Challenges for land system science

While considerable progress has been made in understanding land use change, land system science continues to face a number of grand challenges. This paper discusses these challenges with a focus on empirical land system studies, land system modelling and the analysis of future visions of land system change. Contemporary landscapes are contingent outcomes of past and present patterns, processes and decisions. Thus, empirical analysis of past and present land-use change has an important role in providing insights into the socio-economic and ecological processes that shape land use transitions. This is especially important with respect to gradual versus rapid land system dynamics and in understanding changes in land use intensity. Combining the strengths of empirical analysis with multi-scale modelling will lead to new insights into the processes driving land system change. New modelling methods that combine complex systems thinking at a local level with macro-level economic analysis of the land system would reconcile the multi-scale dynamics currently encapsulated in bottom-up and top-down modelling approaches. Developments in land use futures analysis could focus on integrating explorative scenarios that reflect possible outcomes with normative visions that identify desired outcomes. Such an approach would benefit from the broad and in-depth involvement of stakeholders in order to link scientific findings to political and societal decision-making culminating in a set of key choices and consequences. Land system models have an important role in supporting future land use policy, but model outputs require scientific interpretation rather than being presented as predictions. The future of land system science is strongly dependent on the research community's capacity to bring together the elements of research discussed in the paper, via empirical data collection and analysis of observed processes, computer simulation across scale levels and futures analysis of alternative, normative visions through stakeholder engagement.     

Travelling to the Ancestral Homelands: The Aspirations and Experiences of a UK Caribbean Community

This paper is based on an ethnographic study of the Caribbean community of Moss Side, Manchester (UK). Its aim is to reveal, interpret and analyse the personal meanings which members of the community attach to visiting the ancestral homeland in the Caribbean. This form of travel is defined in terms of 'ethnic reunion', which involves travelling for the purpose of visiting friends and relatives and/or searching for one's cultural roots. The study, which is based on an interpretive analysis of a range of ethnographic material, initially examines the reasons why first- and second-generation Caribbeans wish to participate in the 'homeland experience', and then illustrates ways in which they reconstruct an identity of themselves through their travel perceptions and experiences. The latter part of the paper discusses how people's travel encounters serve to illustrate how ethnic differences and boundaries between groups are constructed and/or reconstructed. It is argued that established perspectives of tourism motivation and behaviour do not fully account for the role of ethnicity as a significant variable in influencing specific forms of travel. The conclusion asserts that ethnic reunion should be conceptually viewed as a distinct form of 'travel', socioculturally dissimilar to conventional forms of 'tourism'.     

Production Externalities and Urban Configuration

We formally explore Jacobs' idea that uncompensated knowledge spillovers are crucial for agglomeration by modeling location-dependent interfirm production externalities in a general-equilibrium linear-city framework. Good and factor allocation, firms' and households' locational choice, and wages and land rents are all endogenously determined. The unique equilibrium urban configuration may be concentrated (with monocentric firm locations), dispersed (with completely mixed firm/household locations), or a combination, depending on the population of firms, transportation cost, and firm-interaction parameters. Due to distance-dependent production externalities, firms will be clustered together in any equilibrium, thus ruling out the possibility of any multicentric urban configuration. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D51, R12.     

CONSISTENT ESTIMATION OF RESIDUAL VARIANCE IN REGULATORY EVENT STUDIES

This study presents new evidence on alternative methods used to test for abnormal returns in regulatory event studies where cross-sectional correlation in residuals is significant. Results contradict earlier studies that find no advantages to using joint generalized least squares (JGLS) methods over ordinary least squares (OLS). We find that in an actual regulatory event study cross-correlation is significant, and that failing to correct for this correlation results in substantially higher calculated F-statistics. In Monte Carlo simulations we find that OLS test statistics are not well specified when residuals exhibit cross-sectional correlation at levels that are reasonable to expect in daily return data, while JGLS test statistics are well specified. The study includes tests of the effective power of the OLS and JGLS statistics.     

A characterization of the demand for land

In a model of an economy where land is modelled explicitly as heterogeneous subsets of the plane and utility takes an integral form, demand can be characterized as a specific map from endowments and prices into subsets of the plane. A modified form of the Neyman-Pearson lemma is used to obtain this result, the modification being necessary because the analog of randomized tests must be excluded from this model.     

Deposit interest rates, asset risk and bank failure in Croatia

Financial deregulation, while beneficial in the long-term, seems to be linked to instability. Intense competition for deposits appears to be an ingredient in instability. We examine the aftermath of deregulation in Croatia, which included rapid growth of both deposits and deposit interest rates, followed by numerous bank failures.

Using panel regression techniques, we find evidence of “market-stealing” via high deposit interest rates. We connect high deposit interest rates to bank failure using logit models. High deposit interest rates were a reliable signal of risk-taking. When supervisory capabilities and powers are weak, deposit interest rate regulation may be worth considering.     

Improving Distribution Service Performance Through Effective Production and Logistics Integration

Current empirical research on logistics' relationships with other departments has mostly neglected the interface with production. On the basis of data from 387 manufacturing companies, we answer a recent call for research and extend the literature by examining effective working relationships and achieved integration between the production and logistics functions regarding their performance impacts and their antecedents. With respect to the former, we take a resource‐based perspective, showing that integration achieved between the production and logistics functions drives distribution service performance by serving as a pivotal capability element in the resource–capability–value chain. Within this chain, effective working relationships constitute the underlying resources and prove to be a strong driver of achieved integration. With respect to antecedents, we employ the theory of cooperation and competition and identify positive goal interdependence to substantially improve working relationships between production and logistics. Furthermore, we find this effect to be amplified via formalized performance measurement systems.     

Can recipients of sales flyers be segmented?

This paper investigates the possibility of identifying clusters among consumers receiving sales flyers from retailers (supermarkets, etc.). First, flyers are defined and then consumers’ perception of flyers is analysed, based on a representative panel. According to the analysis, three clusters are identified. The clusters possess quite different characteristics – not just in relation to their perceptions and attitudes towards flyers, but also when looking at demographic characteristics.     

The asymmetry of judgemental confidence intervals in time series forecasting

In forecasting a time series, one may be asked to communicate the likely distribution of the future actual value, often expressed as a confidence interval. Whilst the accuracy (calibration) of these intervals has dominated most studies to date, this paper is concerned with other possible characteristics of the intervals. It reports a study in which the prevalence and determinants of the symmetry of judgemental confidence intervals in time series forecasting was examined. Most prior work has assumed that this interval is symmetrically placed around the forecast. However, this study shows that people generally estimate asymmetric confidence intervals where the forecast is not the midpoint of the estimated interval. Many of these intervals are grossly asymmetric. Results indicate that the placement of the forecast in relation to the last actual value of a time series is a major determinant of the direction and size of the asymmetry.