How did a country in the middle of Western Europe, starting almost from scratch, reach the European top 3 in terms of solar PV capacity in five years? And what were the costs? We provide a systematic ...chronological review of the different governmental support instruments that drove the exponential growth of the solar energy market in the Flanders region of Belgium and calculate their relative contributions. The results of the economic calculations show that green electricity certificates had by far the greatest effect on both the rise and stagnation of the market, costing about 1.5 billion euro only for 2006–2013. The long-term societal costs of such growth proved to be even higher (6.7 billion for 2014–2031) and unevenly distributed, with residents paying the highest price via their energy bills. Companies continuously adapted their organizations to enact the available support instruments. Counter-intuitively, the substantial support shifted the attention of companies to the larger systems, even though the incentive for investment in PV was lower than for the smaller systems.
The photovoltaic (PV) solar electricity market has shown an impressive 33% growth per year since 1997 until today with market support programs as the main driving force. The rationales for this ...development and the future projections towards a 100 billion € industry in the 2020s, by then only driven by serving cost-competitively customer needs are described.
The PV market, likely to have reached about 600
MW in the year 2003, is discussed according to its four major segments: consumer applications, remote industrial electrification, developing countries, and grid-connected systems. While in the past, consumer products and remote industrial applications used to be the main cause for turnover in PV, in recent years the driving forces are more pronounced in the grid-connected systems and by installations in developing countries. Examples illustrating the clear advantage of systems using PV over conventional systems based, e.g., on diesel generators in the rural and remote electrification sector are discussed. For the promotion of rural electrification combined with the creation of local business and employment, suitable measures are proposed in the context of the PV product value chain.
The competitiveness of grid-connected systems is addressed, where electricity generating costs for PV are projected to start to compete with conventional utility peak power quite early between 2010 and 2020 if time-dependent electricity tariffs different for bulk and peak power are assumed. The most effective current-pulling force for grid-connected systems is found to be the German Renewable Energy (EEG) Feed-in Law where the customers are focusing on yield, performance, and long-life availability.
The future growth in the above-defined four market segments are discussed and the importance of industry political actions in order to stimulate the markets either in grid-connected systems by feed-in tariff programs as well as for off-grid rural developing country applications by long-term financing schemes are pointed out.
A technology roadmap is presented with special emphasis on the fact that different customer needs are best served with best-adopted technologies and not vice versa. The need for the third generation PV technologies, implying that so called first (c-Si-wafer)- and second (thin-film)- generation PV technologies will be overcome in a short to medium time scale, is obsolete; in contrast, the excellent scientific ideas developed within ‘Third generation’ concepts—like utilization of hot electrons, quantum wells and nanostructures—are shown to be part of ‘New Technologies’ opening new product ideas and additional market segments. The rationale for decreasing cost by increasing productivity for all technologies as well as the interpretation of price learning curves is presented.
The role of PV in the future global energy supply chain is lined out. Due to a fast growing market driven by increasing widespread acceptance of PV, a substantial PV business and creation of employment in coming decades is expected. This in turn can provide solutions for nowadays global issues, such as a global energy justice by providing environmentally benign power to billions of people, who otherwise will lack energy solutions severely.
International market movements have been stimulating the recent process of industrialization in Brazil, with an increasing growth in the offer and demand of higher added value products in various ...sectors and segments. Metallic zinc plays a significant role in the Brazilian exports and in the automotive and building industries as well. Further to the availability of new technologies, the zinc industry in Brazil has been commercializing zinc alloys, perceived as higher added value products, for several applications. This study aims at analyzing how innovation and the zinc alloys may influence the metallic commodities market development in Brazil. It was carried a nationwide survey with a non-probabilistic sample of either employees or owners of companies that use zinc and its alloys. For the answers analysis it was used the Discourse of the Collective Subject, a qualitative and quantitative methodology. Zinc alloys influence positively the metallic zinc market growth, though their high prices were considered as a restriction factor for their use.
We analyze a firm's investment problem when it faces preemption risk and profits are convex in market profitability. In a setup where firms have asymmetric profit convexity, which we relate to firm ...quality, we show that this has interesting effects on valuation and the order of entry. The interplay between profit convexity and market growth impacts whether a high-quality or a low-quality firm is the first mover. We relate the first-mover advantage to patents; we find that patents expedite investments and increase the incentives for high-quality firms to become first movers. Furthermore, even with a persistent first-mover advantage we show that first-mover advantages in terms of firm value are either over- or underestimated. Thus, our model sheds light on why empirical studies find mixed support for the existence of a first-mover advantage.
•We analyze a firm's investment problem with preemption risk and profit convexity.•Firms have asymmetric convexity (quality) and the first-mover gets an advantage.•Asymmetric convexity and market profitability impact the order of entry and values.•Patents expedite investments and induce high-quality firms to become first movers.•The order of entry complicates empirical studies in finding a first-mover advantage.
The objective of this study is to empirically assess the effect of government decisions on market growth in response to social distancing initiatives, government reactions, economic support ...provision, and containment and health responses, to name a few. A panel dataset of daily stock market returns is analysed in this study, changes in COVID-19 cases, and government responses to 17 countries in the Pacific and South Asia from 1st January 2020 to 31st December 2020. Findings indicate that social distancing policies have a significant negative effect on stock returns but a substantial positive impact on market growth when new cases' growth rate declines after accounting for country characteristics and systematic risk due to foreign factors. A direct negative effect is seen almost immediately, and a subsequently indirect positive effect is noted. As expected, policies regarding social distancing have an immediate negative impact, attributed mainly to the expected negative effect on economic activity. Subsequently, we see an indirect positive effect on market return because social distancing measures reduced the growth of confirmed COVID-19 cases. Both awareness, containment, and health index (ACHI) and Income Support and Debt Relief Index (ISDRI) positively affect market growth, as they are perceived to support individuals' socio-economic well-being and mainly result in positive market returns.
Agribusiness is projected to be a $ 2.9 trillion USD industry in global investment by 2030 (World Bank 2013). Nanotechnology is poised to impact dramatically on all sectors of agribusiness industry ...in the next 10 years. Nanotechnology could be used to enhance the possibilities of developing conventional and stranded agribusiness resources. Nanotechnology can make the industry considerably greener and competitive, with its current growth rate of 25% (US$ 1.08billion) annually. The opportunity for application of nanotechnology in agricul¬ture is prodigious. Nanotechnology, focusing on special properties of materials emerging from nanometric size has the potential to revolutionize the agricultural and food sectors, biomedicine, environmental engineering, safety and security, water resources, energy conversion, and numerous other areas. It is well recognized that adoption of new technology is crucial in accu-mulation of global wealth and market value which now stand at US$ 1.09 trillion in estimated value. Nanotechnology has emerged as a technological advancement that could develop and transform the entire agri-food sector, with the potential to increase agricultural productivity, food security and economic growth for industries by atleast 30% (Aver. US$0.9 trillion). This review set out to address the implications of nanotechnology for the agri-food industry by examining the potential benefits, risks and opportunities.
This study examines the factors influencing early paid Over-The-Top (OTT) video streaming market growth in 50 countries. The results of the panel data analysis suggest that Netflix’s market entry, ...traditional pay TV market size, broadband infrastructure, and OTT platform competition contribute to the early market growth of paid OTT video streaming services, such as subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services. The results also reveal that the traditional pay TV subscription market and the paid OTT video streaming market initially grow together in many countries. However, the findings also reveal a negative association between the market entry of Netflix and the subscription revenue growth rate of traditional pay TV services. The results of this study suggest industry and policy implications for paid OTT video streaming market growth and the sustainable development of the media industry.
Todays, changing consumer habits, comfort convenience, speed, environment and safety in terms of transportation by rail as a reliable transportation route is a sustainable and efficient option comes ...to the fore. Railway investments are increasingly rising worldwide to reduce regional economic and social development disparities. According to the study of the European Rail Industry Association (UNIFE), market growth prospects in the railway sector in the coming years, the world rail market is expected to reach an average annual value of euro 185 billion in 2016-2021, with an annual growth rate of 2.3%. Railway sector product and service providers are expected to reshape their future organizational plans in the related works in a way that will meet customer expectations in freight and passenger transport in order to increase efficiency and quality management within the framework of market development expectations in the coming years. In this study, regional expectations of market growth for railways product and service groups in the World and Turkey's current status are analyzed in accordance with statistical data and information that are obtained from different sources depend on the railway sector and the expected developments are evaluated. In the conclusion section the results were shared with the suggestions to increase of the Turkish railway sector ratio in the world railways market in the future.
Purpose
The past few decades have seen a gradual convergence in corporate governance norms the world over, entailing a discernible shift towards shareholder primacy models. It holds particularly true ...of developing countries, many of which have steadily amended corporate governance norms to enhance the scope of shareholder rights. This is usually justified through the rationale that increasing protection for foreign investors and shareholders would mean greater investment in capital market and overall financial market development. In India, the shift coincides with a series of fundamental economic and financial policy reforms initiated in the 1990s: collectively and loosely referred to as “liberalisation”, this process marks a paradigm-shift from a tightly controlled welfare economy to one considerably more laissez-faire in its orientation. A fallout of which was that the need to attract and sustain foreign investments acquired an unprecedented significance. The purpose of this paper is to help the readers understand in this larger context the corporate law reform initiatives in India, particularly those pertaining to shareholder rights and allied issues.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper empirically tests the hypothesis that enhanced shareholder protection leads to greater levels of investments, and financial developments generally. It then uses regression analysis to detect if the change in corporate governance, making it more shareholder-friendly, has had any effect on growth in financial market. It is divided into two broad parts. The first tracks the evolution of corporate governance norms in India. A robust qualitative and quantitative analysis is used to determine the tilt towards a shareholder primacy regime that Indian corporate governance regime now displays. The second chapter deals with the regression analysis where the outcome variable is financial market growth, and explanatory variable is the change in the governance regime with relevant control variables.
Findings
The authors find that change in shareholder primacy corporate governance has little effect on financial market growth in India. The authors would suggest that instead of changing the law in books, more emphasis should be given to implement those regulations and increase the overall rule of law.
Originality/value
This is the first time that such a wide-scale study has been conducted in India, using Bayesian methods. It ought to be of immense value to professionals and academics both.
We investigate the organic food market in two selected European countries, Great Britain and Denmark, identifying main differences and similarities. We focus particularly on consumer perceptions and ...priorities, labelling schemes, and sales channels as a basis for assessing market stability and prospects for future growth. We employ a unique set of household panel data that includes information on stated values and concerns as well as registered purchasing behaviour. Most organic food on both markets is produced and processed by large-scale industrialised units and distributed through mainstream sales channels, consumer confidence being sustained at present by organic labelling schemes that appear to function well. However, a parallel market, based on the supply of goods through various direct sales channels to heavy users, prevails. We find that organic food purchase decisions are primarily motivated by ‘private good’ attributes such as freshness, taste and health benefits, attributes that may be perceived as being compatible with modern production and sales structure. Mature markets for organic foods nevertheless appear to be vulnerable to consumer dissatisfaction, particularly among heavy users of organic food products.
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