New Economics Papers
on Resource Economics
Issue of 2005‒06‒05
two papers chosen by



  1. Environmental Innovations: Institutional Impacts on Co-operations for Sustainable Development By Helmut Karl; Antje Möller; Ximena Matus; Edgar Grande; Robert Kaiser
  2. Criteria for Assessing Sustainable Development: Theoretical Issues and Empirical Evidence for the Case of Greece By Anastasios Xepapadeas; Dimitra Vouvaki

  1. By: Helmut Karl (Ruhr-University Bochum); Antje Möller (Ruhr-University Bochum); Ximena Matus (Ruhr-University Bochum); Edgar Grande (Technical University of Munich); Robert Kaiser (Technical University of Munich)
    Abstract: A suitable strategy for achieving sustainable development is to foster environmental innovations. Environmental innovations, however, suffer from so-called "double externalities", because apart from innovation spillovers they also improve the quality of public environmental goods, which can be used without cost by free riders. Those innovation spillovers can be avoided through co-operation. Furthermore co-operations can be considered as advantageous because environmental innovations often depend on interaction in research and development, production, selling and disposal. This paper analyzes as to what extent institutional factors impact co-operative arrangements of innovative organizations in the development of new environmental technologies. It applies a multi-dimensional institutional analysis focusing not only on institutional arrangements which exist among organizations but also on opportunities and constraints provided by the institutional environment in which these organizations are embedded. Expanding the existing research we will conclude what kind of policy measure may support the success within networks of environmental oriented innovators.
    Keywords: Environmental innovation, Co-operation, Sustainability, Institutional analysis, Policy measures
    JEL: L14 O31 Q55 Q58
    Date: 2005–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2005.58&r=res
  2. By: Anastasios Xepapadeas (University of Crete); Dimitra Vouvaki (University of Crete)
    Abstract: We formulate two kinds of sustainability criteria by using feedback and arbitrary rules for selecting policy variables in non optimizing economies. We show that when policy variables are selected arbitrarily their accounting prices could determine sustainability in addition to the accounting prices of the economy’s assets. We use our theoretical framework to obtain estimates of sustainability conditions in real economies. Thus, the paper’s contribution consists in developing a systematic theoretical framework for determining value functions, accounting prices and sustainability criteria, under fairly general non-optimizing behavioral rules, and then showing that this framework can be used in applied work to estimate sustainability conditions. Based on our theoretical model, we examined the case of the Greek economy. When there is no binding environmental policy then migration rate, growth of capital per worker and exogenous technical change are strong positive factors for sustainability. When we introduce potential environmental damages due to sulphur dioxide (SO2) emissions, our findings indicate that these damages affect negatively the sustainability criterion.
    Keywords: Sustainability criteria, Non-declining social welfare, Accounting prices, Non optimizing economy, Feedback rule, Arbitrary rule
    JEL: Q01 O13
    Date: 2005–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2005.59&r=res

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