Environmental Tax in a General Oligopoly Equilibrium Model

The aim of this paper is to show that increasing trade and having strict environmental policy are not mutually exclusive. I examine how the increase of trade under general oligopolistic equilibrium model affects environmental taxation. In particular, I show that with common assumptions, growth in trade increases environmental taxes. In Neary’s (2015) general oligopolistic equilibrium model, there is a continuum of sectors in which the firms compete in Cournot manner. The firms in each sector are identical, having market power in their own sector, but not at the level of the whole economy. The sectors are otherwise identical, but open sectors trade with a foreign country, while the rest of the sectors are closed. There are two identical countries which I call Home and Foreign. An environmental policy maker has perfect knowledge of the markets and the firms’ behavior. Because there is no abatement technology in the model, the policy maker sets a tax at the first and firms react to it at the second stage. The main result is that with general assumptions, increasing trade leads to increasing environmental tax. When the transaction costs of trade decrease, environmental taxes increase in the closed sectors, but decrease in the open sectors, the less, the larger the proportion of trading sectors in the economy is. When new sectors are opened to trade, then, provided that the share of domestic pollutant and the marginal environmental damage are sufficiently high, environmental taxes increase both in open and closed sectors. The main sources of the study are Neary (2015), which presents the general oligopolistic equilibrium model used in the analysis, and Richter (2015), which constructs strategic environmental policy in that setup

Vastuullisuus tuoteominaisuutena - Terveelliset tuotteet osana elintarvikeyritysten vastuullisuutta

TUTKIMUKSEN TAVOITE Yhteiskunta ja kuluttajat odottavat yrityksiltä tänä päivänä vastuullisuutta, minkä vuoksi vastuullisesta toiminnasta on muodostunut yrityksen menestykseen vaikuttava tekijä. Vastuullisuutta voidaan harjoittaa tuotetasolla saakka, mikä nähdäänkin entistä enemmän mahdollisena kilpailuedun lähteenä. Elintarvikealalla vastuullisuuden merkitys korostuu, sillä elintarvikkeet ovat osa jokaisen päivittäistä elämää vaikuttaen ihmisten hyvinvointiin ja terveyteen. Tämän tutkielman tavoitteena on selvittää terveellisten tuotteiden asemaa Suomessa toimivien elintarvikeyritysten vastuullisuudessa. Tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan elintarvikeyritysten toimintaympäristöä terveellisten tuotteiden valmistamisen kannalta sekä sitä, missä määrin terveellisyys ja ravitsemus näkyvät elintarvikeyritysten vastuullisuustoiminnassa. Tämän lisäksi tarkastellaan, nähdäänkö terveelliset tuotteet yrityksissä kilpailuetuna ja strategisesti tärkeinä. AINEISTO JA TUTKIMUSMENETELMÄT Tutkimus toteutettiin laadullisin menetelmin ja siinä käytettiin kaksiosaista aineistoa. Ensimmäinen osa aineistosta on kerätty Maa- ja elintarviketalouden tutkimuskeskuksen SALUS-hankkeen kahdesta fokusryhmäkeskustelusta, joihin osallistui ravitsemus- ja elintarvikealan asiantuntijoita sekä elintarviketeollisuuden ja kuluttajaorganisaatioiden edustajia. Toisena aineistona toimivat seitsemän suuren Suomessa toimivan elintarvikeyrityksen vastuullisuusraportit ja vuosikertomukset. Aineisto analysoitiin sisällönanalyysimenetelmää käyttäen. TULOKSET Tällä hetkellä Suomen elintarvikealan toimintaympäristöä leimaavat dynaamisuus ja suuret muutokset. Ihmisten käsitys terveellisestä ruoasta on osittain muuttunut. Toimintaympäristön muutokset kuten ruokatrendit asettavat huomattavia paineita elintarvikeyritysten toiminnalle etenkin tuotekehityksen ja strategian luomisen kannalta. Terveellisyys ja ravitsemus ovat selkeä ja tärkeä osa suomalaisten elintarvikeyritysten vastuullisuutta. Yritykset ovat sitoutuneita johtoa myöten edistämään kuluttajien terveellisiä elämäntapoja vastuullisten tuotevalikoimien kautta. Sen lisäksi, että suomalaiset elintarvikeyritykset toteuttavat vastuullisuutta terveellisillä ja ravitsemuksellisilla tuotteilla, ovat ne ennen kaikkea myös tärkeä osa kannattavaa ja strategista liiketoimintaa. Terveelliset ja innovatiiviset tuotteet nähdään yrityksissä olennaisina tulevaisuuden menestymisen kannalta kuluttajien kiinnittäessä entistä enemmän huomiota elintarvikkeiden sisältöön ja laatuun

Enriching Everyday Experience with a Digital Service: Case Study in Rural Retail Store

A novel omnichannel service concept was developed and piloted in the context of everyday retail service environment. A starting point for the new service was a need to provide the customers of a small rural retail store with wider selection of goods through integrating web shopping interface to the store’s service processes. One of the driving design principles was to achieve a seamless service experience by a fusion of web and physical retail channels. The findings from the case study were analysed from the viewpoint of store customers and personnel. Over half of the interviewed customers stated they were likely to use the novel retail service in the future. Previous experience with online shopping appeared to have a direct, positive effect on the customers’ willingness to adopt the service into use. The hands-on demonstration was proved to be an advantageous way for introducing the novel service to potential users. Personnel’s attitudes towards the service concept were in general enthusiastic and positive; however the service also invoked some initial concerns mostly related to additional work load. The personnel also clearly appreciated the positive effects of the new service on the store and customers

Neural mechanisms underlying word- and phrase-level morphological parsing

How is morphological and morphosyntactic information processed during sentence reading? Are the neural mechanisms underlying word- and phrase-level combinatorial processing overlapping or distinct? Here, electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) responses were recorded simultaneously during silent reading of Finnish sentences. The experimental conditions included 1) well-formed grammatical sentences (correct condition), 2) sentences containing morphosyntactic violations (adjective–noun number agreement violations), 3) morphological violations (incorrect stem allomorph and inflectional suffix combination), and 4) combined violations, containing both morphosyntactic and morphological violations. Signal space and source modeling results showed that morphosyntactic violations elicited a left anterior negativity effect, generated particularly in the left inferior frontal area. Morphological violations elicited a widespread negativity, resembling the N400. The neural sources of this negativity were localized most prominently to the right temporal cortical networks. Furthermore, all violations elicited P600 effects with similar widespread bilateral fronto-temporal neural generators that did not differ between morphosyntactic and morphological conditions. Our findings suggest at least partially distinct subnetworks in the fronto-temporal cortices for morphological and morphosyntactic parsing during the earlier stages of processes (∼400 ms post stimulus onset) and shared neural generators for the later processing stages.Peer reviewe

Why our brains love arts and crafts: Implications of creative practices on psychophysical well-being

Art and craft practitioners have personal experience of the benefits of making: the handling of material can help to regulate our mental states through providing a means to reach flow states. The mirror neuron system helps in skill learning, and the plasticity of the brain ensures that skills may be learned at all stages of life. Arts and crafts play a role in controlling stress and enhancing relaxation. They also enable us to fail safely and handle our emotions. Furthermore, they facilitate social activity for many individuals who are at risk of social isolation. This article aims to integrate knowledge from both the field of neuroscience and the arts by focusing on the implications that flow experience and the mirror neuron system integral to making processes have on our psychophysical well-being.Peer reviewe

A semi-empirical model of boreal-forest gross primary production, evapotranspiration, and soil water — calibration and sensitivity analysis

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Physiological measurements of drawing and forming activities

Proceeding volume: Volume 7Peer reviewe

Spatiotemporal Dynamics of the Processing of Spoken Inflected and Derived Words: A Combined EEG and MEG Study

The spatiotemporal dynamics of the neural processing of spoken morphologically complex words are still an open issue. In the current study, we investigated the time course and neural sources of spoken inflected and derived words using simultaneously recorded electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) responses. Ten participants (native speakers) listened to inflected, derived, and monomorphemic Finnish words and judged their acceptability. EEG and MEG responses were time-locked to both the stimulus onset and the critical point (suffix onset for complex words, uniqueness point for monomorphemic words). The ERP results showed that inflected words elicited a larger left-lateralized negativity than derived and monomorphemic words approximately 200 ms after the critical point. Source modeling of MEG responses showed one bilateral source in the superior temporal area ∼100 ms after the critical point, with derived words eliciting stronger source amplitudes than inflected and monomorphemic words in the right hemisphere. Source modeling also showed two sources in the temporal cortex approximately 200 ms after the critical point. There, inflected words showed a more systematic pattern in source locations and elicited temporally distinct source activity in comparison to the derived word condition. The current results provide electrophysiological evidence for at least partially distinct cortical processing of spoken inflected and derived words. In general, the results support models of morphological processing stating that during the recognition of inflected words, the constituent morphemes are accessed separately. With regard to derived words, stem and suffix morphemes might be at least initially activated along with the whole word representation