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Despite the scepticism raised by the German Monopoly Commission our analysis shows that the revised theory of contestable markets can be applied to the telecommunications market better than expected. The original contestable market theory implied three assumptions necessary to be satisfied to establish potential competition: Free market entry, market exits possible without any costs, and the price adjustment lag exceeds the entry lag. Our analysis shows that if the incumbent reduces its prices slowly (high adjustment lag) and the market entry can be performed quickly (low entry lag), a new competitor will be able to earn back sunk costs. Therefore it is not necessary that all three conditions are complied with for potential competition to exist. We applied the 'revised' contestable market theory to the German telecommunication market and have been able to clearly identify the sections in which regulation is required. Under the present conditions local loops - which should be seen as natural monopolies - are not contestable due to sunk costs, high entry lags expected and a probable short price adjustment lag. Local loops can be identified as bottlenecks therefore. Regional and local connection networks should also be regulated because a high entry lag and a low price adjustment lag have to be expected as well as current competition does not exist today. The national connection network shows current competition between several network providers, hence regulation can be abolished in this field. Moreover, services can be supplied by several firms, and we predict strong potential competition.. There are no arguments favouring a natural monopoly in the section of terminals.
The EU electricity directive (96/92/EC) established the right of the member states to choose between Regulated and Negotiated Third Party Access (RTPA and NTPA). The interest group theory is able to explain whether the introduction of NTPA in Germany had been an interest group equilibrium under the restriction of EU-directive. Using the NTPA associations of electricity power suppliers, network monopolists and industrial consumers negotiated three agreements. The last one (AA VVII+) in December 2001 introduced a market comparison scheme with three structural features: “East-/West-Germany”, “consumption/population density”, and “cable rate”. These features are variables which are supposed to reflect cost differences between network suppliers. The theoretical analysis will derive the hypothesis that this conception allows to introduce a cost irrelevant factor and therefore to increase prices without harming firms which do not hold this factor. This hypothesis could be tested by analyzing the German low and medium voltage network suppliers in 2002 and 2003. Our estimations show that the use of structural feature “East-/West Germany” and “consumption/population density” could be explained by this hypothesis. But because we have no firm specific information about cost differences other explanations could not be excluded: Monopoly prices differ with marginal costs, and regulation could reflect real cost differences. The third structural feature “cable rate” has no influence in low voltage networks, but has an impact on access charges levied in medium voltage networks. This relationship is only given if we use the borderlines given by AA VVII+. Hence, we are not able to reject the interest group theory: The feature “cable rate” was introduced successfully to increase access charges for medium network suppliers which have high cable rates without having higher costs.
"...as a matter of fact, all that is computerized gained such an amount of reality that nothing could be more mistaken than to call the products of the information technology industry 'virtual'."
Agro-biodiversity can provide natural insurance to risk averse farmers. We employ a conceptual ecological-economic model to analyze the choice of agrobiodiversity by risk averse farmers who have access to financial insurance. We study the implications for individually and socially optimal agro-ecosystem management and policy design when on-farm agro-biodiversity, through ecosystem processes at higher hierarchical levels, generates a positive externality on other farmers. We show that for the individual farmer natural insurance from agro-biodiversty and financial insurance are substitutes. While an improved access to financial insurance leads to lower agro-biodiversity, the e_ects on the market failure problem (due to the external benefits of on-farm agro-biodiversity) and on welfare are determined by properties of the agro-ecosystem and agro-biodiversity’s external benefits. We derive a specific condition on agro-ecosystem functioning under which, if financial insurance becomes more accessible, welfare in the absence of regulation increases or decreases.
The European Union’s Council Regulation on support for rural development by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development has introduced auctioning as a new instrument for granting agri-environmental payments and awarding conservation contracts for the recent multi-annual budgetary plan. This paper therefore deals with the conception and results of two case study auctions for conservation contracts. Results of two field experiments show much differentiated bid prices in the model-region and budgetary cost-effectiveness gains of up to 21% in the first auction and up to 36% in the repeated auction. Besides these promising results, some critical aspects as well as lessons to be learned will also be discussed in this paper to improve the design and performance of upcoming conservation auctions.
Quality of life and satisfaction with life are of particular importance for individuals as well as for society concerning the “demographic change” with now longer retirement periods. This study will contribute to the life satisfaction discussion and quantifies life satisfaction and pattern of explanation before and after such a prominent life cycle event, the entrance into retirement. In particular, with the individual longitudinal data and 33 waves of the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and the appropriate microeconometric causal fixed effects robust panel methods we ask and quantify if actual life satisfaction indeed is decreasing before re-tirement, is increasing at the entrance into retirement, and is decreasing then after certain periods back to a foregoing level. Thus, we ask if such an anticipation and adaptation pattern– as known from other promi-nent events – is also to discover for life satisfaction before and after retirement in Germany. Main result: Individual and family situation lift life satisfaction after retirement for many years, the (former) occupational situation, however, absorbs this effect both for pensioners and civil service pensioners. It remains only one period of improvement with close anticipation and adaptation at entering retirement but no furthermore significant change compared to pre-retirement life satisfaction. This holds for pensioners (German pension insurance, GRV) but there is no significant effect at all for civil service pensioners.
This research report presents a transdisciplinary student research project on the development of climate resilience of communities on the Caribbean Island Dominica.
The research was conducted through a partnership between the Leuphana University Lüneburg and the Sustainable Marine Financing Programme (SMF) of the GIZ.
For the GIZ, the research project aimed at improving the understanding of the socio-ecological resilience framework for tackling problems of Marine Managed Areas and Marine Protected Areas. Also, it enabled new thoughts on how the GIZ and other development agencies can more effectively assists island states to better cope with the challenges of climate change.
The role of the students from the “Global Environmental and Sustainability Sciences” programme of Leuphana University included the design of four transdisciplinary research projects to research aspects of resilience of Caribbean communities.
The developing island states in the Caribbean are extremely vulnerable to more frequent and intense natural hazards while relying on the ecosystem services that are also at risk from extreme weather events, in particular Hurricanes. Low economic stability leads to a dependency of the states on international assistance. To decrease the vulnerability to shocks, counteracting measures that encourage learning and adaptation can increase the resilience against extreme weather events and their consequences.
Concepts that were considered during the design of the transdisciplinary research projects were the adaptation of systems, diversity and stakeholder participation and resilience-focused management systems. Also, the students critically assessed the concept of foreign aid and how it can be successful, mitigating the risk of introducing neo-colonial structures. Flood Management, Biodiversity, Small-Scale Agriculture and Foreign Aid on Dominica were the topics of the transdisciplinary projects. The research methods of a literature review, stakeholder mapping, interviews, scenario development and visioning were used in the projects.
In four scenarios developed in the ‘Flood Management’ project, it became evident that a broad as well as coordinated stakeholder engagement and a variety of measures are required for community resilience. A key finding of the ‘Biodiversity’ project was the identity dimension of community resilience, underlining the importance of the relationship between individuals and nature. The interlinkage of social identity processes and a resilient disaster response was also stressed by the project ‘Foreign Aid’, which highlighted that financial support is similarly important to inclusivity and reflexivity in the process of resource distribution. To recover from extreme weather events, the social memory also plays an important role. The project on ‘Small-scale Agriculture’ concluded, that the memory-making of local communities is as vital to community resilience as formal plans and trainings.
The research project was based on the research approach of transdisciplinarity because of its solution-orientation. It links different academic disciplines and concepts, and non-scientific stakeholders are included to find solutions for societal and related scientific problems. In the four projects, principles of transdisciplinary research were party applied, but some challenges arose due to the geographical distance, time constraints and a strong focus on the scientific part in some phases. Nonetheless, the findings of the projects provide valuable learning lessons to be applied in practice and that can prove useful for future research.
This research report presents a transdisciplinary student research project on developing climate resilience of communities in Marine Protected Areas in the Lesser Antilles. For the second time, the Leuphana University Lüneburg and the Sustainable Marine Financing Programme (SMF) of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) partnered up. The first project on the Caribbean Island Dominica showed that community resilience is a complex concept that is not yet well understood. Building on these findings, this year’s project broadened the scope in addressing the effect of varying local conditions on climate resilience on four different Caribbean islands: Dominica, Grenada, St Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. For the GIZ, the research project aimed at improving the understanding of the socio-ecological resilience framework for tackling problems of Marine Managed Areas (MMA) and Marine Protected Areas (MPA). Also, it enabled new thoughts on how the GIZ and other development agencies can more effectively assist island states to better cope with the challenges of climate change. The role of the students from the “Global Environmental and Sustainability Sciences” programme of Leuphana University included the design of four transdisciplinary research projects to study the effect of varying local conditions in disaster-prone regions in the Southern Caribbean on climate resilience. The developing island states in the Caribbean are extremely vulnerable to more frequent and intense natural hazards while relying on ecosystem services that are threatened by extreme weather events, in particular Hurricanes. After such adverse events, low economic stability leads to a dependency of the states on international assistance. To decrease the vulnerability to shocks, counteracting measures that encourage learning and adaptation can increase the resilience against extreme weather events and their consequences. Concepts that were considered during the design of the transdisciplinary research projects were the adaptation of systems, diversity and stakeholder participation and resilience-focused management systems. Building on the results from last year in Dominica, the establishment of a four islands design allowed for greater comparison to better understand community approaches to solve a concrete sustainability problem: securing livelihoods while protecting natural and cultural resources. The research methods of a literature review, stakeholder mapping, semi-structured interviews, scenario development and visioning were used in the projects. A comparison of the four TD projects revealed four overarching lessons. First, all countries recognise a need for restoration and conservation projects, i.e., nature-based solutions implemented and managed by the local community in the MPA. Furthermore, all four cases show that the limited participation of local people in the management and organisation of the MPA is a factor constraining community resilience. Third, this TD project highlights the importance to distinguish climate change as an event or as a process. When climate change occurs as a series of disaster events (e.g., hurricanes, floodings, and heatwaves) in combination with s gradual degradation of natural ecosystems (e.g., coral bleaching and ocean warming), people in MPA communities show highly adaptive and restorative behaviour. Finally, this project was an attempt to realize a cross-cultural and virtual transdisciplinary project. The research approach of transdisciplinarity links different academic disciplines and concepts, and non-scientific stakeholders are included to find solutions for societal and related scientific problems. A major learning was that in virtual TD projects particular attention needs to be paid to setting clear boundaries and be explicit about success criteria. Nonetheless, the findings of the projects provide valuable learning lessons to be applied in practice and that can prove useful for future research.