The equity impacts of bus rapid transit: A review of the evidence and implications for sustainable transport

The paper offers an analysis of empirical evidence on the equity impacts of operational Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems in the Global South. The focus is on vertical equity, i.e. whether BRT systems achieve progressive benefits for poorer segments of the population. Findings from Africa, Asia, and Latin America all suggest that BRT does offer significant benefits to low-income groups, in terms of travel time and cost savings, access enhancement, and safety and health benefits. However benefits are often skewed toward medium-income users and thus less progressive than they might be. Two primary reasons for this are insufficient spatial coverage and inappropriate fare policies. While many features of BRT potentially allow it to deliver pro-poor outcomes, such outcomes only materialize if BRT implementers pay specific and sustained attention to equity. The paper identifies key issues that need to be addressed to steer BRT implementation toward more socially sustainable outcomes—including better integration with other transit, paratransit, and nonmotorized transport services, and with the housing sector.     

Ag econ angst crisis revisited

The present paper was inspired by and is a response to the Rola-Rubzen, Hardaker and Dillon paper 'Agricultural economists and world poverty: progress and prospects' (Rola-Rubzen et al. 2001). It is agreed that the position of agricultural economists in foreign aid and poverty programs has declined over recent decades. Such a feeling of guilt and remorse expressed by the above authors does indeed create considerable 'angst'. A major reason for this state of affairs lies in 'the flavour of the month' approach of the development agencies. These include women in development, gender-based farming systems research, household nutrition and food security, people participation, and targeting the poorest of the poor. These fads have driven disciplinary considerations to the wall and the more widely-defined objectives have reduced the drive for economic efficiency. We argue there is still a place for better designed and delivered assistance programs within the wider framework of assistance that has become fashionable. Greater application of institutional principles in both the political processes associated with assistance and the implementation agencies would improve the outcomes of many projects. Particular attention would need to be given to the interface between the development agencies and recipient governments. The present paper picks up on the market failure aspects of agriculture's rather poor contribution to development, and develops a wider perspective in terms of the new institutional economics and a continuing role for the agricultural economist.     

Why Press Coverage of a Client Influences the Audit Opinion

In this study I use an experiment to examine why auditors are more likely to issue going–concern opinions when the client has been the subject of negative press coverage prior to the date of the audit opinion. I find no evidence that negative press coverage increases auditors' perceptions of legal liability, as was suggested in the prior literature. I do find, however, that negative press coverage increases auditors' perception of a client's bankruptcy probability and this, in turn, leads auditors to modify the audit opinion. Because the press coverage presented in this study provides no new information, the results suggest that auditors react too strongly to redundant information. This over–reaction can result in inefficient allocation of audit resources and can have deleterious affects on clients. Accordingly, policy makers, auditors and their clients might be interested in how auditors' reliance on redundant information can be reduced.     

Honesty in Environmental Regulation

This paper analyzes the determination of the optimal environmental regulatory policy under imperfect competition when the firms differ in their polluting technologies and degree of honesty. We show that more honesty does not necessarily imply lower social losses. The effect of honesty in social welfare depends not only on the degree of honesty measured by the proportion of honest firms and their particular cost features but also on the industry structure.     

Possibilities for remote participation in trade unions: mobilising women activists

This paper argues that trade union activism within the new era of information and communication technologies (ICTs) offers the potential for unions to become more inclusive of under‐represented groups. Traditional conceptions of activism, participation and democracy within trade unions require physical presence at meetings at times and in spaces incompatible with caring responsibilities and atypical hours of work. This restricts the participation of women and other ‘atypical’ workers in trade unions. The paper explores the complexities of electronic forms of union activism in practice, indicating that while some positive features are experienced, there are also a range of obstacles, barriers and possible negative consequences.     

Network Resources for Internationalization: The Case of Taiwan's Electronics Firms*

ABSTRACT This paper illustrates foreign direct investment (FDI) as the management of important network relations, using Taiwan's electronics firms as an example. Through FDI, seemingly small and weak firms propel the process of internationalization by making maximum use of external resources to which they have access. FDI often starts at a location close to the home base where support from the domestic networks can be drawn, subsequently moving on to more distant locations after investors have accumulated new network resources. The location chosen is usually an area rich in network resources or in close proximity to such rich networks. FDI enables the investors to construct a regional, or even global, sub‐network under their control to supply a set of wide‐ranging, differentiated and low‐cost products in a flexible fashion, and sometimes within close proximity to the markets. With this capacity for versatility, investors become valuable partners for multinational firms that offer global services.     

Family income and child outcomes in Canada

Abstract.  A positive relationship between income and child outcomes has been observed in data from numerous countries. A key question concerns the extent to which this association represents a causal relationship as opposed to unobserved heterogeneity. We use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth to implement a series of empirical strategies for estimating the existence and size of the effect of income on three measures of cognition. Our results indicate that the effect of income on these outcomes may well be positive, but that it is likely to be smaller than conventional estimates. JEL Classification: I10     

The Role of Holding Company Financial Information in the Insurer-Rating Process: Evidence From the Property-Liability Industry

We examine data for the year ended December 31, 1997 for 80 publicly traded property‐liability insurers that have Best financial strength ratings of their consolidated insurance‐operating subsidiaries. These firms employ a holding company structure, in which a parent owns the stock of multiple insurance‐operating subsidiaries. The operating subsidiaries prepare a consolidated annual report using the Statutory Accounting Principles (SAP), and an analogous set of financial statements based on the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) is released by the parent. We find that the financial characteristics important in determining ratings at the individual firm level—capitalization, liquidity, profitability, and size—are also important at the group level. Further, financial ratios from holding company statements are incrementally useful in the ratings' process, after group‐level ratios have been taken into account. Robustness tests based on a subsample of holding companies with minimal investment outside of the property‐liability industry reinforce our conclusion that parent company statements influence consolidated group ratings. However, our data do not allow us to separate the relative contribution of the GAAP model and underlying transactions to the ratings decision.