US Experience with Emissions Trading

Emissionshandel, Vereinigte Staaten, Emissions trading, United States

Sources of Emission Reductions: Evidence for US SO2 Emissions 1985-2002

An enduring issue in environmental regulation is whether to clean up existing "old" plants or in some manner to bring in new "clean" plants to replace the old. In this paper, a unit-level data base of emissions by nearly 2000 electric generating units from 1985 through 2002 is used to analyze the contribution of these two factors in accomplishing the significant reduction of sulfur dioxide emissions from these sources in the United States. The effect on SO2 emissions of the new natural-gas-fired, combined-cycle capacity that has been introduced since 1998 is also examined. The results indicate that cleaning up the old plants has made by far the greater contribution to reducing SO2 emissions, and that this contribution has been especially large since the introduction of the SO2 cap-and-trade program in 1995

The Temporal Efficiency of SO2 Emissions Trading

The Temporal Efficiency of SO2 Emissions Tradin

Assessing the state of the spin-out sector in England

The provision of public services in England has received large amounts of policy attention over the last three decades. During this time there have been numerous and far-reaching reforms to the public sector in England, which have resulted in less direct provision of public services by Local Authorities and an increased ‘marketisation’ of the public sector (Hall et al., 2012b; Simmons, 2008). This marketisation of public services has been led by a desire to create more cost-efficient services that are also responsive to service user’s needs. This reform is being driven by central government, which is using funding reforms and legislation to create greater public choice in the services that they use and the providers that they ‘buy’ these services from. In doing so, the government have encouraged the transfer of Local Authority staff into new provider and employee-owned mutual organisations (also known as ‘spin-outs’). ‘Public service mutuals’ have been defined as ‘…organisations which have left the public sector i.e. spun out, but continue to deliver public services and in which employee control plays a significant role in their operation’ (LeGrand and Mutuals Taskforce, 2012:9). Prior research exploring the spin-out sector has identified that policy initiatives such as ‘Right to Request’, ‘Right to Provide’ and ‘Mutual Pathfinders’ are having an impact and increasing the number of spin-outs from the public sector (Miller et al., 2012a; Cabinet Office, 2011). Spin-outs are seen as enabling services to be made more efficient and responsive to user’s needs, whilst at the same time reducing public expenditure (Addicott, 2011; Hall et al., 2012b; Alcock et al., 2012). However, much of the prior research on spin-outs is sector focused (i.e. exploring health and social care spin-outs only), whilst the spin-out sector in England is heterogeneous and includes leisure trusts, housing associations and employment services. There remains a limited amount of academic research that approaches the sector as a whole and that seeks to uncover common barriers to spinning-out and the challenges facing new and existing spin-outs. This research undertook a review of secondary literature in order to identify potential spin-outs and then invited the 210 organisations identified to participate in an online survey (of which 59 have responded to date). The online survey explored organisational demographics, the policy process adopted in spinning-out, the perceptions of future challenges and the ‘fit’ of commissioning frameworks. The results revealed that the spin-out sector is experiencing growth and that government policy initiatives are having partial success in promoting spin-outs. The research also revealed that the most significant challenge facing spin-outs in the future is related to access to finance and ‘payment by results’ contracting. Finally, the data also suggests that the greatest growth is experienced by those spin-outs that trade directly with consumers and that receive repayable investmen

Investigating the outcome performance of work-integration social enterprises (WISEs): do WISEs offer ‘added value’ to NEETs?

This study takes a comparative approach to study the ‘outcome’ performance of a WISE and a ‘for-profit’ work-integration organisation that both provided employment enhancement programmes to NEETs. Participants at both organisations completed general self-efficacy questionnaires before and after engagement on the programmes. Additionally, semi-structured interviews and focus groups were held with the owners and staff at both organisations. Results revealed no significant difference between the ‘outcome’ performance of the WISE and for-profit organisation. However, analysis of the organisational aims, values and structures suggests that the ‘added value’ offered by the WISE came from the different induction policy that it operate

Investigating an ‘institutional partnership’ collaborating to develop a funded project into a sustainable work-integration social enterprise (WISE)

This paper reports a research study that examined a partnership between a regional social enterprise development agency and a university as they collaborated to develop a work-integration social enterprise (WISE) in the UK. Participants were members of the board of directors, steering group and the programme delivery and administration staff. The research elicited participant perceptions of the development of the partnership and the WISE over a period of eighteen months. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants in three phases: ‘early’, ‘middle’ and ‘late’. Results revealed the problems experienced by the partnership, which ultimately inhibited the development of a sustainable WIS

The UK’s first professional symphony orchestra cooperative: social enterprise?

This conference paper reports the results of the first phase of a three phase longitudinal research study designed to examine the initiation and development of the UK‟s first professional symphony orchestra cooperative. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with thirty six professional musicians from a "pool" of forty plus musicians. This "pool" of musicians provides the cooperative with a resource that can be drawn on to form an orchestra to rehearse for and perform concerts and recordings. Preliminary results reveal four themes that emerged from the semi-structured interview data. These themes were interpreted by the researchers as: "commitment", "democracy", "social mission" and "aesthetic aspirations". The themes are presented along with supporting quotations from the interview data that illustrate the characteristics of these four emergent themes. The implications of the themes are then discussed within the context of the prior literature reviewe

Lack of entrepreneurial management leads to failure of social enterprise governed by an institutional partnership

This paper reports an on-going research study that is investigating the application of a model of team-based philosophy to test the efficacy of an ‘institutional partnership’ between a UK university (UNI) and a regional social enterprise development agency (SEDA) as they seek to set-up and develop a work-integration social enterprise (WISE). The research design is longitudinal, conducted over a period of 18 months and has three data collection phases ‘early’, ‘middle’ and ‘late’. This paper reports the analysis of data gathered during the ‘late’ phase of this research. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 participants involved in the partnership organisations and the WISE programme delivery staff. Qualitative analysis of the interview data revealed five emergent themes, which were subsequently interpreted by the researchers as: ‘Reasons’, ‘Positives’, ‘Company structure’, ‘The Partnership’ and ‘Negatives’. The theme ‘Reasons’ revealed the participant’s perceptions of why the Partnership and the company failed to achieve their original aspirations. The theme ‘Positives’ was characterised by the notion that the funded project was an ‘experiment’, which produced a learning outcome. The ‘experiment’ was to test the viability of a funding body supporting the creation of an institutional partnership to set-up and develop a WISE. It was interesting to note an important distinction made by one of the participants who proposed that what was tested was the ability of the individuals representing the organisations rather than the organisations per se. The theme ‘Company structure’ highlighted the negative effects on the Partnership created by the volatile nature of the company structure during this ‘late’ phase. Changes in personnel, roles and responsibilities at all levels created an unstable environment and context, which impacted negatively on the Partnership and the company. The theme ‘The Partnership’ revealed the impact of a dispute between the partners that was rooted in a change of CEO at one of the partnership organisations. The theme ‘Negatives’ highlighted personal feelings of failure and responsibility for that failure. Failure was perceived as a failure of the ‘experiment’ by some participants others perceived failure in a more personal sense. The results of the analysis of the data from this ‘late’ phase, when compared to criteria from the adopted team-based model, suggests that the partnership and WISE staff failed to metamorphose into an ‘effective team

What are the barriers to investing in social enterprises? An investigation into the attitudes and experiences of social entrepreneurs in the United Kingdom

The ongoing global economic crisis and the restrictions that this is having on government expenditure has meant that current UK policy is being directed at trying to end the grant dependency that currently exists in the third sector. One of the key focuses of this policy initiative has been to try to increase the third sector’s access to both debt finance from lending institutions and equity finance from venture capital investors. However, this policy intervention presupposes that the lack of private sector investment in the third sector is a ‘supply-side’ problem caused by limited funds. This ignores the structural problems in the social enterprise sector related to governance and a lack of organisational capacity. Indeed, as of 2011 the ethical investment sector in the UK was worth approximately £9 billion and was spread across 90 ethical investment funds responsible to 700,000 investors. Additionally, social investment (i.e. those funds targeted specifically at third sector organisations) was worth £165 million as of 2011. This suggests that the lack of private sector investment in social enterprises in the UK is not a ‘supply’ side problem but is instead related to the ‘investment readiness’ of social enterprise

Empathic social enterprise: the role of empathy and shared intentionality

Research conducted with the UKs first professional symphony orchestra cooperative provides evidence and insight into how empathy and shared intentionality impacted upon their cooperative governance. Individual semi-structured interviews, conducted with 36 of the orchestral musicians, were analysed and four themes emerged from the data, which were interpreted as: ‘empathy’, ‘shared intentionality’, ‘provide and preserve’, and ‘cooperative governance’. Findings of the research indicate that performing arts groups such as symphony orchestras can be social enterprises. The paper examines the relationship between empathy and social enterprise. Empathy is presented as a multidimensional moral and psychological concept. New concepts of ‘external’ and ‘internal’ empathy are also proposed in relation to social enterprises and their beneficiaries. Empathy and social enterprise leadership is explored and implications for business leadership education are discussed. Finally, a new model for the definition of a social enterprise based upon the intersection of high-levels of innovation and entrepreneurship and empathy and shared intentionality is presented