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on Project, Program and Portfolio Management |
| By: | Larson, Donald F.; Dinar, Ariel; Frisbie, J. Aapris |
| Abstract: | Many experts believe that low-cost mitigation opportunities in agriculture are abundant and comparable in scale to those found in the energy sector. They are mostly located in developing countries and have to do with how land is used. By investing in projects under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), countries can tap these opportunities to meet their own Kyoto Protocol obligations. The CDM has been successful in financing some types of agricultural projects, including projects that capture methane or use agricultural by-products as an energy source. But agricultural land-use projects are scarce under the CDM. This represents a missed opportunity to promote sustainable rural development since land-use projects that sequester carbon in soils can help reverse declining soil fertility, a root cause of stagnant agricultural productivity. This paper reviews the process leading to current CDM implementation rules and describes how the rules, in combination with challenging features of land-use projects, raise transaction costs and lower demand for land-use credits. Procedures by which developed countries assess their own mitigation performance are discussed as a way of redressing current constraints on CDM investments. Nevertheless, even with improvements to the CDM, an under-investment in agricultural land-use projects is likely, since there are hurdles to capturing associated ancillary benefits privately. Alternative approaches outside the CDM are discussed, including those that build on recent decisions taken by governments in Copenhagen and Cancun. |
| Keywords: | Climate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases,Environmental Economics&Policies,Energy and Environment,Environment and Energy Efficiency,Banks&Banking Reform |
| Date: | 2011–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5621&r=ppm |
| By: | Jung , Taehyun (CIRCLE, Lund University); Walsh , John P. (CIRCLE, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | This study examines the factors affecting modes of commercializing patented inventions using a novel dataset based on a survey of U.S. inventors. We find that technological uncertainty and possessing complementary assets raise the propensity for internal commercialization. We find that R&D collaboration with firms in a horizontal relationship is likely to increase the propensity to license the invention. In addition, the paper shows that macro-level environment conditions that affect exchange conditions, such as technology familiarity, influence the effects of capabilities on governance choice. |
| Keywords: | transaction cost economics; knowledge-based view; collaboration ties; commercialization; innovation; patent |
| JEL: | O32 |
| Date: | 2011–04–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2011_003&r=ppm |
| By: | Laura Guillén (ESMT European School of Management and Technology); Konstantin Korotov (ESMT European School of Management and Technology) |
| Abstract: | In this article, we studied the affective and social normative motivation to lead (MTL) components among a sample of business executives with considerable leadership experience. We built on a solid stream of the leadership literature which suggested that leadership development processes are ingrained in identity processes. The paper presents two studies. In study 1, we examined the importance and psychological attachment individuals place on the leadership role (what is referred to as ‘leader-identity centrality’) and how it relates to their motivation to lead. The process of building a leader-identity has been described as an alignment process through which leadership skills and values become personally shared. In study 2, we seek to understand how self-role alignment, in terms of skills and values, relates to individuals’ MTL. Self-role alignment was conceptualized as the similarity to a previous leader and as self-role value congruence. Results showed that placing importance on the professional leader-identity had a positive impact on the MTL. The impact of the ‘leader-identity centrality’ was more important for people with low self-efficacy perceptions for the social-normative component. ‘Similarity with a previous leader’ related to the MTL and that relationship was found to be fully mediated by leadership self-efficacy perceptions. Values were found to have significant effects on the MTL. While individual and role values had a linear (additive) relationship in predicting SNMTL, they showed a more complex relationship with respect to the AffMTL component. Findings are discussed with reference to the MTL literature and practical implications are proposed. |
| Keywords: | motivation to lead, identity, self-role alignment, value congruence |
| Date: | 2011–04–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esm:wpaper:esmt-11-04&r=ppm |
| By: | Martin, Roman (CIRCLE, Lund University); Moodysson , Jerker (CIRCLE, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | This paper deals with knowledge flows and collaboration between firms in the regional innovation system of southern Sweden. It focuses on industries which draw on different types of knowledge bases. The aim is to analyse how the functional and spatial organisation of knowledge interdependencies among firms and other actors vary between different types of industries which are part of the same regional innovation system. We argue that knowledge sourcing and exchange in geographical proximity is especially important for industries that rely on a synthetic or symbolic knowledge base, since the interpretation of the knowledge they deal with tend to differ between places. This is less the case for industries drawing on an analytical knowledge base, which rely more on scientific knowledge that is codified, abstract and universal, and therefore less sensitive to geographical distance. Thus, geographic clustering of firms in analytical industries builds on other rationale than the need of proximity for knowledge sourcing and exchange. To analyse these assumptions empirically, we draw on data from three case studies of firm clusters in the region of southern Sweden: (1) the life science cluster represents an analytical (science) based industry, (2) the food cluster includes mainly synthetic (engineering) based industries, and (3) the moving media cluster is considered as symbolic (artistic) based. Knowledge sourcing and knowledge exchange in each of the cases are explored and compared using social network analysis in association with a dataset gathered through interviews with firm representatives. |
| Keywords: | knowledge bases; life science; food cluster; moving media; Sweden |
| JEL: | O32 |
| Date: | 2011–04–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2011_002&r=ppm |
| By: | Flavia Corneli (Bank of Italy); Emanuele Tarantino (University of Bologna) |
| Abstract: | The accumulation of large amount of sovereign reserves has fuelled an intense debate on the associated costs. In a world with liquidity crises and strategic default, we model a contracting game between international lenders and a country, which delivers the country's optimal portfolio choice and the cost of sovereign debt: at equilibrium, the sovereign allocates the borrowed resources to either liquid reserves or an illiquid and risky production project. We study how the opportunity cost of hoarding reserves is affected by the financial and technological characteristics of the economy. In line with recent empirical evidence, we find two important results: the cost of debt decreases in the level of reserves if the probability of liquidity shocks is high enough; however the cost of debt increases in reserves when the lenders anticipate that the country has an incentive to default after a liquidity shock. Indeed, we show that the country may choose to retain reserves instead of employing them to inject the liquidity needed to bring the production project to maturity. |
| Keywords: | sovereign debt, international reserves, liquidity shock, strategic default |
| JEL: | F34 F40 |
| Date: | 2011–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_797_11&r=ppm |