Many developing countries around the world apply progressive water tariffs, often structured in the form of discretely increasing block tariffs (IBTs). These tariffs have been criticized in the welfare economic literature due to their perceived inefficiency: many of the prices charged under IBTs...

During the last decade a number of principles of modern technology policy emerged from the intensive debate on efficient designs of technology policy to encourage and strengthen the competitiveness of economies. While at the beginning national innovation systems like national economies seemed to...