Recovering Sociology from the Trash Heap: Of Waste Politics and the Spatialization of Local Representation in Lagos

This article excavates the debate that unfolded during the 1980s between Jacques Rancière and Pierre Bourdieu to shed light on the theoretical divide that still cuts across the field of urban studies today. Looking at contemporary Rancièrian scholarship through a Bourdieusian lens, it points to their main theoretical shortcomings and reasserts the value of relational, field‐based and empirically grounded approaches to urban politics. At the same time, this article engages seriously Rancière's critique of Bourdieu's failure to account for space in order to question the territoriality inherent to the notion of field. We put this theoretical discussion to the test of Lagos's garbage. Drawing on an ethnographic study conducted in Lagos from 2015 to 2016, we propose analyzing the process of spatialization of the field of local representation by looking at the ways solid waste—here conceived as a political opportunity—is mobilized by different actors. We argue that the deployment of a waste infrastructure in Lagos is congruent with a relative disinvestment in practices of territorial control that reshapes the structure of local representation, reconfiguring the ‘stage’ on which politics is played out in the Nigerian metropolis.     

Producing Localized Commodity Frontiers at the End of Cheap Nature: An Analysis of Eco‐scalar Carbon Fixes and their Consequences

There is no single ‘great’ commodity frontier whose exploitation under current socio‐technical conditions could fuel capital accumulation at the global scale. According to Jason Moore, this represents the ‘end of Cheap Nature’ and signals a terminal crisis for capitalism as we know it. In this article we complicate this assertion by showing how, in the context of global environmental governance frameworks of carbon control, a diverse range of actors situated at multiple scales are intensifying the use of cities and their hinterlands for the production/transgression of localized commodity frontiers. We draw on scholarship on uneven geographical development, state‐led restructuring and eco‐scalar fixes to present two case studies from different segments of the carbon cycle in the global South. The first case demonstrates how the introduction of waste‐to‐energy technology in Delhi facilitated the generation of ‘carbon credits’ while waste matter itself became a commodity. The second discusses attempts by the Brazilian state of Amazonas (Amazônia) aspiring to shift from rainforest exploitation to financialized conservation supported by the ‘green global city’ functions of metropolitan Manaus. These cases demonstrate that although the global carbon‐control regime may enable accumulation, implementation remains speculative, and localized commodity frontiers provoke social resistances that jeopardize their durability.     

金砖国家新开发银行环境和社会安全保障政策的创新性分析

为改善借款方的长期整体发展效果,金砖国家新开发银行对其环境和社会安全保障政策框架进行了大胆创新,着力推进借款方"本国体系"的使用和建设。传统多边开发银行的环境和社会安全保障政策往往采取施加于所有借款方国家法律之上"一刀切"的方式,但难以取得理想的发展效果,其主要原因有:无法影响非多边开发银行资助项目;条件过于僵化,导致部分借款方转而求助于其他融资选项;给借款方造成沉重的时间和费用负担。"本国体系"有效克服了上述难题,但也存在相应挑战。为应对挑战,未来金砖国家新开发银行推进借款国"本国体系"的努力方向是:为本国体系预设一个最低标准;逐步有序而非一步到位地推进本国体系;切实加大对借款方的技术援助。     

交通运输业高质量发展与环境保护融合动力机制及路径

本文以交通运输业高质量发展与环境保护融合为导向,分析交通运输业高质量发展与环境保护现状,阐述交通运输业高质量发展与环境保护融合的内在机理,剖析交通运输高质量发展与环境保护融合的政策驱动、绿色发展需求驱动、优质服务动力、转变发展动力、技术创新动力、利益补偿动力等外部融合动力机制,以及行业竞争力动力、基于绿色发展的组织管理制度创新、绩效驱动等内部融合动力机制。研究建议提出:构建低碳交通技术标准体系,健全基于环境保护的交通建设运营治理机制;探索低碳交通与环境保护成本补偿制度,优化交通运输业产业结构,推动交通运输行业技术升级;建立公路建设与运营环境风险智能控制机制,应用智能技术对交通运输业环境进行协同治理。     

Transboundary pollution externalities: Think globally,act locally?

We analyze the implications of transboundary pollution externalities on environmental policymaking in a spatial setting, in which pollution diffuses across the global spatial economy independently of the specific location in which it is originally generated. This framework gives rise to a simple regional optimal pollution control problem allowing us to compare the global and local solutions in which, respectively, the transboundary externality is and is not taken into account in the determination of the optimal policy by individual local policymakers. We show that it is not obvious that transboundary externalities are a source of inefficiency per se since this is strictly related to the spatial features of the initial distribution of pollution. If the initial pollution distribution is spatially homogeneous then the local and global solutions will coincide and thus no efficiency loss will arise from transboundary externalities, but if it is spatially heterogeneous the local solution will be suboptimal and thus a global approach to environmental problems will be needed to achieve efficiency. From a normative perspective, in this latter (and most realistic) case we also quantify the amount of policy intervention needed at local level in order to achieve the globally desirable goal of pollution eradication in the long run. Our conclusions hold true in a number of different settings, including situations in which the spatial domain is either bounded or unbounded, and situations in which macroeconomic–environmental feedback effects are taken into account.     

Banks' environmental policy and business outcomes: The role of competition

By integrating the two areas of competition–performance and environment–performance, this research explores if competition matters in the relationship between environmental practices and interest margins in the market. A panel of 458 banks from 74 countries for the period of 2006–2016 is used, and the sample is further divided into developed and developing countries. This paper uses the system Generalized Method of Moments estimator to tackle potential omitted variable bias, endogeneity, and simultaneity issues. Without competition, environmental practices only affect banks in developing countries; however, the results show a significant impact for the full sample, including developed countries, when the competition is taken into consideration, suggesting that competition might play a role in the relationship of environmental practices and interest margins. In the full sample, competition impacts the relationship negatively after a moderate level of competition is reached in the market. The environmental practices in developing countries are prone to competition in the market. In developed countries, the competition is found to be lightly positively moderating the impact of environmental practices on interest margins. Based on these findings, it is recommended that developing countries should have a low or moderate level of competition to encourage environmental practices. For developed countries, however, high competition should be preferred to encourage banks to consider environmental practices as one of their core business strategies. These findings are found robust to different statistical estimators.     

Building responsive supervision over smaller banks in Europe: an insight from the Principal-Agent perspective

Abstract

The Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) is an administrative arrangement of national assistance to the ECB in exercising its exclusive supervisory competence. It sets two systems of assistance: ECB Direct Supervision (for large banks) and Indirect Supervision (for smaller and medium-sized banks) supervision. This paper analyzes dynamics between the ECB Banking Supervision as the principal and NCAs as its agents in the system of ECB Indirect Supervision. It identifies six formal (statutory) accountability and control mechanisms which are put at the ECB’s disposal to monitor the way how the NCAs carry SSM supervisory tasks when exercising the ECB’s exclusive supervisory competences under the SSM Regulation.     

Life insurance decisions under recursive utility

In this paper, we generalize recursive utility to include lifetime uncertainty and utility from bequest. The generalization applies to discrete-time as well as continuous-time recursive utility, and it is an important step forward in the development of recursive utility. We formalize the problem of optimal consumption, investment, and life insurance choice under recursive utility, and we state a verification theorem with a generalized Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation. Our generalization of recursive utility allows us to study optimal consumption, investment, and life insurance choice under separation of (market) risk aversion, elasticity of inter-temporal substitution, and elasticity of substitution between bequest and future utility. The separation gives rise to hump-shaped consumption patterns as observed in realized consumption.     

The new ecological paradigm and responses to climate change in China

The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate a Chinese-Mandarin version of the revised new ecological paradigm (NEP-R) scale. In a sample of 515 Mandarin-speaking Chinese nationals, we first assessed the factor structure and internal consistency of the NEP-R and assessed its validity by examining associations with global warming risk perceptions and mitigation behavior. Respondents completed the NEP-R scale, together with measures of risk perception and mitigation behavior. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses indicated that a two-factor solution, reflecting ecocentric and anthropocentric worldviews, best fit the data. Multi-group path analysis revealed that respondents with stronger ecocentric and weaker anthropocentric worldviews perceived more risks associated with global warming. In turn, respondents who perceived more risks reported engaging in more global warming mitigation behaviors. But importantly, the path between risk perceptions and behavior was significantly stronger for highly educated respondents than for less educated respondents, suggesting that education may represent an important strategy for bridging the gap between perceived risks about global warming and action.