A strategic network choice model for global container flows: specification, estimation and application

Container flows have been booming for decades. Expectations for the 21st century are less certain due to changes in climate and energy policy, increasing congestion and increased mobility of production factors. This paper presents a strategic model for the movement of containers on a global scale in order to analyse possible shifts in future container transport demand and the impacts of transport policies thereon. The model predicts yearly container flows over the world’s shipping routes and passing through 437 container ports around the world, based on trade information to and from all countries, taking into account more than 800 maritime container liner services. The model includes import, export and transhipment flows of containers at ports, as well as hinterland flows. The model was calibrated against observed data and is able to reproduce port throughput statistics rather accurately. The paper also introduces a scenario analysis to understand the impact of future, uncertain developments in container flows on port throughput. The scenarios include the effects of slow steaming, an increase in land based shipping costs and an increased use of large scale infrastructures such as the Trans-Siberian rail line and the opening of Arctic shipping routes. These scenarios provide an indication of the uncertainty on the expected port throughputs, with a particular focus on the port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands.     

The decline of adult smallpox in eighteenth-century London

Smallpox was probably the single most lethal disease in eighteenth-century Britain, but was a minor cause of death by the mid-nineteenth century. Although vaccination was crucial to the decline of smallpox, especially in urban areas, from the beginning of the nineteenth century, it remains disputed the extent to which smallpox mortality declined before vaccination. Analysis of age-specific changes in smallpox burials within the large west London parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields revealed a precipitous reduction in adult smallpox risk from the 1770s, and this pattern was duplicated in the east London parish of St Dunstan's. Most adult smallpox victims were rural migrants, and such a drop in their susceptibility is consistent with a sudden increase in exposure to smallpox in rural areas. We investigated whether this was due to the spread of inoculation, or an increase in smallpox transmission, using changes in the age patterns of child smallpox burials. Smallpox mortality rose among infants, and smallpox burials became concentrated at the youngest ages, suggesting a sudden increase in infectiousness of the smallpox virus. Such a change intensified the process of smallpox endemicization in the English population, but also made cities substantially safer for young adult migrants.     

Ads for Mature Consumers: The Importance of Addressing the Changing Self-View Between the Age Groups 50+ and 60+

This paper investigates how to address mature consumers in advertisements in an appropriate, appreciating, and effective way. A 2 × 2–experiment with 125 consumers suggests that the more the advertisement model reflects the self-concept of the respondent on the dimensions of activity and modesty, the more positive is the attitude toward the ad. The study reveals differences between different age groups within the over-50s, which reflect a shift of values from modesty to activity. Although all mature consumers tend to prefer advertisement models that represent the concept of activity, this effect is stronger for the group 50+ than for the group 60+.     

Long-range planning in the public sector

This article discusses suitable frameworks for long-range planning in the public sector. Specific attention is devoted to defence planning, because of the impact planning methodology in defence has had on other government sectors. Operations research, programme budgeting, and scenario techniques are cases in point. A number of different planning approaches are outlined, but the difficulty of transferring planning systems between different fields of application is emphasised. Even if programme budgeting is thought of as a long-range planning system, additional components and approaches, such as various types of futures studies, may be needed.     

Policy Options for China＇s Bio-ethanol Development and the Implications for Its Agricultural Economy

The present paper analyzes the potential impacts of bio-ethanol expansion on agricultural production, food prices and farmers＇ incomes in different regions of China. The results show that increase in demand for feedstock to produce bio-ethanol will lead to large increase in the prices of agricultural products. The increase in prices will trigger a significant rise in the production of feedstock at the cost of lower rice and wheat production. The study also reveals that the impacts of bio-ethanol on farmers＂ incomes vary largely among regions and farmer groups. Given the expected expansion of bio-ethanol production in the future, and the limited land resources for feedstock production in China, the viability of different crops as feedstock for bio-ethanol requires careful analysis before a large-scale expansion of China＇s bio-ethanol program. Bio-ethanol production in China should be relying more on the second generation of bio-ethanol technologies （i.e. using celluloses to produce bio-ethanol）, and China＇s government should increase research investment in this field.     

Labeling and the Realization of Cultural Values

Labeling plays a role of increasing significance as a technique to reveal, with adequate certification, the content of a product in both a physical and a moral sense by reporting, say, on labor conditions, environmental sustainability or animal friendliness of the product chain. Whereas voluntary labeling leaves all initiative to the private sector, under mandatory labeling the state imposes an obligation to label, often in conjunction with the requirement to meet official standards. Besides aiming to ensure product safety, standards derive from paternalistic motives and seek to mitigate external effects of consumption, to manage catastrophic risks, to improve the representation of the poor, and to preserve the cultural heritage. Nowadays, they are also used in the fight against crime and terrorism and for the protection of intellectual property rights. Standard-based labeling is a source of recurrent conflict because it serves both to protect the own culture and to export it. Developed countries fear that discretionary policies at a national level would harm their exports. They call for international harmonization of the standards but developing countries are reluctant to participate, because their exports might suffer, while antiglobalists denounce it as an instrument of domination by the North. The paper reviews the arguments on both sides. It adopts a WTO perspective in proposing that for non-product standards, international harmonization, rather than being attached to products, should apply to territories, be organized by subject and delegated to specialized international agencies that operate under the mandate of separate international treaties. But we differ from the WTO position when we argue first, that product as well as non-product standards should be modulated so as to reflect the cultural diversity across countries and their different stages of development, and second, that it should be permitted that countries refusing to sign a treaty should face import restrictions by signatories.     

Synchronization under uncertainty

A decision-maker needs to schedule several activities that take uncertain time to complete and are only valuable together. Some activities are bound to be finished earlier than others, therefore resuting in waiting costs. We show how to schedule activities optimally, how to give independent agents performing them incentives that implement the efficient schedule, and how to form teams in the presence of uncertainty. The present paper offers insights into important economic decisions such as planning large projects and coordinating product development activities.     

Neuer Diplomstudiengang Medienmanagement nimmt zum Sommersemester 2002 den Lehrbetrieb an der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz auf

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Virtual Meetings With Hundreds of Managers

This paper describes the use of a Group Support System (GSS) in a distributed meeting with hundreds of managers. All were managing directors of the local banks of Rabobank. The distributed meeting has contributed to reducing the lead-time of a decision of hundreds of managers from an estimated 6 months to 4 weeks while at the same time increasing the involvement of the managers. The paper discusses the processes followed, the results achieved, the feedback from the managers as collected in a survey and the lessons learned. The experience shows that large-scale virtual meetings with business managers are feasible today. The participants recognize the usefulness of the virtual meeting but also indicate the need to improve the processes followed and the IT used.