Search results for "Externality"

Returns to scale in a matching model: evidence from disaggregated panel data

2005

The returns to scale in the matching function play an important role in models with endogenous search effort. Due to positive externalities, increasing returns to scale in matching can support high or low activity equilibrium in the labour market. In this study, we examine this issue using panel data from Finnish employment offices. The study finds that the results from the Cobb–Douglas and translog specification are qualitatively different. The CD specification of the matching function exhibits constant returns to scale. The translog specification, in turn, exhibits increasing returns to scale. The elasticity estimate for returns, using the preferred specification and minimum and maximum s…

Prices and Pareto optima

2006

We provide necessary conditions for Pareto optimum in economies where tastes or technologies may be nonconvex, nonsmooth, and affected by externalities. Firms can pursue own objectives, much like the consumers. Infinite-dimensional commodity spaces are accommodated. Public goods and material balances are accounted for as special instances of linear restrictions.

Feasibility studies for water reuse projects: an economical approach

2006

Usually the methodologies used to analyse the feasibility of water reuse projects are focused on the internal costs. The aim of this paper is to show a methodology to assess the feasibility of a water reuse project taking into account not just the internal impact, but also the external impact (environmental and social, for example) and the opportunity cost derived from the project. Internal benefit is obtained from the difference between internal income and internal costs. Internal income is obtained by multiplying the selling price of reclaimed water and the volume obtained. Internal costs are made up of the sum of investment costs, operating costs, financial costs and taxes. While some of…

Productive Efficiency and Territorial Externalities in Small and Medium-Sized Industrial Firms: A Dynamic Analysis of the District Effect

2012

A series of works have analysed differential behaviour in terms of productive efficiency between companies inside a hypothetical industrial district and those outside the district. This objective has been addressed using measures of technical efficiency. The results obtained provide valuable information for quantifying the district effect at a given moment in time. However, constant changes in the market and business behaviour mean that it is worthwhile studying the business district effect from a dynamic point of view. In this study, we provide this new vision through the use of Malmquist productivity indices. This methodology enables us to analyse possible differential evolutions by compa…

Misure di agglomerazione spaziale nei Sistemi Locali del Lavoro siciliani

2009

Spatial agglomeration indicators in the Sicilian Local Labour Systems Objectives - This paper examines the links among productive specialization, variety of the economic environment and knowledge spillovers on the basis of the territorial analyses present in the current literature. With the aim of identifying localization benefits in a particular area, some aspects of business settling are compared with trends in the development of economic activities and, particularly, with agglomeration process of the firms. Methods and Results The empirical analysis will be carried out pointing to the dynamics of employment consequent to the effects of the externalities above mentioned. Employment data a…

Valuing the unmarketable: an ecological approach to the externalities estimate in fishing activities

2013

In a rapidly changing world, sustainability, if it can be said to exist at all, is concept that has attained mythic status, often pursued and rarely reached. In order to improve our capability to cope with environmental problems, adopting an Ecosystem Approach has been suggested. One of the major challenges in the implementation of this new paradigm relates to control of externalities. The recognition and quantification of externalities is often cast as valuing the unmarketable, and there are several approaches that have been proposed. Here, we analyze the opportunity to “feed” the economic valuation with ecological concepts. From an ecological perspective, the energy required to sustain a …

From IRAP to SSnWFT (a heretical idea to fix precariat)

2018

The paper – after addressing the issue of flexicurity as a lens through which to see precariousness, after identifying the sources at ILO, EU and constitutional level as foundation of `incompressibility' of rights which guarantee decent work against lacking of security in precariousness – proposes to consider the lacking of security produced by precariat as a degree of participation of flexibility for firms as `social pollution' i.e. as generator of negative externalities. One proposes a fully change of paradigm to fight and to tackle the lacking in security at precariat level with a solution in terms of internalisation of externalities (i.e social costs); - rather then affecting precarious…

Impact of external costs of unplanned supply interruptions on water company efficiency: Evidence from Chile

2020

Abstract Conventional performance assessments of water companies ignore the external costs due to water supply outages. To overcome this gap, we evaluate the impact of external costs of unplanned supply interruptions on the efficiency of water companies. Two efficiency metrics, internal technical efficiency (ITE), and total technical efficiency (TTE), were estimated based on data envelopment analysis (DEA). The results evidence that the external costs of unplanned water supply interruptions impact, on average, 7.9% of the efficiency of water companies. We also explored the impact of a set of environmental variables on water company efficiency.

Productivity, R&D Spillovers and Educational Attainment*

2012

Economists have long agreed that the local availability of a more qualified workforce generates significant spillovers. This study suggests that these externalities may arise because plants by having access to a more qualified workforce at a regional level, can benefit more from R&D spillovers than those located in areas with less qualified workforce. This hypothesis is tested on a sample of British establishments drawn from the Annual Business Inquiry over the period 1997–2002. The main results are consistent with our expectations that the regional differences in the industry-level educational attainment of the workforce available to a plant will condition its capability of absorbing R&D s…

2016

Climate change is a major challenge for sustainable development, impacting human health, wellbeing, security, and livelihoods. While the post-2015 development agenda sets out action on climate change as one of the Sustainable Development Goals, there is little provision on how this can be achieved in tandem with the desired economic progress and the required improvements in health and wellbeing. This paper examines synergies and tensions between the goals addressing climate change and economic progress. We identify reductionist approaches in economics, such as ‘externalities’, reliance on the metric of the Gross Domestic Product, positive discount rates, and short-term profit targets as som…