Tactics of Sustainable Entrepreneurship: Ways of Operating in the Contested Terrain of Green Architecture

This study explores the various tactics sustainable entrepreneurs use to meet the challenges associated with creating social and environmental solutions. Although often theorized as market imperfections, in this study, opportunities are considered as situations that allow things to be done differently within social settings. This approach opens up for research into the everyday practice of sustainable entrepreneurship and how sustainable entrepreneurs strive to find new solutions to counteract ecological degradation. To develop this view, I analyze the different entrepreneurial tactics actors employ to advance green architecture in the Danish construction industry. Rather than place an analytic emphasis on the end result of sustainable entrepreneurship, I suggest that the processes of developing solutions aimed at generating simultaneous economic, social and environmental value might warrant greater attention.

Complete and competitive financial markets in a complex world

We investigate the possibility of completing financial markets in a model with no exogenous probability measure, with market imperfections and with an arbitrary sample space. We also consider whether such an extension may be possible in a competitive environment. Our conclusions highlight the economic role of complexity.

Job creation and investment in imperfect financial and labor markets

Purpose This paper aims to weigh the restrictions to job creation imposed by labor market imperfections with respect to financial market imperfections. The authors want to see which restriction is more severe, and thus assess which is more powerful in creating permanent employment if it were removed. Design/methodology/approach A structural estimation is performed. The policy rules of the dynamic programming model are integrated into a simulated maximum likelihood procedure by which the model parameters are recovered. Data come from the CBBE (Balance Sheet data from the Bank of Spain). Identification of key parameters comes mainly from the observation of debt variation and sluggish adjustment to permanent labor. Findings Long-run permanent employment increases up to 69% when financial constraints are removed, whereas permanent employment only increases up to 54% when employment protection or firing costs are eliminated. The main finding of this paper is that the long-run expansion of permanent employment is larger when financial imperfections are removed than when firing costs are removed, even when there are important wage increases that moderate these employment expansions. Social implications The removal of firing costs has been suggested by several economists as a result of the analysis of labor market imperfections. These policies, however, face the strong opposition of labor unions. This paper shows that the goals of permanent job creation can be accomplished without removing employment protection but by means of enhancing financial access to firms. Originality/value The connection between financial constraints and employment has been studied in recent years, motivated by the Great Recession. However, there is no assessment of how financial and labor market imperfections compare with each other to restrict permanent job creation. This comparison is crucial for policy analysis. This study is an attempt to fill out this gap in the economic literature. No previous research has attempted to perform this very important comparison.

Market Imperfections within the European Wheat Value Chain: The Case of France and the United Kingdom

The focus of this paper is on the analysis of market imperfections in the French and U.K. wheat value chains. We used mark-up and mark-down models and stochastic frontier analysis to estimate the degree of market imperfections in two completely different wheat-to-bread chains for two stages/sectors—milling and baking. Our results reveal some degree of market imperfections within the input and output markets for both the milling and baking sectors in France and the United Kingdom. However, the abuse of bargaining power is especially pronounced in the input market for the second stage of wheat processing, particularly in the French baking sector. However, we did not observe the expected positive association between the degree of market imperfections and company size except for a group of middle, large, and very large companies within the millers’ input market. Small companies indicate considerably high values of “Lerner”/Lerner indices, suggesting a benefit from other sources of competitive advantage (such as quality, niche markets, etc.).

Mobilizing private adaptation finance: lessons learned from the Green Climate Fund

The mobilization of effective private sector engagement is considered to be critical to address the adaptation challenge, but literature demonstrates that it has proven difficult. In the context of international climate finance, the focus has been on mobilizing private finance for adaptation and in addressing barriers that prevent investments from materializing. In contrast, this article identifies options to engage the private sector in adaptation beyond finance and focuses on market imperfections instead of barriers. This moves the focus away from simply mobilizing more private adaptation finance towards identifying market forces that innovate, engage, and direct investments towards adaptation. The Green Climate Fund (GCF) and its portfolio of 74 adaptation projects serve as a case study. Two of these projects are categorized as private sector projects and an additional nine mobilize private co-finance or non-financial private contributions. Beyond these two indicators, we demonstrate that an additional 60 projects engage the private sector in other ways, thus indicating the important broader role of the private sector in adaptation. Furthermore, our ordinal regression demonstrates that by addressing the market imperfections of positive externalities, imperfect financial markets, and incomplete and/or asymmetric information, all have a significant positive effect on private sector engagement in the GCF’s adaptation portfolio. Both findings indicate that there is a large potential for the GCF—and other climate finance providers—to increase private sector engagement in adaptation. It must be noted, however, that the mobilization of private sector engagement in adaptation is a means to an end, not an end in itself. The main aim should be to adapt society as a whole in an efficient manner, including the most vulnerable groups and people.

Correcting inequality of personal incomes before income taxes and transfers: theoretical underpinnings and competition policy options

Aim: The purpose of this paper is to bring together theory and policy of (personal) income distribution on the one hand and competition policy on the other hand. Design / research: The methods used in this paper cover a brief model set-up, followed by a numerical model-calibration. Thereafter, we present a model simulation and proceed to a Gini decomposition. Herewith, we are able to demonstrate how market imperfections translate into a higher concentration of personal incomes. Conclusions / findings: Our major finding is that only a rigorous competition policy is qualified to not only correct for market imperfections, but also to fight a greater inequality of personal incomes ex-ante. Originality / value of the article: This contribution provides – to our knowledge for the first time – a simultaneous explanation for stagnating, if not falling real wages and a deteriorating development of inequality of personal incomes, as measured by the Gini coefficient ex-ante. The US economy is a case study for this double observation, but many more developed economies may follow in the foreseeable future. Limitations of the research: The implication of the research is that long before government intervenes income distribution via taxes and transfers, competition policy should correct for market imperfections and thereby reduce the inequality of personal incomes. Unfortunately, to this point, we observe a lack of meaningful macroeconomic indicators for market imperfections and hence the possibility to conduct broad econometric studies in this area of investigation.

Teori Kewirausahaan Kewaspadaan: Eksploitasi Keseimbangan Penawaran dan Permintaan

Teori kewirausahaan kewaspadaan (the alertness theory of entrepreneurship) yang digagas oleh Israel M. Kirzner adalah upaya pengusaha menyeimbangkan penawaran dan permintaan dengan mendeteksi ketidaksempurnaan pasar (market imperfections) dan mengeksploitasinya. Ketidaksempurnaan pasar disebabkan oleh asimetri informasi (information asymmetry) dan rasionalitas yang terbatas (bounded rationality).

Licensing as a Central Structure of Technology Transfer Agreements. Joint Venture and Franchising Agreements

R&D is one of the most important sources of knowledge and economic growth worldwide, and technology transfer is the principal means to access this knowledge. Nevertheless, market imperfections, externalities, and abusive behaviors have been used by some jurisdictions to justify the enactment of regulations on different contractual categories frequently used to implement this transfer of technology.