Towards a revised theory of collective learning processes:

Societies change; and sociology has, since its inception, described and evaluated these changes. This article proposes a revised theory of collective learning processes, a conceptual framework which addresses ways in which people make sense of and cope with change. Drawing on Habermas’ classic proposal, but shifting the focus from argumentation towards storytelling, it explains how certain articulations allow for collective learning processes (imagining more inclusive orders), while others block learning processes (imagining more exclusive orders). More specifically, the article points to narrative genres (romance, tragedy, comedy and irony) which organize feelings and shape the social bond, proposing that ironic and tragic stories have the potential to trigger collective learning processes, while romantic and comic stories tend to block them.Peer Reviewe

Measuring and explaining productivity growth of renewable energy producers: An empirical study of Austrian biogas plants.

This study explores productivity growth for a group of 65 Austrian biogas plants from 2006 to 2014 using Data Envelopment Analysis. The sample covers about 25 % of the installed electric capacity of Austrian biogas plants. Productivity growth is measured by calculating the Malmquist productivity index, and the contributions of technical change, efficiency change and scale change to productivity growth are isolated. Average annual productivity growth between 2006 and 2014 is 1.1 %. The decomposition of the Malmquist index shows that the annual scale change, technical change, and efficiency change for the average plant is 0.6 %, 0.3 % and 0.3 %, respectively. Those results indicate that the exploitation of returns to scale is a major driver of productivity growth in the Austrian biogas sector. However, there is a large variation in productivity growth across biogas plants. A second-stage regression analysis identifies important determinants of productivity growth. The results show that i) the exploitation of returns to scale as well as changes in ii) output diversification iii) capital intensity, iv) capacity utilization and v) feedstock prices are positively associated with productivity growth

Measuring and explaining productivity growth of renewable energy producers: An empirical study of Austrian biogas plants.

This study explores productivity growth for a group of 65 Austrian biogas plants from 2006 to 2014 using Data Envelopment Analysis. The sample covers about 25 % of the installed electric capacity of Austrian biogas plants. Productivity growth is measured by calculating the Malmquist productivity index, and the contributions of technical change, efficiency change and scale change to productivity growth are isolated. Average annual productivity growth between 2006 and 2014 is 1.1 %. The decomposition of the Malmquist index shows that the annual scale change, technical change, and efficiency change for the average plant is 0.6 %, 0.3 % and 0.3 %, respectively. Those results indicate that the exploitation of returns to scale is a major driver of productivity growth in the Austrian biogas sector. However, there is a large variation in productivity growth across biogas plants. A second-stage regression analysis identifies important determinants of productivity growth. The results show that i) the exploitation of returns to scale as well as changes in ii) output diversification iii) capital intensity, iv) capacity utilization and v) feedstock prices are positively associated with productivity growth

Price Competitiveness in the European Monetary Union: A Decomposition of Inflation Differentials based on the Leontief Input-Output Price Model for the Period 2000 to 2014

This paper studies the persistent producer price inflation differentials within the European Monetary Union. By applying a decomposition procedure within the input-output framework, the drivers of sectoral producer price inflation in a representative sample of member states are re-vealed. We find that in the pre-crisis period (2001-2008) the inflation differentials in manufactur-ing and market services of all countries vis-à-vis Germany were consistently positive resulting in a loss of price competitiveness for all economies. Manufacturing and market service sectors of many countries continued to lose price competitiveness, though to a lesser extent, also during the crisis period (2009-2014). We observe that differences in unit labour cost developments across countries constitute an important driver, especially in the pre-crisis period. Other drivers, such as import costs, intermediate input costs and operating surpluses also contribute, in particular dur¬ing the crisis period

Economy 4.0: Employment effects by occupation, industry, and gender

The aim of this study is to investigate how the diffusion of the new digital technologies (Economy 4.0-technologies) effects the magnitude and composition of employment in Austria. For this purpose, an input-output framework is adopted taking into account direct as well as indirect effects of the new technologies by industry, occupation and gender. These employment effects are estimated as the difference between a base economy (as represented by the most recent Austrian input-output table) and the same economy after an assumed 10-year transformation period with the introduction of new production technologies and devel-opment of new products for final demand. Based on substitution potentials estimated on de-tailed occupational level available from previous research, we model the changes in labour productivity. Combining two different scenarios of labour productivity change with two dif-ferent assumptions about collective wage bargaining outcomes gives us four possible scenari¬os of macroeconomic paths of Economy 4.0. The results show that due to Economy 4.0 dur¬ing the next 10 years job displacement will probably be greater than job creation and aggre¬gate employment will decline by 0.80% to 4.81% relative to total present employment. Fur-thermore, the results indicate that occupations gaining in employment are highly skilled while the occupations losing in employment are medium-skilled. Hereby, the female workers are adversely affected in terms of employment and labour income

Der biologische Landbau in Österreich – Entwicklungen und Perspektiven

In den Jahren 1994 bis 1998 hatte der biologische Landbau in Österreich bisher seine stärkste Entwicklung. Die frühe Verankerung von Richtlinien für biologische Produkte pflanzlicher und tierischer Herkunft im österreichischen Lebensmittelbuch, die staatliche Förderung der Umstellung bzw. der Biobetriebe, günstige Bedingungen im Absatz durch den Einstieg der Supermarktketten, die Gründung einer Vermarktungsgesellschaft, eine aktive Verbandspolitik und der Ausbau der Beratung haben dazu beigetragen, dass Österreich in Europa den höchsten Anteil an Biobetrieben erreichte. Ende der neunziger Jahre hat sich diese dynamische Entwicklung nicht fortgesetzt. Ob die Krisen in der konventionellen Landwirtschaft einen neuerlichen Aufschwung durch eine anhaltend stärkere Nachfrage nach Bioprodukten bringen werden, lässt sich noch nicht abschätzen. Auch wenn betriebswirtschaftliche Untersuchungen für bestimmte Betriebe bzw. Regionen die ökonomische Vorzüglichkeit des biologischen Landbaus unter Beweis stellen, gibt es unter den derzeitigen Rahmenbedingungen eine Reihe von Vorbehalten und Hemmnissen, welche einer starken Ausweitung entgegenstehen. Vor dem Hintergrund einer starken Exportquote und der EU-Erweiterung wird erheblicher Handlungsbedarf geortet, um auch weiterhin zu den Ländern mit den höchsten Anteilen an Biobetrieben zu zählen

Soil carbonyl sulfide exchange in relation to microbial community composition: Insights from a managed grassland soil amendment experiment

The viability of carbonyl sulfide (COS) measurements for partitioning ecosystem-scale net carbon dioxide (CO2) fluxes into photosynthesis and respiration critically depends on our knowledge of non-leaf sinks and sources of COS in ecosystems. We combined soil gas exchange measurements of COS and CO2 with next-generation sequencing technology (NGS) to investigate the role of soil microbiota for soil COS exchange. We applied different treatments (litter and glucose addition, enzyme inhibition and gamma sterilization) to soil samples from a temperate grassland to manipulate microbial composition and activity. While untreated soil was characterized by consistent COS uptake, other treatments reduced COS uptake and even turned the soil into a net COS source. Removing biotic processes through sterilization led to positive or zero fluxes. We used NGS to link changes in the COS response to alterations in the microbial community composition, with bacterial data having a higher explanatory power for the measured COS fluxes than fungal data. We found that the genera Arthrobacter and Streptomyces were particularly abundant in samples exhibiting high COS emissions. Our results indicate cooccurring abiotic production and biotic consumption of COS in untreated soil, the latter linked to carbonic anhydrase activity, and a strong dependency of the COS flux on the activity, identity, abundance of and substrate available to microorganisms.Austrian National Science Fund (FWF) | Ref. P27176-B16Tyrolean Science Fund (TWF) | Ref. UNI-0404/1801Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad | Ref. RYC-2016-2123