Search results for "consumption"
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Frank H. Knight on social values in economic consumption: an archival note
2020
We reproduce an unpublished address on “Social Values in Economic Consumption” which Knight prepared for a SSRC Conference in June 1931. This material sheds new light on Knight in two respects. First, anticipating what is known as the relative income hypothesis, Knight indicated that a general increase in income, not only leaves the individual’s relative position in society unaltered but makes her/his situation worse off due to the peculiar characteristics of the market for “personal services.” Second, this address provides further evidence of how, in spite of some substantial methodological differences, Knight’s research interests converged with those of the institutionalists.
Frank H. Knight on Social Values in Economic Consumption. An Archival Note
2020
This note reproduces an unpublished paper on "Social Values in Economic Consumption" which Knight prepared for the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) Summer Conference, on Nantucket, Massachusetts in June 1931. This paper sheds new light on Knight in two important respects. First, it presents, in a more systematic fashion, Knight’s criticism of what he perceived to be the then standard theory of consumption. Specifically, Knight argued that an individual's consumption is dictated more by his income in relation to others than by mere utility maximization — a notion now commonly known as relative income hypothesis. In this connection, Knight also pointed out that a general increase in inc…
Forecasting Electricity Consumption and Production in Smart Homes through Statistical Methods
2022
Abstract Over the last years, a steady increase in both domestic electricity consumption and in the adoption of personal clean energy production systems has been observed worldwide. By analyzing energy consumption and production on photovoltaic panels mounted in a house, this work focuses on finding patterns in electrical energy consumption and devising a predictive model. Our goal is to find an accurate method to predict electrical energy consumption and production. Being able to anticipate how consumers will use energy in the near future, homeowners, companies and governments may optimize their behavior and the import and export of electricity. We evaluated the ARIMA and TBATS statistical…
Towards the Post-Carbon Society: Searching for Signs of the Transition and Identifying Obstacles
2016
The transition to a post-carbon society, in which the consumption of fossil fuels falls over time, is determined by the need to prevent catastrophic climate change, the increasing cost of energy and complex combinations of both these causes. The transition will not only entail political adjustments and the replacement of some technologies by others, but will be accompanied by social and cultural changes that bring about substantial modifications in the organization of our societies and our ways of life. Based on the situation in Spain, this article analyses whether the current conditions, which date back to the crisis that began in 2007, favour a benign and smooth transition, or, on the con…
Tourists’ motivation toward culinary destination choice: targeting Italian tourists
2021
Over the last years, social and environmental issues have played an increasingly important role both for tourists’ destination choice and for the consumption of agri-food products. However, in the literature on culinary tourists’ behavior, it is not clear whether sustainability issues also affect the configuration of specific culinary tourists’ targets. This study tries to bridge this gap by carrying out a segmentation of culinary tourists in Italy, a country known worldwide for its culinary specialties. In particular, this study aims to understand whether the growing tourists’ sensitivity toward environmental and social aspects shapes specific targets of culinary tourists. The results show…
Assessment of ecosystem integrity and service gradients across Europe using the LTER Europe network
2015
Better integration of knowledge from ecological, social and economic science is necessary to advance the understanding and modelling of socio-ecological systems. To model ecosystem integrity (EI) and ecosystem services (ES) at the landscape scale, assessment matrices are commonly used. These matrices assign capacities to provide different services to different land cover types. We revised such an existing matrix and examined the regional heterogeneity in EI and ES provision in Europe and searched for spatial gradients in their provision to elucidate their suitability for large-scale EI and ES mapping in Europe. Overall, 28 sites belonging to the Long-Term Ecological Research network in Euro…
FACTORS THAT MOTIVATE LATVIAN CONSUMERS TO PURCHASE PRODUCTS AND SERVICES FROM SOCIAL ENTERPRISES IN LATVIA: THE CASE OF SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE CONSUMP…
2019
The purpose of the study is to -determine the relative importance of various factors that motivate Latvian consumers to purchase products and services from social enterprises in order to provide practical suggestions and recommendations for Latvian social enterprises that would allow them to improve their performance. The primary method used by the study is quantitative research by the means of an online survey of Latvian consumers of social enterprise products /services. The results of the research indicate that Latvian consumers find the product / service quality aspects, as well as aspects of social responsibility and convenience of the shopping location, on average, as most motivating t…
Sustainable production and consumption in remote working conditions due to COVID-19 lockdown in Italy: An environmental and user acceptance investiga…
2021
Abstract In response to the disruptive changes brought upon our society by the COVID-19 pandemic, most work activities and service providers had to resort to remote working. This is credited to reduce emissions for transportation, however the role of forced confinement within dwellings, especially if not designed for hosting working stations, deserves to be properly evaluated in terms of both user acceptance and long-term environmental impact. In this work, a dedicated survey campaign is used for investigating the potential pros and cons of remote working. In more detail, logistic regression and generalized linear models are used for capturing the effect of several independent variables on …
Effects of the Italian financial crisis on the photovoltaic dissemination in a southern city
2013
Abstract The aim of this paper is to estimate how the profitability of grid-connected PV (photovoltaic) systems may vary month by month due to the changes in all parameters involved in the economic evaluation (discount rate, PV electricity selling price, inflation rate, price of PV devices etc.). The effects of these variations were investigated for a district of a city in the South Italy (Palermo). The results of the analysis provided the trend of the actual coverage of the district power demand from June 2010 to August 2012. In particular the load match index, which considers the daily energy demand covered by PV systems, ranged from almost 30% to less than 12%, which is less than the val…
Climate change and the building sector: Modelling and energy implications to an office building in southern Europe
2018
Abstract The building sector is one of the most relevant sectors in terms of generation of wealth and occupation, but it is also one of the main contributor to energy use and greenhouse gas emissions (e.g. at the European level it is currently responsible for 36% of CO2 emissions). For these reason this sector must play a key role in achieving a low-carbon economy consistent with the objective of holding the increase of the average temperature of the globe below 2 °C if compared to pre-industrial levels. In this context, the paper analyses the potential impact of climate change on the energy uses for heating and cooling in southern Europe, based on the assumptions of the latest Intergovernm…