http://repub.eur.nl/res/concept/jel-Q5/ Recent publications classified by JEL Code Q5 en http://repub.eur.nl/static-eur/img/logo.png http://repub.eur.nl http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/40138/ 2013-05-22T00:00:00Z This is the specification for the Power Trading Agent Competition for 2013 (Power TAC 2013). Power TAC is a competitive simulation that models a “liberalized” retail electrical energy market, where competing business entities or “brokers” offer energy services to customers through tariff contracts, and must then serve those customers by trading in a wholesale market. Brokers are challenged to maximize their profits by buying and selling energy in the wholesale and retail markets, subject to fixed costs and constraints. Costs include fees for publication and withdrawal of tariffs, and distribution fees for transporting energy to their contracted customers. Costs are also incurred whenever there is an imbalance between a broker’s total contracted energy supply and demand within a given time slot. The simulation environment models a wholesale market, a regulated distribution utility, and a population of energy customers, situated in a real location on Earth during a specific period for which weather data is available. The wholesale market is a relatively simple call market, similar to many existing wholesale electric power markets, such as Nord Pool in Scandinavia or FERC markets in North America, but unlike the FERC markets we are modeling a single region, and therefore we do not model location-marginal pricing. Customer models include households and a variety of commercial and industrial entities, many of which have production capacity (such as solar panels or wind turbines) as well as electric vehicles. All have “real-time” metering to support allocation of their hourly supply and demand to their subscribed brokers, and all are approximate utility maximizers with respect to tariff selection, although the factors making up their utility functions may include aversion to change and complexity that can retard uptake of marginally better tariff offers. The distribution utility models the regulated natural monopoly that owns the regional distribution network, and is responsible for maintenance of its infrastructure and for real-time balancing of supply and demand. The balancing process is a market-based mechanism that uses economic incentives to encourage brokers to achieve balance within their portfolios of tariff subscribers and wholesale market positions, in the face of stochastic customer behaviors and weather-dependent renewable energy sources. The broker with the highest bank balance at the end of the simulation wins. Ketter, W. Collins, J. Reddy, P. Weerdt, M.M. de http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/38227/ 2013-01-08T00:00:00Z In this paper, the annual maximum daily rainfall data from 1961 to 2010 are modelled for 18 stations in Taiwan. We fit the rainfall data with stationary and non-stationary generalized extreme value distributions (GEV), and estimate their future behaviour based on the best fitting model. The non-stationary model means that the parameter of location of the GEV distribution is formulated as linear and quadratic functions of time to detect temporal trends in the maximum rainfall. Future behavior refers to the return level and the return period of the extreme rainfall. The 10, 20, 50 and 100-years return levels and their 95% confidence intervals of the return levels stationary models are provided. The return period is calculated based on the record-high (ranked 1st) extreme rainfall brought by the top 10 typhoons for each station in Taiwan. The estimates show that non-stationary model with increasing trend is suitable for the Kaohsiung, Hengchun, Taitung and Dawu stations. The Kaohsing and Hengchun stations have greater trends than the other two stations, showing that the positive trend extreme rainfall in the southern region is greater than in the eastern region of Taiwan. In addition, the Keelung, Anbu, Zhuzihu, Tamsui, Yilan, Taipei, Hsinchu, Taichung, Alishan, Yushan and Tainan stations are fitted well with the Gumbel distribution, while the Sun Moon Lake, Hualien and Chenggong stations are fitted well with the GEV distribution. Chu, L.F. McAleer, M.J. Chang, C-H. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/38228/ 2013-01-08T00:00:00Z This paper analyzes two indexes in order to capture the volatility inherent in El Niños Southern Oscillations (ENSO), develops the relationship between the strength of ENSO and greenhouse gas emissions, which increase as the economy grows, with carbon dioxide being the major greenhouse gas, and examines how these gases affect the frequency and strength of El Niño on the global economy. The empirical results show that both the ARMA(1,1)-GARCH(1,1) and ARMA(3,2)-GJR(1,1) models are suitable for modelling ENSO volatility accurately, and that 1998 is a turning point, which indicates that the ENSO strength has increased since 1998. Moreover, the increasing ENSO strength is due to the increase in greenhouse gas emissions. The ENSO strengths for Sea Surface Temperature (SST) are predicted for the year 2030 to increase from 29.62% to 81.5% if global CO2 emissions increase by 40% to 110%, respectively. This indicates that we will be faced with even stronger El Nino or La Nina effects in the future if global greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase unabated. Chu, L.F. McAleer, M.J. Chen, C.-C. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/38224/ 2012-12-31T00:00:00Z This paper has two primary purposes. First, we fit the annual maximum daily rainfall data for 6 rainfall stations, both with stationary and non-stationary generalized extreme value (GEV) distributions for the periods 1911-2010 and 1960-2010 in Taiwan, and detect the changes between the two phases for extreme rainfall. The non-stationary model means that the location parameter in the GEV distribution is a linear function of time to detect temporal trends in maximum rainfall. Second, we compute the future behavior of stationary models for the return levels of 10, 20, 50 and 100-years based on the period 1960-2010. In addition, the 95% confidence intervals of the return levels are provided. This is the first investigation to use generalized extreme value distributions to model extreme rainfall in Taiwan. Chu, L.F. McAleer, M.J. Wang, S-H. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/26892/ 2011-11-17T00:00:00Z We study the role of information systems in enabling closed-loop supply chains. Past research in green IS and closed-loop supply chains has shown that it can result in substantial cost savings and waste reduction. We complement this research by showing that the effects are more than that: using information systems can also create business value for a firm in closed-loop supply chains. We make a novel distinction between four types of value: sourcing value, environmental value, customer value and informational value. Particularly the last two types have not been recognized in past research. We then analyze 8 cases (2 for each of the 4 value types) to highlight the role that information systems play in enabling this value creation and find three key results. First, we find that IS is an essential enabler for all four value types. Second, while sourcing value and to some extent environmental value, can be created with IS that are internal to the firm, the novel types of value (customer value and informational value) can only be created with information systems that are extraorganizational, i.e. aimed at customers and supply chain partners. Third, the value created by extraorganizational systems can only be created if the appropriate intraorganizational systems are in place. Overall, our results show that substantial value can be gained from implementing green IS in closed-loop supply chains, but that collaboration between all stakeholders in the supply chain is necessary in order to reap the full value. Koppius, O.R. Ozdemir, O. Laan, E.A. van der http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/23798/ 2011-07-04T00:00:00Z In the framework of a multiplicative decomposition Ang et al. (2004) proposed to use in index decomposition analysis (IDA) a generalized Fisher approach. They based their formulae for the decomposition of an aggregate change in a variable in three or four factors on the generic formula that Shapley (1953) derived for his value of n-person games and mention that Siegel (1945) gave their formulae using a different route. De Boer (2009a) proved that input-output structural decomposition analysis (SDA) is equivalent to the generalized Fisher approach for the decompositions in two, three and four factors. Using Siegel’s formula, he provided tables from which the decomposition of an aggregate change in a variable in five or six factors can easily be derived. In this paper we give the complicated generic formulae of Siegel and of Shapley and show how to implement them in case of four factors. The formulae are used to derive the tables for decompositions in seven and eight factors. Boer, P.M.C. de http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/23264/ 2011-05-01T00:00:00Z This paper studies the impact of cross-border Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As) on Carbon Dioxide emissions. Carbon Dioxide is the main anthropogenic greenhouse gas. A global problem that requires a multilateral solution. To take this into account we introduce an institutional variable, which captures the degree of international commitment to decrease and control the degradation of the environment. We test three hypotheses and find: (i) Asymmetry: the development level of the target country determines the direction of the effect of M&As on CO2 emissions; (ii) Sector-specific impact: pollution intensive sectors have an impact on CO2 emissions, whereas other sectors do not; (iii) Multilateralism: multilateral agreements are important to reduce CO2 emissions. Swart, J. Marrewijk, J.G.M. van http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/34807/ 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z It has often been argued that oil, gas and minerals may have a negative impact on development as measured by income per capita. This does not say much about sustainability, which is critical for developing countries whose economic growth derives primarily from the exploitation of exhaustible resources. Carbonnier, G. Wagner, N. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/16302/ 2009-06-01T00:00:00Z We combine the resource curse literature with the literature on cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) to investigate two hypotheses, namely (i) countries with a comparative advantage in natural resources attract more M&As in natural resource intensive sectors and (ii) countries with a high natural resource dependency attract fewer M&As in other sectors. Using the Thomson dataset we test these hypotheses for a sample of 49 African and Latin American countries in the period 1988 - 2007. Both hypotheses were confirmed by our findings. Thus, resource dependency has a “crowding out” effect on M&As in sectors not intensive in natural resources, and a comparative advantage in natural resources has a “crowding in” effect on M&As in sectors intensive in natural resources. Swart, J. Marrewijk, J.G.M. van http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/15912/ 2009-05-11T00:00:00Z Remanufacturing has long been perceived as an environmentally-friendly initiative. The question of how remanufacturing moderates the relation between environmental impact and economic returns is still unanswered, however. In this paper, we focus our attention on the electronics industry. In particular, we take a close look at remanufacturing within the mobile and personal computers industries. We analyze whether remanufacturing for such products substantially mitigates the energy used in the life-cycle of these products, or whether as in most electrical equipments, it can only marginally contribute to such reduction. Using both process-based and economic input-output data, we show that remanufacturing significantly reduces total energy consumption. Furthermore, we test the ubiquitous hypothesis that the market of remanufactured products is composed by products that have been downgraded and are therefore sold for prices below the average price of the new equipments. Using data from 9,900 real transactions obtained from eBay, we show that this assumption is true for personal computers, but not for mobiles. More importantly, despite the fact that remanufactured products may suffer downgrading, and that consumers therefore command a high discount for them, the economic output per energy unit used is still higher for remanufactured products. We thus conclude that remanufacturing for these two products is not only environmentally friendly, but also eco-efficient. Quariguasi Frota Neto, J. Bloemhof-Ruwaard, J.M. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14785/ 2008-12-04T00:00:00Z Hundreds of millions of electrical and electronic appliances are manufactured every year. Furthermore, it is expected that this number will not substantially decrease in the near future. These equipments have a significant impact on the environment, and ceteris paribus, such environmental impact increases with the number of appliances manufactured. Consumers, NGOs and Governments have acknowledged the potential threat posed by these electrical and electronic products. They have systematically demanded companies to reduce the environmental impact caused be their products and services. Companies have responded to these pressures and have engaged in a number of environmentally friendly initiatives. This thesis is motivated by the task of reducing the environmental impact caused by the myriad of electrical and electronic products that make our lives more conformable and enjoyable. More specifically, it addresses the challenge of efficiently and effectively mitigating such impacts. We show that companies will need a mixture of strategies to respond to this challenge. Furthermore, we show that these strategies must consider environmental, technical and marketing aspects of the business of electrical and electronic products. These three aspects need to be considered systemically, and the solutions will vary greatly according to the companies, the products they manufacture, and the ways in which their supply chains are organized. Quariguasi Frota Neto, J. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/13211/ 2008-08-21T00:00:00Z We study the disposition decision for product returns in a closed-loop supply chain. Motivated by the asset recovery process at IBM, we consider two disposition alternatives. Returns may be either refurbished for reselling or dismantled for spare parts. Reselling a refurbished unit typically yields higher unit margins. However, demand is uncertain. A common policy in many firms is to rank disposition alternatives by unit margins. We show that a revenue management approach to the disposition decision which explicitly incorporates demand uncertainty can increase profits significantly. We discuss analogies between the disposition problem and the classical airline revenue management problem. We then develop single period and multi-period stochastic optimization models for the disposition problem. Analyzing these models, we show that the optimal allocation balances expected marginal profits across the disposition alternatives. A detailed numerical study reveals that a revenue management approach to the disposition problem significantly outperforms the current practice of focusing exclusively on high-margin options, and we identify conditions under which this improvement is the highest. We also show that the value recovered from the returned products critically depends on the coordination between forward and reverse supply chain decisions. Ferguson, M. Fleischmann, M. Souza, G.C. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/10771/ 2007-12-07T00:00:00Z Environmental issues, while of growing interest, have been outside the main focus of business scholarship. This position on the periphery may have been a good thing. It allowed scholars of business and the environment to consider unusual theories and evaluate overlooked phenomenon. In doing so, they created a body of research that provides new insights on two topics of mainstream interest -- the sources of competitive advantage and the origin and function of self-regulatory institutions. Berchicci, L. King, A.A. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/10218/ 2007-05-15T00:00:00Z This survey reviews the empirical literature on the impact of environmental policy instruments on the rate and direction of technological change. The survey is explicitly focused on the empirical identification of the hypothesis to expect a stronger impact from market-based incentives than from non-market alternatives. The general picture emerging from the recent literature is that there is a clear impact of environmental policy on invention, innovation and diffusion of technologies. Although studies on a differential impact are still very scarce, the available evidence suggests that innovators look carefully for rent opportunities, which in turn depend on the specific incentives signalled by the type of (environmental) policy. Vollebergh, H.R.J. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/8582/ 2007-01-25T00:00:00Z The differences in the way climate change mitigation projects are facilitated under the Kyoto Protocol as compared to the financial mechanism of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) demonstrate institutional change processes that evolved from global climate change negotiations. Institutional change happens when new practices become accepted and interactions between organizations carry new meanings. Models of the two policy options are presented in this paper depicting organizational interactions to demonstrate the evolution of rule-setting in this arena. A discussion of power implications is provided with the conclusion that countries of the North as well as business corporations have increased their influence in the institutional framework of international climate change mitigation. Institutional theory needs to be further developed to be able to explain the dynamic changes that led to this shift in power potential. Wittneben, B.B.F. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/8987/ 2006-10-20T00:00:00Z Recent literature on sustainable logistics networks points to two important questions: (i) How to spot the preferred solution(s) balancing environmental and business concerns? (ii) How to improve the understanding of the trade-offs between these two dimensions? We posit that a complete exploration of the efficient frontier and trade-offs between profitability and environmental impacts are particularly suitable to answer these two questions. In order to deal with the exponential number of basic efficient points in the frontier, we propose a formulation that performs in exponential time for the number of objective functions only. We illustrate our findings by designing a complex recycling logistics network in Germany. Quariguasi Frota Neto, J. Walther, G. Bloemhof-Ruwaard, J.M. Nunen, J.A.E.E. van Spengler, T. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/8216/ 2006-05-11T00:00:00Z Bert de Groot is Rector Magnificus and Dean of Nyenrode Business Universiteit. He is a former member of the Randstad Holding N.V Board of Directors. De Groot has held numerous leading positions on a national and international level in sectors ranging from telecommunications to the pharmaceutical industry and from life sciences to the computer sector. In addition to his position at Randstad (staffing services) he was associated with the Royal Dutch Navy, biotech and pharmaceutical company Gist Brocades N.V, Unisys Inc. (information management and computer industry), telecom multinational KPN, Boer & Croon (executive management), Pharming N.V. (life sciences), AM NV (project development), the Faculty of Economic Sciences at the Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam and the Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam Holding B.V. (commercial research). De Groot gained extensive experience in corporate recovery (at Pharming and others) and corporate delisting (at AM). He holds various supervisory board memberships. Bert de Groot studied econometrics at the Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam (EUR) and has followed management programs at IMD (previously IMI), Nyenrode, Wharton and INSEAD. De Groot was awarded his PhD by the EUR for his thesis ‘Essays on Economic Cycles’ and is member of the Econometric Institute of the Faculty of Economic Sciences at the EUR. He has a number of publications on economic cycles to his name and makes short- and long-term predictions for Randstad and the Dutch economy in general. At Nyenrode, Bert de Groot holds the chair in ‘Business and Economic Cycles’. The Research focuses on the development of the international economy and individual companies and the cyclical development that can be observed. This is done from an economic and business perspective and from a technological, institutional, social-societal and ecological perspective. Key research issues include how cyclical developments are influenced by innovation, and the decisions and actions of business leaders, entrepreneurs, managers, governments and non-governmental organizations. Insights in future developments are used to enhance scenario analysis. Bert de Groot is a member of the Nyenrode Research Group and a member of the Econometric Institute at the EUR. Groot, E.A. de http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6989/ 2005-10-14T00:00:00Z Diffusion of mobile communication has induced great societal changes in China. Factors at global market, communications industry and end-user market levels are driving the adoption at a high rate. Firstly, China’s economic emergence together with e.g. accession to WTO has led to foreign investment increase in telecom and communications industry. Secondly, a parallel deregulation and reengineering of the telecom industry ensured an introduction of competition in the domestic terminals market and facilitated manufacturing in China. Finally, overall growth in China has increased purchasing power enabling consumers to adopt new technologies. At the market level, challenges and future growth depends on a favorable business environment both for local and multinationals organizations, operators and service providers, and most importantly to the distribution channels (retailers and resellers). Market mechanisms such as improvement in payment methods, regulations for content providers, branded and low-end mobile phones marketing, applications and support in Chinese language are required for a systematic and not just sporadic adoption of mobile devices. Product development and innovation, improvement in distribution infrastructure, mobile services operators skill enhancement are some measures that can growth of mobile communication and increase in average consumer spending. Sangwan, S. Pau, L-F. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/7007/ 2005-10-11T00:00:00Z Using a general equilibrium model with heterogeneous waste, this paper studies optimal waste policy when households have to exert separation effort to produce near-homogeneous waste streams suitable for recycling. Our model explicitly allows for changes in the composition (quality) of waste streams depending on how much effort households are willing to spend on separating different types of waste. Accordingly, we are able to generalize some earlier contributions to the waste management literature and demonstrate that with both mixing and effort included, a first-best optimum is feasible under reasonable conditions. In particular, we find that a (modified) deposit-refund system still provides the optimal incentives to guide recycling as well as legal disposal (landfilling) and illegal dumping. Both the number and level of taxes and subsidies needed to reach the first-best depend crucially on the socially optimal level of dumping as well as the socially optimal composition of the mix. Aalbers, R.F.T. Teulings, C.N. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/160/ 2002-01-29T00:00:00Z The literature on transaction costs concentrates on established firms in established markets, while the literature on industrial ecology concentrates on new firms in given markets. It is contested in the following that the picture looks differently if the analysis concentrates on establishing new firms in new markets, such as e-commerce or the new private sector in the formerly socialist economies. A new market is defined by high uncertainty. First, the general knowledge of expertise in a society is low, so that young entrepreneurs find it hard, and costly, to acquire the necessary know-how. Second, institutions, might these be the law, business practices, or intermediaries, are poor and underdeveloped. It will be argued that in China therefore entrepreneurship depends crucially on the ability to establish firms, i.e. to find organisational forms for business ventures that facilitate long-term business relations within and around a firm, that is to say, individual entrepreneurship depends on mechanisms for co-ordinating individual or organisational behaviour of firms. These mechanisms were lacking under socialist planning. The legacy of the planned economy was an environment of weak economic institutions in which state-socialist institutions uneasily coexisted with market institutions, and newness of private exchange added to uncertainty. In this environment, economic actors depended on collective action to create their own institutions, driven by the need to agree on rules of conduct in business relations and on sanctions against violation of these rules. The study will concentrate on two essential components of (private) entrepreneurship. One is the search for organisational forms conforming to the situational constraints; the other is the formation of business practices that enable individual entrepreneurship to become a viable and sustainable course of action. In other words, we will attempt to show how the transaction cost advantage of organisational forms and co-ordination mechanisms can compensate entrepreneurs for the disadvantage they face with respect to the lack of clearly defined property rights. Based on extensive fieldwork in two provinces where 100 firms were interviewed the study can show that 1. as predicted by approaches in industrial ecology both experimentation and selection were crucial in shaping the new private business sector; 2. on the individual level the performance-orientation of Chinese culture allowed entrepreneurs to combine rational decision making with tradition. Both factors can explain why for example the family in China but not in Chinese overseas communities is no longer the natural base for private firms, why networks are assessed by their expected performance, or why Chinese firm do not care about building up a core business. 1 Krug, B. Hendrischke, H.