Using technology to improve the management of development impacts on biodiversity

The mitigation hierarchy (MH) is a prominent tool to help businesses achieve no net loss or net gain outcomes for biodiversity. Technological innovations offer benefits for business biodiversity management, yet the range and continued evolution of technologies creates a complex landscape that can be difficult to navigate. Using literature review, online surveys, and semi-structured interviews, we assess technologies that can improve application of the MH. We identify six categories (mobile survey, fixed survey, remote sensing, blockchain, data analysis, and enabling technologies) with high feasibility and/or relevance to (i) aid direct implementation of mitigation measures and (ii) enhance biodiversity surveys and monitoring, which feed into the design of interventions including avoidance and minimization measures. At the interface between development and biodiversity impacts, opportunities lie in businesses investing in technologies, capitalizing on synergies between technology groups, collaborating with conservation organizations to enhance institutional capacity, and developing practical solutions suited for widespread use.     

Characteristics of agricultural input package users in communal clubs serviced by Acat in KwaZulu: A note

Characteristics of communal club members who use input packages are studied using a survey of communal clubs serviced by Africa Co‐operative Action Trust (Acat) in KwaZulu during 1989. Discriminant analysis shows that full input package adopters tend to belong to older clubs, have less formal savings and receive more visits each year from KwaZulu Department of Agriculture (KDA) extension officers. They also have a greater proportion of land under sugar‐cane, larger farm sizes and a higher rand monetary value of livestock.

Members of older clubs benefit from greater club experience in ordering inputs and liquidity for securing discounts on bulk orders. Clubs also enable scarce KDA extension manpower resources to be used more effectively by focusing extension efforts on groups rather than individual farmers. Sugar‐cane production probably indicates member willingness to innovate and the availability of funds to buy complete input packages for other crops. Increased access to land promotes input package adoption which can raise agricultural productivity. Development of institutional arrangements for a land rental market in KwaZulu should be considered. Higher monetary values of livestock reflect Increased ability to bear risk associated with technology adoption and that adopters have the means to purchase input packages     

Information processing and innovative choice

In this paper we examine how the information processing of subjects who make an innovative choice (innovators) differs from that of subjects who make a noninnovative choice (noninnovators). The task involves selection of an alternative within a range of prerated product category innovativeness. We propose that subjects who seek 1) impersonal/uncontrollable sources, 2) higher levels of information, 3) more detailed (versus summary) data, and 4) noncomparative (versus comparative) data are more likely to make innovative choices. The research method is a computerized process tracing experiment utilizing Search Monitor (Brucks 1988).The authors wish to express their gratitude to Merrie Brucks for the use of and help with Search Monitor and to Eric Johnson, Dave Schmittlein, and Mita Sujan for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.     

There is relevance in the classroom: Analysis of present methods of teaching business ethics

In 1988 the Journal of Business Ethics published a paper by David Mathison entitled Business Ethics Cases and Decision Models: A Call for Relevancy in the Classroom. Mathison argued that the present methods of teaching business ethics may be inappropriate for MBA students. He believes that faculty are teaching at one decision-making level and that students are and will be functioning on another (lower) level. The purpose of this paper is to respond to Mathison's arguments and offer support for the present methods and materials used to teach Master level ethics classes. The support includes suggested class discussion ideas and assignments.Victoria K. Strong is a graduate student at Bentley College. She returned to school to pursue a Master of Science in Accountancy after working in the engineering profession for 12 years. She received her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering in 1984. Her business experience includes positions as Mechanical Design Engineer and Unit Supervisor of an engineering development laboratory. Alan N. Hoffman is an Associate Professor of Management at Bentley College. He received his DBA from Indiana University. Dr. Hoffman's writing has been published in the Academy of Management Journal and Human Relations.The authors would like to thank Carolyn Colt and the entire spring 1988 MG520-class for their valuable contributions.     

“Social force majeure” — A new concept in Nordic consumer law

Empirical research from various countries indicates that overindebtedness of consumers is, to a considerable extent, attributable to unexpected changes in the consumer's situation caused by illness, unemployment, and other such circumstances. It is therefore relevant to discuss whether and in what way such circumstances should be taken into account in the rules of private law. In Nordic (especially Finnish) legislation, mainly from the 1980s, there are several provisions which provide for mitigation of sanctions against a defaulting consumer if the delay is caused by illness, unemployment, etc. Such rules are contained, inter alia, in the legislation on consumer credit and on interest on delayed payments.On the basis of these provisions as well as some practices developed by the consumer authorities, a general principle of social force majeure is seen to be evolving. This doctrinal principle would enable the courts and other decision-makers to take into account unfavourable changes in the consumer's health, work, housing, and family situation in cases not regulated by specific legislation, e.g., by giving the consumer the right of withdrawal from burdensome contracts in such circumstances or to protect his right to retain electricity and telephone connections in spite of his temporary payment difficulties. The principle is expected to carry increasing weight in the future, especially in the practice of the consumer authorities. Strong arguments speak in favour of the general acceptance of such a principle.

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Wirtschaftliche Unmöglichkeit aus sozialen Gründen — eine neue Rechtsfigur in den Nordischen Staaten

Zusammenfassung Empirisch-rechtssoziologische Untersuchungen aus verschiedenen Ländern kommen zu dem Ergebnis, daß Verschuldung und Zahlungsunfähigkeit von Verbrauchern zu einem großen Teil auf unerwartete Umweltänderungen zurückzuführen sind, etwa Krankheit, Arbeitslosigkeit und ähnliches. Es ist deshalb wichtig zu diskutieren, ob und in welcher Weise solche Umstände bei der Anwendung von Privatrechtsvorschriften berücksichtigt werden sollen. In den Nordischen Staaten, insbesondere in Finnland, gibt es seit den achtziger Jahren gesetzliche Vorschriften, die eine Abmilderung von Sanktionen gegen in Verzug geratene Schuldner vorsehen, wenn der Verzug auf Krankheit, Arbeitslosigkeit usw. zurückgeht. Diese Regeln finden sich im Recht des Konsumentenkredits und der Verzugszinsen. Auf der Basis dieser Vorschriften entwickelt sich eine neue Rechtsfigur der wirtschaftlichen Unmöglichkeit aus sozialen Gründen. Dieser Grundsatz würde es Gerichten und anderen Entscheidungsträgern ermöglichen, nachteilige Veränderungen der Gesundheit, Arbeitswelt, Haushalt und Familie des Verbrauchers auch in noch nicht gesetzlich geregelten Bereichen zu berücksichtigen, z.B. durch Gewährung eines Auflösungsrechts bei übermäßig belastenden Verträgen oder durch Schutz seines Rechts auf Versorgung mit Elektrizität und Telefon trotz zeitweiliger Zahlungsschwierigkeiten. Es wird erwartet, daß sich dieses Prinzip in Zukunft verstärkt durchsetzen wird, insbesondere in der Praxis von Verbraucherschutzbehörden. Wichtige Argumente sprechen für die allgemeine Anerkennung dieses Prinzips.

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Thomas Wilhelmsson is Professor of Civil and Commercial Law at the Institute of Private Law, Faculty of Law, University of Helsinki, Vuorikatu 5, SF-00100 Helsinki, Finland, and a member of the Finnish Market Court.     

Regional, national, and spatially explicit scenarios of demographic and economic change based on SRES

We report here spatially explicit scenario interpretations for population and economic activity (GDP) for the time period 1990 to 2100 based on three scenarios (A2, B1, and B2) from the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES). At the highest degree of spatial detail, the scenario indicators are calculated at a 0.5 by 0.5 degree resolution. All three scenarios follow the qualitative scenario characteristics, as outlined in the original SRES scenarios. Two scenarios (B1 and B2) also follow (with minor adjustments due to scenario improvements) the original SRES quantifications at the level of 4 and 11 world regions respectively. The quantification of the original SRES A2 scenario has been revised to reflect recent changing perceptions on the demographic outlook of world population growth. In this revised “high population growth” scenario, A2r world population reaches some 12 billion by 2100 (as opposed to some 15 billion in the original SRES A2 scenario) and is characterized by a “delayed fertility transition” that is also mirrored in a delayed (economic) development catch-up, resulting in an initially stagnating and subsequently only very slow reduction in income disparities. The spatially explicit scenario interpretation proceeds via two steps. Through a combination of decomposition and optimization methods, world regional scenario results are first disaggregated to the level of 185 countries. In a subsequent second step, national results are further disaggregated to a grid cell level, taking urbanization and regional (rural–urban) income disparities explicitly into account. A distinguishing feature of the spatially explicit scenario results reported here is that both methodologies, as well as numerical assumptions underlying the “downscaling” exercise, are scenario-dependent, leading to distinctly different spatial patterns of population and economic activities across the three scenarios examined.     

Hedonic models and air pollution: Twenty-five years and counting

This paper reports a meta analysis of how effectively hedonic property models have detected the influence of air pollution on housing prices. Probit estimates are reported describing how data, model specification, and local property market conditions in cities represented in thirty-seven studies influence the ability of hedonic models to uncover negative, statistically significant relationships between housing prices and air pollution measures.Partial support for this research was provided by the Russell Sage Foundation. Thanks are due David Cordray, Heidi Hartman, and Larry Hedges of the Foundation's Meta-Analysis Panel for constructive comments, to Ray Palmquist for suggestions and assistance in assembling the results from his studies, to Rick Freeman and Tom Tietenberg and two anonymous referees for comments on the research, and to Barbara Scott for constructive editing of earlier drafts of this paper.     

Selecting Social Goals: J. M. Keynes and the Emergence of Ontological Rationality in Economics

In this paper we discuss the fundamental inconsistency that results from employing the two traditional concepts of rationality as the basis of selecting social goals. We then consider the possibility that the selection of social goals must be based on explicitly ethical criteria. To do so a third concept of rationality namely, ontological rationality, should be adopted. Moreover, we argue that J. M. Keynes in A Tract Monetary Reform based his public policy recommendations on a modified version of ontological rationality, thereby introducing ontological rationality into economics as the basis for selecting social goals.A previous version of this paper was presented at the Fifty-Eighth International Atlantic Economic Conference, October 7–10, 2004. The authors are grateful to session participants for their helpful suggestions, though the authors alone are responsible for the contents of the paper.