Surges of Development and Techno-Economic Paradigms. A Review Essay of the Festschrift for Carlota Perez.

REVIEW OFTechno-Economic Paradigms. Essays in Honour of Carlota Perez, edited by Wolfgang Drechsler, Rainer Kattel and Erik S. Reinert. London and New York 2009, Anthem Press, ISBN-13: 978 1 84331 785 2

Pseudo-forces in quantum mechanics

Dynamical evolution is described as a parallel section on an infinite dimensional Hilbert bundle over the base manifold of all frames of reference. The parallel section is defined by an operator-valued connection whose components are the generators of the relativity group acting on the base manifold. In the case of Galilean transformations we show that the property that the curvature for the fundamental connection must be zero is just the Heisenberg equations of motion and the canonical commutation relation in geometric language. We then consider linear and circular accelerating frames and show that pseudo-forces must appear naturally in the Hamiltonian.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, revtex, new section added, to appear in PR

BREVE TRATTATO / A SHORT TREATISE, NAPOLI 1613

In his monumental History of Economic Analysis, Joseph A. Schumpeter calls Serra “the first to compose a scientific treatise … on economic principles and policy.” This working paper, available only hardcopy and upon request, brings the first ever English translation of Antonio Serra’s Breve Trattato. However, the translation is designed to be used in a workshop to take place in Venice in 2007, sponsored by The Other Canon Foundation, which will produce a final English translation of the text for publication.

Improved ferrous shielding for flat cables

To improve shielding of flat multicore cables, a thin, seamless ferrous shield around all cores optimizes low frequency magnetic shielding. Such shielding is covered with an ultrathin seamless coat of highly conductive nonferrous material

Spatial differentiation of compensation payments for biodiversity enhancing land-use measures

Given that both the costs and the benefits of biodiversity-enhancing land-use measures are subject to spatial variation, considerations of allocational efficiency call for spatially differentiated compensation payments for such measures. However, when deciding whether to implement uniform or spatially differentiated compensation payments, the regulator has to balance the allocational efficiency losses of uniform payments with the disadvantages of spatially differentiated payments. To help resolve this issue, this paper provides a conceptual framework that allows the extent of allocational efficiency losses associated with uniform payments for biodiversity-enhancing land-use measures to be assessed. A simple ecologicaleconomic model is presented which calculates the efficiency losses associated with uniform payments for different types of benefit and cost functions. --

Comparing visible and less visible costs of the Habitats Directive: The case of hamster conservation in Germany

The EU Habitats Directive provides in Annexes II and IV a list of species needing to be conserved. Member States have implemented a variety of conservation measures in response to this obligation. These measures include the rejection, modification or delay of land development plans, payments for landowners to perform conservation measures and management actions such as breeding programmes. The costs of the various conservation measures are not always apparent. There may be an underestimation of the resulting costs when land development plans are altered, because there is no visible flow of financial resources. Such a biased perception may result in selecting conservation measures with high but less visible costs, whereas conservation measures with low but more visible costs are neglected. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to avoiding a biased selection of conservation measures by presenting a framework which captures a broad variety of costs relevant to the conservation of species protected by the Habitats Directive. We also demonstrate the relevance of a biased selection of conservation measures by using the framework to empirically estimate the costs of protecting the common hamster (Cricetus cricetus) in the region of Mannheim, Germany. We find that the less visible costs of changes in development plans are significantly higher than the more visible costs of payments to landowners and management actions. This result suggests that measures with visible costs should be given more attention in the future. --Common hamster,Cost assessment,Cost-effectiveness,EU Habitats Directive,Land use,Spatial planning,Species conservation

The New Public Management is not that bad after all

This article reviews the New Public Management (NPM) literature in Central and Eastern Europe, looking particularly at reforms in Estonia, Hungary and Romania. It finds that research that assessed changes in internal processes and activities within the public sector by far outnumber research that assessed changes in outputs and outcomes. Overall more studies have found positive than negative effects – especially in terms of processes and activities – but less so for outputs and outcomes. Significant challenges in assessing impacts make sweeping claims about whether NPM “works” difficult to support with solid evidence. The paper shows that NPM policy is still considered as an option for public sector modernization in Central and Eastern Europe and suggests that a number of NPM components, if not the model as a whole, are likely to continue to exert influence on the public sector in the future

Applying tradable permits to biodiversity conservation: effects of space-dependent ecological benefits and cost heterogeneity on habitat allocation

This paper is concerned with the cost-effective allocation of habitat for endangered species under spatio-temporally heterogeneous economic development. To address the dynamic dimension of the problem we consider tradable development rights (TDR) as the instrument of choice. A particular challenge in applying TDR is that the ecological benefit of an individual habitat patch depends on its spatial relationship with other habitats and thus is an emergent rather than a fixed property. We analyse the spatial and temporal dynamics of habitats in a region under a TDR market that takes spatial interaction of habitats explicitly into account. We show that depending on the levels of spatial interaction and cost heterogeneity, two different outcomes may emerge: an "ordered" structure where habitats are clustered in space and stable over time, and a "disordered" structure where habitats are scattered in space and subject to high turnover of destruction and recreation. --ecological-economic model,cost heterogeneity,phase transition,spatial interaction,tradable development rights