The use of bicycle as a transportation mode has increased in popularity during the last four decades. The reasons that could explain why the use of bicycles have increased in popularity are many. Nevertheless, three possible reasons for the increasing in popularity are because of the benefit in terms of health, reduced motorised traffic congestion, and air pollution. As bicycle traffic flows increase, the evaluating of the bicycle traffic infrastructure will become more important for bicyclist safety, and comfort. One possible evaluating tool for bicycle traffic is microscopic traffic simulation and one key component is the free-riding. The free-riding is a bicyclist that is not interacting with other bicyclist, and other road users during a ride. Furthermore, to develop a suitable simulation model of the free-riding needs data and a possible methodology for data collection on the free-riding is using instrumented bicycles. Therefore, this thesis will investigate a methodology that can be used to collect, process, and analyse data for two bicyclist and their interactions with the infrastructure. The methodology for data collection using instrumented bicycle includes a pre-defined travel route, two types of bicycles as a conventional, and an electric bicycle. Additionally, the equipment is used in the methodology should be easy to switch between bicycles to keep the behaviour as natural as possible for bicyclists. Nevertheless, the equipment is easy to switch between bicycles, if only a few tools is needed to switch between bicycles in the methodology. Moreover, data collection using instrument bicycle includes an interview survey on each participating bicyclist, and investigate weather conditions, and effort experience during the data collection on each participating bicyclist. Results indicate that negative acceleration i.e., deceleration, at intersections, curves, uphill when a conventional bicycle is used. Meanwhile, it is also negative acceleration i.e., deceleration at downhills when an electric bicycle is used. Furthermore, the use of electric bicycle leads to higher travel speed and lower power output usage on average than when a conventional bicycle is used as expected. Moreover, at downhills the speed can still increase even though the power output usage is zero, according to the analysis of free-riding behaviour. In addition, data collection using instrumented bicycle collects other measurement of the effort for the bicyclist such as the heart rate, and cadence. / <p>Examensarbetet är utfört vid Institutionen för teknik och naturvetenskap (ITN) vid Tekniska fakulteten, Linköpings universitet</p>

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A simple integrated assessment framework that gives rules for the optimal carbon price, transition to the carbon-free era and stranded carbon assets is presented, which highlights the ethical, economic, geophysical and political drivers of optimal climate policy. For the ethics we discuss the role of intergenerational inequality aversion and the discount rate, where we show the importance of lower discount rates for appraisal of longer run benefit and of policy makers using lower discount rates than private agents. The economics depends on the costs and rates of technical progress in production of fossil fuel, its substitute renewable energies and sequestration. The geophysics depends on the permanent and transient components of atmospheric carbon and the relatively fast temperature response, and we allow for positive feedbacks. The politics stems from international free-rider problems in absence of a global climate deal. We show how results change if different assumptions are made about each of the drivers of climate policy. Our main objective is to offer an easy back-on-the-envelope analysis, which can be used for teaching and communication with policy makers. / Series: Ecological Economic Papers

A simple integrated assessment framework that gives rules for the optimal carbon price, transition to the carbon-free era and stranded carbon assets is presented, which highlights the ethical, economic, geophysical and political drivers of optimal climate policy. For the ethics we discuss the role of intergenerational inequality aversion and the discount rate, where we show the importance of lower discount rates for appraisal of longer run benefit and of policy makers using lower discount rates than private agents. The economics depends on the costs and rates of technical progress in production of fossil fuel, its substitute renewable energies and sequestration. The geophysics depends on the permanent and transient components of atmospheric carbon and the relatively fast temperature response, and we allow for positive feedbacks. The politics stems from international free-rider problems in absence of a global climate deal. We show how results change if different assumptions are made about each of the drivers of climate policy. Our main objective is to offer an easy back-on-the-envelope analysis, which can be used for teaching and communication with policy makers.

Les systèmes complexes sont présents partout dans notre environnement : internet, réseaux de distribution d'électricité, réseaux de transport. Ces systèmes ont pour caractéristiques d'avoir un grand nombre d'entités autonomes, des structures dynamiques, des échelles de temps et d'espace différentes, ainsi que l'émergence de phénomènes. Ce travail de thèse se focalise sur la problématique du contrôle de tels systèmes. Il s'agit de déterminer, à partir d'une perception partielle de l'état du système, quelle(s) actions(s) effectuer pour éviter ou au contraire favoriser certains états globaux du système. Cette problématique pose plusieurs questions difficiles : pouvoir évaluer l'impact au niveau collectif d'actions appliqués au niveau individuel, modéliser la dynamique d'un système hétérogène (plusieurs comportements différents en interaction), évaluer la qualité des estimations issues de la modélisation de la dynamique du système. Nous proposons une architecture de contrôle selon une approche " equation-free ". Nous utilisons un modèle multi-agents pour évaluer l'impact global d'actions de contrôle locales avant d'appliquer la plus pertinente. Associée à cette architecture, une plateforme a été développée pour confronter ces idées à l'expérimentation dans le cadre d'un phénomène simulé de " free-riding " dans les réseaux d'échanges de fichiers pair à pair. Nous avons montré que cette approche permettait d'amener le système dans un état où une majorité de pairs partagent alors que les conditions initiales (sans intervention) feraient évoluer le système vers un état où aucun pair ne partage. Nous avons également expérimenté avec différentes configurations de l'architecture pour identifier les différents moyens d'améliorer ses performances.

This dissertation is devoted to the analysis of various aspects of inefficiency in the political economy. It consists of four self-containing theoretical essays. The first two chapters deal with the interplay between inefficiency and commitment. Chapter 1 studies the problem of commitment in autocratic regimes and its implications for growth. Chapter 2 argues that the absence of commitment undermines the validity of the Coase theorem. The next two chapters address alternative sources of inefficiency, abstracting from commitment-related problems. Chapter 3 discusses inefficiencies arising in organizations whose members possess veto power and suggests a way of mitigating the problem. Finally, Chapter 4 analyzes the impact of demand linkages on the efficiency of lobbying for trade policy. Chapter 1. “Autocracy, Devolution and Growth” Some autocracies have sustained high economic growth for many decades; others have stagnated at low levels of production. Paradoxically, the stagnating autocracies appear to possess more natural resources and be more resistant to political change than the growing autocracies. The paper argues that the scope for capital accumulation and growth in an autocracy is largely determined by the autocrat's incentive to cling to power. The main result of the paper is that there will be private capital accumulation only if the autocrat’s benefits from political control are not too high. The reason is that, as capital accumulates and growth slows down, the autocrat faces an increasing temptation to expropriate the capitalists. Since expropriation eliminates growth, the autocrat may voluntarily refrain from expropriating if future growth is sufficiently large; otherwise, the temptation to expropriate can only be resisted through a credible commitment, that is, by devolving some political power. For autocrats with large benefits of control, for example valuable natural resource rents, devolution of power may always be unattractive. As a result, capitalists realize that they will eventually be expropriated, and capital accumulation therefore never starts. On the other hand, autocrats with small resource rents will eventually devolve power, since this commitment is necessary to sustain growth. Therefore, capitalists are willing to start accumulating despite the autocratic regime. In other words, autocracies are vulnerable to the resource curse.   Chapter 2. “The Coase Theorem Is False” (with Tore Ellingsen) The paper provides simple and robust counterexamples to the Coase Theorem. More precisely, we show that equilibrium investments in club goods can be suboptimally small despite the presence of well-defined and perfectly protected property rights and the absence of transaction costs and informational asymmetries. The reason is that, in equilibrium, a club of owners will typically not exercise their right to exclude outsiders, preferring instead to exercise their right to sell access. As long as the club of owners does not have all the bargaining power in such ex post access negotiations, strategic non-membership provides a valuable free-riding opportunity. Chapter 3. “Club-in-the-Club: Reform under Unanimity” (with Erik Berglöf, Mike Burkart and Guido Friebel) In many organizations, decisions are taken by unanimity. We analyze a model of an organization in which members with heterogeneous productivity privately contribute to a common good. Under unanimity, the least efficient member imposes her preferred effort choice on the entire organization. In the presence of externalities and an incomplete charter, the threat of forming an “inner organization” can undermine the veto power of the less efficient members and coerce them to exert more effort. We identify the conditions under which the threat of forming an inner organization is never executed, and under which inner organizations are equilibrium outcomes, and provide a rationale for the diversity of decision rules. Chapter 4. “Protection for Sale to Oligopolists” This paper modifies Grossman and Helpman’s "Protection for Sale" model by allowing demand linkages and oligopolistic competition. It shows that increased substitutability between products weakens interest groups’ incentives to lobby. For the case of two industries it obtains a particularly simple result: the protection of the organized industry’s product falls, whereas the protection of the unorganized industry’s product increases with product substitutability. The model suggests that empirical studies of the "Protection for Sale" may overstate the lobby groups’ desire for protection. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2006

The thesis consists of four papers. The first two essays deal with entry externalities, the third studies the Law of One Price (LOP), while the last essay examines average profits for a monopolist under uncertainty. In the first essay, entry externalities in the form of information and positive payoff externalities are studied. When a firm enters a market, it often imposes externalities on existing firms and/or future potential entrants. If products are substitutes, these externalities are typically negative; if products are complements, the externalities are typically positive. Externalities related to substitution or complementarities between products are called payoff externalities, since entry by one firm has a direct effect on the other firms' payoff. Another type of externality arises when firms have private information about the profitability of entry. In this case, the entry decision of one firm potentially reveals that firm's private information. The focus of the paper is on the scope for intervention for an uninformed social planner, when firms privately know the profitability of entry and moreover, the firms have an option to delay their entry. The main result is that there is insufficient entry, since firms delay too much in equilibrium and further, the social planner can increase welfare by subsidizing early entry. Continuing on this theme, the second essay has the same focus, but instead takes the time of entry as fixed, while generalizing the analysis of payoff externalities also to the case of negative payoff externalities. The main contribution is the characterization of equilibria under both positive and negative payoff externalities and the implications for public policy. Here, the scope for intervention will, in contrast to the results in the first essay, be low, when entry is profitable for uninformed firms. In the third essay (joint with Richard Friberg), deviations from the LOP are studied in the presence of transport costs, under the assumption that firms can endogenously choose to segment markets in order to prevent arbitrage by consumers. It is shown that the deviation from LOP can increase as transport costs fall between countries. The last essay (joint with Richard Friberg), studies the problem facing a monopolist when the cost of inputs is uncertain. The main result is that the monopolist can gain from this uncertainty, in the sense that average profits are increasing in the variability of costs. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk., 2001

Dans la littérature, les débats autour du fédéralisme environnemental sont persistants et non-Concluants. La Chine a poursuivi la tendance globale de la décentralisation et adopté un de facto fédéralisme environnemental. Dans ce pays vaste et diversifié, connaissances et compétences locales sont nécessaires pour développer des solutions appropriées pour de nombreux problèmes environnementaux souvent avec une nature locale ou régionale. Cependant, malgré le de facto fédéralisme environnemental adopté, crises environnementales dramatiques et échecs de la politique sont répandus en Chine. En particulier, plus récemment, ce pays a vu apparaître de nombreux problèmes prédits par les opposants à la décentralisation. Il semble que, contrairement à la décentralisation fiscale qui a été un «coup de main» dans la mobilisation des ressources et la croissance économique au niveau sous-National, la décentralisation de l’application de la politique environnementale a plutôt été une «main saisissant» dans la gestion environnementale. Dans le but de fournir une compréhension meilleure et détaillée du de facto fédéralisme environnemental en Chine, cette thèse suit les différents critiques dans la littérature et teste empiriquement pour chacun d'eux dans le contexte spécifique chinois. En résumé, les résultats empiriques trouvés dans cette thèse soutiennent l'existence de problèmes liés à l'externalité environnementale, à l'interaction stratégique et aux incitations politiques qui conduisent au compromis de l’environnement. Par ailleurs, la décentralisation budgétaire en cours est susceptible de renforcer les interactions interprovinciales conduites par la concurrence pour capitaux; le déséquilibre fiscal est plus préjudiciable à l'environnement dans les provinces pauvres. Ces résultats appellent à un «nouveau fédéralisme environnemental» et une réforme des incitations, afin de transformer le de facto fédéralisme environnemental chinois d’une «main saisissant» à un «coup de main» pour une meilleure gouvernance environnementale. / In the literature, debate around environmental federalism is lasting and inconclusive. China has followed the global tendency of decentralization and has adopted a de facto environmental federalism. In this broad and diverse country, local knowledge and expertise is necessary to develop proper solutions for many environmental problems with local and regional nature. However, despite the adopted de facto environmental federalism, dramatic environmental crises and policy failures widespread in China. In particular, more recently, this country has seen arise many problems predicted by the opponents of decentralization. It appears that, contrary to the fiscal decentralization which has been a “helping hand” in resource mobilization and economic growth at the sub-National level, the decentralization of environmental policy implementation has rather been a “grabbing hand” in environmental management. With the purpose of providing a better and detailed understanding of the de facto environmental federalism in China, this thesis follows the different critics in the literature and test empirically for each of them in the Chinese-Specific context. In summary, empirical results found in this thesis support the existence of problems related to environmental externality, strategic interaction and politically incentivized environment-Sacrificing behaviors. Moreover, the current fiscal decentralization is likely to strengthen the capital-Competition driven inter-Provincial interaction; fiscal imbalance is more environmentally detrimental in poor provinces. These findings call for a “new environmental federalism” and a reform of incentives, in order to transform the Chinese de facto environmental federalism from a “grabbing hand” to a “helping hand” for better environmental governance.

Consumer free riding occurs when consumers gather information about a product through a full-service retailer and then ultimately purchase that product from a limited-service retailer. This phenomenon is becoming more common as consumers have an increasing number of retail channels in which they can evaluate and purchase products. The prevalence of this behavior is causing problems for retailers, particularly small, specialty retailers, as they struggle to deter free riders. The goal of this research is to explore free riding in the context of small, specialty retailers in an attempt to isolate key factors which influence free riding behavior and which may give specialty retailers and managers insights and tools with which to combat this behavior. This is accomplished through three studies, two qualitative and one quantitative. In the two qualitative studies, detailed information regarding free riding motivations and experiences is gained through interviews and open-ended questionnaires. The information gathered in studies one and two is then used in conjunction with the Theory of Reasoned Action to create a model of free riding. The model was tested across four samples and includes firm-controllable factors which may influence free riding. This research yielded many insights into consumer free riding behavior. One of the most illuminating aspects of free riding uncovered through this research is the emotional factor associated with free riding for some consumers. This emotional element, a sense of obligation to purchase from the retailer, was discovered and explored. Factors such as desire to support local merchants, personal connection to the retailer and extra-role service were revealed as firm controllable elements that retailers might be able to use to influence purchase obligation and therefore deter free riders. Other factors, such as subjective norms, were also found to impact free riding attitudes, while the impact of price sensitivity on free riding met with mixed results in this study. The results of this research offer managers possible tools for deterring free riders and offer researchers future areas for research.

The thesis Difficulties of the EU - Cohesion Policy Implementation System in the Czech Republic in the Programming period 2007-2013 deals with application of the theories of the European integration on two case studies. In the first part of the thesis the general history of the EU - structural policy is described. The second part is dedicated to the history of the structural policy in the Czech Republic. The third part is concerned with the theoretical definition of the topic and leads to a definition of the hypothesis and the research method. The main theoretical approach for the case studies is the multi-level governance theory, which describes multi-level sharing of authority among different types of actors. None of those actors has a power to define final version of the given policy. The case studies, which in detail examine the development and the efficiency of the implementation system of structural policy in Czech Republic, prove that this environment can cause the coordination dilemma connected with overuse of the free-riding tactics and high transaction costs. The combination of those elements leads to highly rigid system of implementation.