influence on Portuguese intra-industry trade. These results indicate that the immigration can reduce transaction costs between home and host country. We also consider in econometric model, the economic dimension which appears to exercise a positive effect on IIT. Our results confirm the hypothesis that there is a negative effect of transportation costs on trade.

Uranium and Nuclear Power: The Role of Exploration Information in Framing Public Policy

Charles F. Mason — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 01:28:47 PDT

As addressing climate change becomes a high priority it seems likely that there will be a surge in interest in deploying nuclear power. Other fuel bases are too dirty (coal), too expensive (oil, natural gas) or too speculative (solar, wind) to completely supply the energy needs of the global economy. To the extent that the global society does in fact choose to expand nuclear power there will be a need for additional production. That increase in demand for nuclear power will inevitably lead to an increase in demand for uranium. While some of the increased demand for uranium will be satisfied by expanding production from existing deposits, there will undoubtedly be pressure to find and develop new deposits, perhaps quite rapidly. Looking forward, it is important that policies be put in place that encourage an optimal allocation of future resources towards exploration. In particular, I argue there is a valid concern that privately optimal levels of industrial activity will fail to fully capture all potential social gains; these sub-optimal exploration levels are linked to a departure between the private and social values of exploration information.