Search results

The circular economy is a system that aims to conserve resources at every level for as long as possible with a minimization of waste. The core concept of the circular economy is to improve resource efficiency and prevent valuable materials from leaking out of the system. Better use of increasingly scarce resources can provide both economic and environmental benefits. When excess inventory, returned products, and end-of-life products are disposed of improperly, unnecessary waste is created, often with a detrimental impact to the environment. An effective system must exist to facilitate the proper handling of these products, and secondary markets are a crucial component in this system. In this chapter, we discuss the secondary markets’ role as an important mechanism for achieving a circular economy.

In recessions, depository institutions accounted for most declines in mortgage flows. Recently, they partially offset their withdrawals from primary markets with accumulations of mortgage-backed securities. Increases in direct flows into agency and private pools also countered the declining flows elsewhere. As the less-procyclical secondary mortgage markets grew and matured, they increasingly stabilized mortgage flows. During periods of international financial crises or of domestic economic stress, GSEs may have been particularly effective in stabilizing mortgage markets and moderating business cycles.

Purpose – This study constitutes a first attempt to experimentally test the performance of a 100% auction versus a 100% free allocation of CO2 permits under the rules and parameters that mimic the EU ETS (imperfect competition, uncertainty in emissions' control, and allowing banking), with environmental targets more restrictive than the current ones but foreseeable for the near future.

Methodology/approach – Two experimental treatments were run to achieve our goal. Both included the rules and the parameters that parallel the EU ETS structure, the only difference being the rule for the primary allocation of permits.

Findings – Our experimental results indicate that the EU ETS has the potential to reduce CO2 emissions, achieving targets considerably more restrictive than the current ones at high efficiency levels, both with auctioned and free emission permits.

Practical implications – Concerns about undue scarcity, and corresponding high prices, in secondary markets generated by a primary auction market are not warranted under the proposed dynamic auction format. This adds arguments favoring auctioning over grandfathering as the rule for the initial allocation of emission permits in the EU ETS.

Originality/value of chapter – This study implements a theoretically appropriate auction format for the primary allocation of emission permits (the Ausubel (2004) auction) and incorporates a first attempt to include in the analysis measures of the risk preferences of subjects participating in emission permits experiments. These characteristics are for the first time implemented under a complex experimental design (including uncertainty of emission abatement, and banking), trying to parallel the EU ETS trading environment.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused a downward trend in the US stock market, the Federal Reserve has implemented an innovative Corporate Credit Facility (CCF) program from March 23 to December 31, 2020. The CCF aims to purchase the eligible corporate bonds and ETFs under the Primary Market Corporate Credit Facility (PMCCF) and Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility (SMCCF). Firstly, our result shows that the Corporate Credit Facility program has stabilized the return of the S&P 500 by 0.68 in variance reduction. Secondly, the SMCCF has exhibited a better effect on the stock market compared with PMCCF. The coefficient of SMCCF is statistically significant. However, announcement and PMCCF are not significant in the variance equation. Thirdly, the joint Wald test of PMCCF and SMCCF positively and significantly affect the return of the S&P 500, evidenced by the mean equation. Lastly, the announcement of CCF has an adverse effect on the S&P 500. It can be concluded that the Fed's Corporate Credit Facility has been innovative in combating the financial market's instability.

This chapter presents an analysis of data gathered from Israeli primary and secondary schoolteachers that tested the degree of market orientation in the Israeli State Education System, the largest system in Israel that is based on grade configuration of primary education (1–6) and secondary education (7–12). It was found that the Israeli teachers are more positive about student orientation (SO) than about competitor orientation and interfunctional coordination, i.e., they are more likely to be positive toward the elements of SO that are emotion embedded and represent teachers’ concern toward and relations with their students. They can identify with elements of SO that represent teachers’ strong emotional commitment toward students, which in turn leads them to change their teaching methods, be attentive and responsive to parents’ interest in the learning of the child, and improve their own teaching. In doing so, the teachers are engaged unconsciously with relationship marketing that might promote their school's market share and image.

This paper is about how a command system allocated resources under profound uncertainty. The command system was the Soviet economy, the period was Stalin's dictatorship, and the resources were designated for military research & development. The context was formed by the limits of the existing aviation propulsion technology, the need to replace it with another, and uncertainty as to how to do so. We observe the formation of a quasi-market in which rival agents proposed projects and competed for funding to carry them out. We find rivalry and rent seeking, imperfectly regulated by principals. As rent seeking spread and uncertainty was reduced, the quasi-market was closed down and replaced by strict hierarchical allocation and monitoring. In theory, a dictator cannot commit to refrain from taxing the returns from today's effort tomorrow; therefore, we expect agents in a command system to seek only short-term returns from quasi-market activity. Agents’ willingness to invest in the Soviet quasi-market for inventions is ascribed to a reputation mechanism that enforced long-run returns.

Why employees stay or leave their organization in Republic of Korea (South Korea) can be better understood by taking into account the idiosyncratic institutional and cultural contexts. In this chapter, we aim to provide a comprehensive review of employee turnover research in South Korea and discuss its implications for research. Specifically, we explain how employee turnover decisions may be affected by the characteristics of South Korean labor market (duality, polarization, and intergenerational issues) and cultural environments (collectivism, high power distance, and high-performance orientation). The review shows that organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and on-the-job embeddedness are three key mechanisms explaining employee turnover in South Korea. Building upon the review, we conclude the review by suggesting future research directions: (a) examining turnover behavior as a key outcome, (b) developing a theoretical framework for social identity and embeddedness, and (c) understanding intergenerational issues.

The paper examines the relationship between subordinated debt yield spreads of Japanese banks and bank-specific risk in the Japanese bond market. Subordinated debt issued by banking organizations may enhance the market discipline of banking organizations. In order to give a theoretical explanation for this, the paper develops models that describe how yield spreads of subordinated debt may be related to bank-specific risks and systematic risks. Although the sample size of this study is not large enough to draw an undisputed conclusion, the models tested here find no clear evidence of a positive relationship between subordinated debt premiums and bank-specific risks in the Japanese market. These findings for the Japanese market suggest that in the current environment of the Japanese financial system, issuing subordinated debt is unlikely to improve the prudential supervision of banks with market forces as suggested in the newly proposed Basel Accords.