From Hierarchies to Levels: New Solutions for Games with Hierarchical Structure

Recently, applications of cooperative game theory to economic allocation problems have gained popularity. In many of these problems, players are organized according to either a hierarchical structure or a levels structure that restrict players ’ possibilities to cooperate. In this paper, we propose three new solutions for games with hierarchical structure and characterize them by properties that relate a player’s payoff to the payoffs of other players located in specific positions in the structure relative to that player. To define each of these solutions, we consider a certain mapping that transforms any hierarchical structure into a levels structure, and then we apply the standard generalization of the Shapley Value to the class of games with levels structure. The transformations that map the set of hierarchical structures to the set of levels structures are also studied from an axiomatic viewpoint by means of properties that relate a player’s position in both types of structure

Component efficient solutions in line-graph games with applications

Recently, applications of cooperative game theory to economic allocation problems have gained popularity. We investigate a class of cooperative games that generalizes some economic applications with a similar structure. These are the so-called line-graph games being cooperative TU-games in which the players are linearly ordered. Examples of situations that can be modeled like this are sequencing situations and water distribution problems. We define four properties with respect to deleting edges that each selects a unique component efficient solution on the class of line-graph games. We interpret these solutions and properties in terms of dividend distributions, and apply them to economic situations. © 2006 Springer-Verlag

Born to be green: new insights into the economics and management of green entrepreneurship

While the number of green start-ups has steadily increased around the world in response to the environmental problems demanding immediate solutions, there are several unresolved questions on the behaviour and performance of such ventures. The papers in this special issue shed light on these issues by underscoring the role of several factors, such as industry life cycles, knowledge spillovers, institutions, and availability of external finance, in shaping decision-making and firm behaviour in green start-ups. This paper highlights the state-of-the art developments in the literature, discusses the key contributions of the papers put together in this special issue and presents a future research agenda for scholars interested in green entrepreneurship

Linking Employee Stakeholders to Environmental Performance: The Role of Proactive Environmental Strategies and Shared Vision

Drawing on the natural-resource-based view (NRBV), we propose that employee stakeholder integration is linked to environmental performance through firms’ proactive environmental strategies, and that this link is contingent on shared vision. We tested our model with a cross-country and multi-industry sample. In support of our theory, results revealed that firms’ proactive environmental strategies translated employee stakeholder integration into environmental performance. This relationship was pronounced for high levels of shared vision. Our findings demonstrate that shared vision represents a key condition for advancing the corporate greening agenda through proactive environmental strategies. We discuss implications for the CSR and the environmental management literatures, with a particular focus on the NRBV and stakeholder integration debates

Who Opposes Climate Regulation? Business Preferences for the European Emission Trading Scheme

When do firms oppose international climate policy? Existing work often assumes that firms disapprove of climate regulation due to the immediate costs of compliance. We claim that if policy is implemented gradually, private preferences for climate policy vary as a function of its progressive stringency. That is, supportive views may rise in the initial phase of the policy, while opposing views may emerge as the policy becomes more stringent. We also argue that emissions of individual companies, as well as emissions levels in their respective sectors, influence corporate positions on these two dimensions. We test our argument with new corporate survey data on the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS). We find that firms’ views on the performance of the EU ETS vary based on whether they concentrate on the policy’s current state or its future, more stringent development. Moreover, we find that individual firm and sectoral emissions correlate with support for the early-stage, more lenient version of the ETS, but that high-emission firms are more interested in disinvesting and relocating if the ETS becomes stricter. Our findings imply that both firm and sectoral organization can constrain environmental regulation, and that domestic compensation, especially at early stages, can have important effects on the success of climate policy

Regional Competitiveness Under New Perspectives

The term "competitiveness" has been used in conceptually distinct ways at the firm, regional and national levels. After primarily reviewing existing concepts at the national level, we introduce a new definition of regional competitiveness adapting definitions used in the academic literature. Specifically, we connect "outcome competitiveness" with new perspectives on a more socially inclusive and ecologically sustainable growth path, as envisaged in the WWWforEurope research program, in which 33 European research groups are taking part. Evaluating competitiveness requires both an input assessment (costs, productivity, economic structure, capabilities) and an outcome assessment. We define regional outcome competitiveness as the ability of a region to deliver Beyond GDP goals. For regions in industrialized countries, this ability depends on innovation, education, institutions, social cohesion and ecological ambition. Given this new perspective (of broader Beyond GDP goals), social investments and ecological ambitions should not be considered costs, but rather drivers of competitiveness. This is compatible with a new innovation policy fostering non-technical innovations and a new industrial policy supporting societal goals. Applying this concept to European regions, we show which regions take the "high road" to competitiveness and compare our results with the existing literature

Resource allocation problems with concave reward functions

In a resource allocation problem, there is a common-pool resource, which has to be divided among agents. Each agent is characterized by a claim on this pool and an individual concave reward function on assigned resources, thus generalizing the model of Grundel et al. (Math Methods Oper Res 78(2):149–169, 2013) with linear reward functions. An assignment of resources is optimal if the total joint reward is maximized. We provide a necessary and sufficient condition for optimality of an assignment, based on bilateral transfers of resources only. Analyzing the associated allocation problem of the maximal total joint reward, we consider corresponding resource allocation games. It is shown that the core and the nucleolus of a resource allocation game are equal to the core and the nucleolus of an associated bankruptcy game