Managing vulnerability: the implementation of vulnerability reduction measures

Activities involving hazardous substances may cause safety risks to the environment. In addition to hazard reduction measures, such as implementing safety management systems at hazardous facilities, and exposure reduction measures, such as employing safe distances between vulnerable objects and hazardous activities, safety risks can be further minimised through the implementation of vulnerability reduction measures. In the area near where activities involving dangerous substances are being carried out, measures can be taken to reduce the vulnerability, such as increasing the possibilities for emergency response and evacuation. This paper examines what the issues influencing the consideration and implementation of vulnerability reduction measures are. This is done through an examination of land use planning projects in the Netherlands and an analysis of two examinations from the National Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate on the implementation of vulnerability reduction measures to discuss the representativeness of the findings for the Netherlands. The examinations, including the examinations of the Inspectorate, show that the consideration of vulnerability reduction measures is narrower than required by Dutch rules and regulations. Additionally, the implementation of measures is limited. Only half of the vulnerability reduction measures that are adopted in land use plans are actually implemented. Important factors that hampered the consideration and adoption of measures are the restrictions of actual rules and regulation with respect to the enforceability of measures, the limited expertise of those involved and the lack of clarity in tasks and roles regarding the consideration and monitoring of vulnerability reduction measures. More fundamentally, the effectiveness of measures and the need for further risk reduction was discussed. Consequently, more insight is required into the costs and benefits of vulnerability reduction measures and if a more explicit consideration of vulnerability in land use planning practices is desired, elaboration will be needed in the areas of planning legislations, procedures and expertise.     

Don’t just fix it, make it better! Using frontline service employees to improve recovery performance

This study examines how frontline service employees (FSEs) can learn from recovery services and improve their performance accordingly. While research recognizes that FSEs can fulfill an innovation role by sourcing customer knowledge and developing ideas for performance improvement, it remains unclear whether such a role benefits or impairs the FSE’s primary recovery service role of providing efficient and thorough solutions to customer problems. This research models both FSE roles and explores under which conditions it is beneficial for FSEs to engage in an additional innovation role. The model is tested using survey and objective data from 134 FSEs. PLS results reveal that the innovation role is detrimental because sourcing knowledge from customers takes time and effort, but also beneficial because knowledge sourcing triggers FSEs to develop ideas for improvement, which positively influence their recovery speed and recovery quality. Managers can strengthen these positive effects of knowledge sourcing by optimizing an FSE’s service portfolio (i.e., the combination of products, customers, and failures an employee is responsible for), which leverages the effects of knowledge sourcing on ideas for improvement.     

On the moral hazard problem without the first-order approach

We study the moral hazard problem without the first-order approach or other common structure. We present sufficient conditions under which the shadow value of simultaneously tightening the minimum payment and individual rationality constraints has a simple and intuitive expression. We then show how this expression can be used to perform comparative statics exercises in which we study (i) the effect of a change in the agent?s wealth on the well-being of the principal; and (ii) the effects of the outside option and minimum payment on the effort level optimally implemented.     

Empirical relevance of the Hillman condition for revealed comparative advantage: 10 stylized facts

The theoretically necessary and sufficient condition for the correspondence between ‘revealed’ comparative advantage and pre-trade relative prices derived by Hillman (1980 Hillman, AL. 1980. Observations on the relation between ‘revealed comparative advantage’ and comparative advantage as indicated by pre-trade relative prices. Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, 116: 315–21. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) is analysed empirically for virtually all countries of the world over an extended period of time. This yields 10 stylized facts, including that (i) violations of the Hillman condition are small as a share of the number of observations, but substantial as a share of the value of world exports, (ii) violations occur relatively frequently in the period 1970–1984 and more rarely in the period 1985–1997 and (iii) violations occur foremost in primary product and natural resource intensive sectors and for countries in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe. An additional bonus of verifying the Hillman condition in empirical research is its ability to identify erroneously classified trade flows.     

Contract farmer and poultry farm efficiency in Bangladesh: a data envelopment analysis

The objective of this article is to determine the efficiency of the poultry farm in Bangladesh and to assess the influence of contract farming system, using a data envelopment analysis. Seventy-five commercial poultry farms (25 and 50 independent and contract farms, respectively) were randomly selected. The results reveal that efficiency scores vary across sample farms. To explain some of these variations, the efficiency scores were regressed on some human capital variables and farming system using a Tobit model. The study also estimates elasticities to provide the information on the magnitude of the influence of variables on Technical Efficiency (TE), Allocative Efficiency (AE) and Economic Efficiency (EE). The results show that the contracting system is positively and significantly related to the farm's TE, AE and EE. This is expected because under contractual agreement, in order to obtain sufficient supplies of the right quality of poultry meat at the right time, the company provides technical know how assistance through company's recruited supervisor, production inputs and services, and production credit along with intensive supervision, which in turn improves farm efficiency. Thus, by receiving technical know how contract farmers have gained more knowledge on their resource and practices, which enables them to use resources more efficiently. Empirical results can provide crucial information to policy makers that improve poultry farm efficiency.     

The dynamics of environmental innovations: three stylised trajectories of clean technology

In this article, we explore the dynamics of environmental innovations developed by firms to comply with environmental regulations. Our analysis is based on a micro-simulation model of industrial dynamics. The question arises: how do firms competing in the same industry deal with environmental issues without altering their productive efficiency or the performance of the product? We focus on clean technology which seeks to combine environmental and productive dimensions by way of innovation offsets. Our simulations show that an innovative strategy based on a good balance between environmental and productive dimensions takes more time to develop and needs to address a ‘competence destroying effect’. Finally, we study favourable conditions for the development of this type of clean technology and draw some policy implications.     

Latent class modeling of website users’ search patterns: Implications for online market segmentation

Appropriate modeling of web use patterns may yield very relevant marketing and retailing information. We propose using a model-based clustering approach for market segmentation based on website users’ search patterns. We not only provide a detailed discussion of technical issues such as the problem of the selection of the number of segments, but also a very interesting empirical illustration of the potentials of the proposed approach.     

Global equity fund performance, portfolio concentration, and the fundamental law of active management

This paper investigates the relation between portfolio concentration and the performance of global equity funds. Concentrated funds with higher levels of tracking error display better performance than their more broadly diversified counterparts. We show that the observed relation between portfolio concentration and performance is mostly driven by the breadth of the underlying fund strategies; not just by fund managers’ willingness to take big bets. Our results indicate that when investors strive to select the best-performing funds, they should not only consider fund managers’ tracking-error levels. More important is that they take into account the extent to which fund managers carefully allocate their risk budget across multiple investment strategies and have concentrated holdings in multiple market segments simultaneously.