The environmental and economic costs of sprawling parking lots in the United States

Urban sprawl is considered by most environmental scientists and urban planners to be a serious environmental problem. However, public perception about parking availability often forces planning offices to recommend parking lot sizes that exceed daily demands. The recent trend of increasing the size of stores, churches and even schools comes with increasing the size of parking lots that service these buildings. The objective of this paper is to analyze space allocation of parking lots in a typical midwestern county and to estimate the supply of parking spaces to potential demand. We also estimate the loss of ecosystem services represented by the area of parking lots in this county. We found that parking lots cover 5.65 km² (1 397 acres) of Tippecanoe County, Indiana which implies that 0.44% of the county area is devoted to parking lots. Our results show that there are approximately 2.2 parking spaces per registered vehicle, that parking lots make up more than 6.57% of the total urban footprint in this county, that the area of parking lots exceeded the area of parks in the city limits by a factor of three and that parking lot runoff and pollutants are significant compared to runoff and pollutants from these areas prior to their conversion to parking lots. As other authors have done before us we lament the poor use of land in urban regions of the United States, and encourage planners to think creatively about the use of land for parking.     

When boards use related parties: outsourcing and superannuation fund performance

Superannuation funds heavily outsource key fund functions to service providers who play a crucial role in superannuation fund operations and affecting Australians’ retirement savings. We examine the impact of related party service provider usage and trustee‐director affiliation on investment performance. We find that for‐profit funds significantly underperform when using related party service providers. The underperformance is more severe when the board is controlled by more affiliated trustee‐directors and belongs to a vertically integrated conglomerate group. Our results raise concerns about whether recent regulatory reforms increasing trustee‐directors’ duties effectively address the conflicts of interest inherent in related party service provider arrangements.     

Evolutionary perspectives on salary dispersion within firms

In contrast with neoclassical economic models that assume that individuals hold preferences independently of others, there exist growing bodies of research demonstrating that preferences are often interdependent and based upon relative comparisons. This paper reviews research concerning salary dispersion within firms through the framework of four hypotheses that are generated by evolutionary perspectives. Contrary to some characterizations of evolutionary social science, this review presumes that there exist multiple evolutionary perspectives that have applicability to matters of practical importance. Basic findings include recognition of a strong evolutionarily-sensible preference for relatively high salary standings that is independent of absolute salary amounts. Synthetic findings include identification of research problems that future, directed studies can profitably address. For practical application, my review finds that evolved preferences appear more aligned with salary structures that are dispersed relatively evenly among co-workers when compared with tournament-style compensation patterns.      

When can you trust “trust”? Calculative trust,relational trust,and supplier performance

Our research empirically assesses two distinct bases for trust: calculative trust, based on a structure of rewards and penalties, versus relational trust, a judgment anchored in past behavior and characterized by a shared identity. We find that calculative trust and relational trust positively influence supplier performance, with calculative trust having a stronger association than relational trust. Yet, important boundary conditions exist. If buyers invest in supplier‐specific assets or when supply side market uncertainty is high, relational trust, not calculative trust, is more strongly associated with supplier performance. In contrast, when behavioral uncertainty is high, calculative trust, not relational trust, relates more strongly to supplier performance. These results highlight the value of examining distinct forms of trust. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A note on the forward measure

For a Markov process , the forward measure over the time interval is defined by the Radon-Nikodym derivative , where is a given non-negative function and is the normalizing constant. In this paper, the law of under the forward measure is identified when is a diffusion process or, more generally, a continuous-path Markov process.     

The Case for Free Banking

can the private sector satisfactorily supply monetary services without state support? Kevin Dowd, of the University of Nottingham, argues the case for full privatisation of the monetary system.     

Barriers to growth: skills and training in telematics

Great claims have been made about the growth prospects of the telematics sector, the primary source of communications networks and services. However, this article argues that the telematics sector faces some formidable barriers to growth, especially with respect to skills provision.