Author: Stephen DeCanio

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30 Jun

Posted at 14:44h in Selected Articles by

"The Efficiency Paradox: Bureaucratic and Organizational Barriers to Profitable Energy-Saving Investments" Energy Policy 26, 1998

Abstract

The paradox of why profitable energy-saving investments are not undertaken continues to provoke debate. The underlying phenomenon might be called the 'efficiency paradox,' because it represents a case in which business firms, which are often presumed (or taken axiomatically) to be economically efficient, make decisions that  do  not maximize profits. New data...

30 Jun

Posted at 14:44h in Selected Articles by

"Information Processing and Organizational Structure" (with William E. Watkins) Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 36, 1998

Abstract

Standard economic theories of the firm (and other organizations) stress profit maximization as the foundation for derivation of predictable behavior. Yet statistical and case-study evidence continues to accumulate that real firms do not act as required by the neoclassical framework.  Instead of being represented by ever more elaborate maximization models,...

30 Jun

Posted at 14:43h in Selected Articles by

"Estimating the Non-Environmental Consequences of Greenhouse Gas Reductions is Harder Than You Think" Contemporary Economic Policy 17, 1999

Abstract

Top-down and bottom-up models of the non-environmental consequences of policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions embody different implicit theories of economic organizations. Yet neither approach is explicit in showing the detailed computations that must be traced if the activities of firms are to be described realistically. Specification of...

29 Jun

Posted at 22:10h in Uncategorized by

"Economic Analysis, Environmental Policy, and Intergenerational Justice in the Reagan Administration:  The Case of the Montreal Protocol," International Environmental Agreements:  Politics, Law and Economics 3 (2003)

Abstract

Economic arguments played a significant role in the decision by the Reagan Administration to lead the international effort to protect the stratospheric ozone layer from depletion caused by certain otherwise useful industrial chemicals....

29 Jun

Posted at 14:53h in Selected Articles by

"Two Hidden Sources of Productivity Growth in American Agriculture, 1860-1930" (with William N. Parker) Agricultural History 56, October 1982, pp. 648-62

Initial paragraph

Sustained productivity growth in modern agriculture depends largely upon two complex social processes of learning. In genetic and biochem- ical technology, scientists must learn how to adjust plant varieties and animal breeds to the various and changing conditions of the natural environment....

21 Jun

Posted at 14:49h in Selected Articles by

"Modeling Technological Change in Energy Demand Forecasting: A Generalized Approach" (with John A. "Skip" Laitner) Technological Forecasting and Social Change 55, 1997

Abstract

Conventional economic modeling of energy demand has characterized technological choice as an investment decision driven primarily by the relationship between capital costs and operating costs. Yet the implementation of this approach has tended to yield unrealistically high estimates of the implicit discount rate governing...