Demographic Transition and Fertility Rebound in Economic Development*

Recent evidence on the “fertility rebound” offers credence to the idea that, from the onset of early industrialization to the present day, the dynamics of fertility can be represented by an N-shaped curve. An overlapping generations model with parental investment in human capital can account for these observed movements in fertility rates during the different stages of demographic change. A demographic transition with declining fertility emerges at the intermediate stage, when parents engage on a child quantity–quality trade-off. At later stages, however, the process of economic growth generates sufficient resources so that households can rear more children while still providing the desirable amount of education investment per child.     

Enhancing Corporate Environmental Performance Through Reporting and Roadmaps

Managing the carbon footprint of companies and addressing their respective decarbonization plans is a challenging endeavour. The aim of this study is to help companies better understand the issues around decarbonization and environmental performance by suggesting a holistic management process on which they could embark. This process comprises two crucial steps, which are (a) sustainability reporting and (b) low‐carbon roadmaps. These steps are covered and further developed based on a detailed study of the UK food retail sector. This sector is relevant due to its economic and environmental importance, but most importantly it has a significant record of available environmental reports in the public domain and a large potential to influence consumers, policy makers and multiple supply chains. Sustainability reporting is assessed by analysing environmental KPIs disclosed in corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports, and then these are compared against industry standards. This analysis highlights a general lack of consistency and transparency in CSR reporting of UK food retailers. Consequently, a low‐carbon roadmap based on relevant KPIs and on the ‘backcasting’ framework is presented as a case study in order to showcase how a hypothetical UK food retailer can employ a low‐carbon roadmap. The case study demonstrates that ambitious environmental targets are achievable if robust corporate action plans are followed. Furthermore, the case study indicates that capital might be misallocated in favour of highly visible environmental stores and on‐site energy generation technologies, whilst more could be done by applying energy efficiency measures that have the potential to deliver substantial carbon savings. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

HOW TO MEASURE THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF VECTOR‐BORNE DISEASES AT COUNTRY LEVEL

Vector‐borne diseases (VBDs) are widespread in less developed countries and reemerging in developed ones. Available economic studies agree that VBDs have significant effects on countries' economic outcomes, and affirm that a systematic evaluation of such effects is crucial for the efficient allocation of resources to health‐related priorities. This paper provides a comparative assessment of available methodologies for measuring the economic impact of VBDs at national level. We review both macroeconometric and micro‐based approaches, and examine advantages and disadvantages of current methods. We conclude by suggesting possible areas for future research.     

Forecasting the urban skyline with extreme value theory

The world’s urban population is expected to grow fifty percent by the year 2050 and exceed six billion. The major challenges confronting cities, such as sustainability, safety, and equality, will depend on the infrastructure developed to accommodate the increase. Urban planners have long debated the consequences of vertical expansion—the concentration of residents by constructing tall buildings—over horizontal expansion—the dispersal of residents by extending urban boundaries. Yet relatively little work has predicted the vertical expansion of cities and quantified the likelihood and therefore urgency of these consequences.We regard tall buildings as random exceedances over a threshold and use extreme value theory to forecast the skyscrapers that will dominate the urban skyline in 2050 if present trends continue. We predict forty-one thousand skyscrapers will surpass 150 meters and 40 floors, an increase of eight percent a year, far outpacing the expected urban population growth of two percent a year. The typical tall skyscraper will not be noticeably taller, and the tallest will likely exceed one thousand meters but not one mile. If a mile-high skyscraper is constructed, it will hold fewer occupants than many of the mile-highs currently designed. We predict roughly three-quarters the number of floors of the Mile-High Tower, two-thirds of Next Tokyo’s Sky Mile Tower, and half the floors of Frank Lloyd Wright’s The Illinois—three prominent plans for a mile-high skyscraper. However, the relationship between floor and height will vary considerably across cities.     

I (Could Have) Told You! Early warning indicators and crisis performance of the 12 “old” Euro-countries under the economic crisis 2008–09

The impact of the economic crisis 2008-09 was remarkably different in the 12 “old” member states in the Euro-zone. Five of them were hit especially badly; four of them even had to be bailed out by the rest in one way or another. This paper asks if one could have foretold, based solely on information available prior to 1999, which of the countries then about to enter the Euro-zone would run into economic trouble once a serious economic crisis occurred. The focus is on the (post)predictive power of three kinds of leading indicators: economic indicators, political indicators (indicating quality of governance), and indicators derived from the theory of optimal currency areas (OCA). Since there are more indicators than cases, PLS-regression is used to gauge the (post)predictive strength of the indicators examined. The results show that political indicators have quite some (post)predictive power in this case, whereas indicators derived from OCA-theory do not do too well. Economic indicators perform better than indicators derived from OCA-theory, but generally less well than the political indicators. Thus, the experience from the latest economic crisis in the Euro-zone suggests that more emphasis should be placed on the quality of governance record of a country when deciding if it should be deemed fit to become a member.     

The Political Economy of Policy Vacuums: The European Commission on Demographic Change

ABSTRACT

Supranational organisations can only confront politico-economic issues that are recognised as important. Typically, issues gain recognition either when they provide an external shock to the system, shaking political actors into action, or when they are framed as important in policy networks concerned with developing the appropriate scientific approach. Ideally political and scientific actors align in creating pressures to recognise the issue as salient and to mobilise organisational responses. Issues differ in their capacity to be driven by both political and scientific pressures, creating crisis management, technocratic, and reform agenda outcomes. Here we explore a further variation, where pressures around an issue are insufficient, creating a policy vacuum. We examine one such policy vacuum in Europe: demographic change. This issue belongs to no particular Directorate-General in the European Commission, but is subject to policy frames from DG EMPL and DG ECFIN. Without sufficient political and scientific pressures, no particular policy position is occupied and advocated despite recognition of the issue’s importance. We discuss the role of policy vacuums and the need for their identification in political economy research.     

Social Media Index Valuation: Impact of Technological,Social, Economic,and Ethical Dimensions

Marketing practitioners have recognized a growing need to measure consumer-generated social media in a standard way since there are numerous social media indicators in use, making intra- and inter-company comparisons difficult. This paper identifies four social media dimensions for measurement and evaluation: technological, social, economic, and ethical; and, subsequently, measures social media. The study makes a contribution to social media literature by using analytic hierarchy process of developing a mathematical model for social media index valuation. The “social media composite index number” will serve as an industry benchmark signifying the organization's share and commitment to social media.     

Crowding standards at Petra Archaeological Park: a comparative study of McKercher's five types of heritage tourists

To achieve sustainability in heritage tourism, tourists should be placed at the heart of the management and planning processes. Indicators and standards-based frameworks were developed in the field of outdoor recreation management to manage and measure crowding and other problematic issues in parks and related areas. Using normative theory and visual research methods, this article aims to examine crowding standards of tourists at Petra Archaeological Park, and compare these standards between the types of heritage tourists suggested by a model developed by Bob McKercher. Results showed that tourists’ acceptability levels go down with an increasing number of tourists, and tourists who are highly motivated to visit heritage sites (i.e. purposeful and sightseeing heritage tourists) had the most restrictive acceptable number of tourists at the park. The normative standards formulated in this article provided a guidance to manage crowding at Petra.