Climate change adaptation in the Pacific Island tourism sector: analysing the policy environment in Vanuatu

Tourism is a growing economic sector in the South Pacific providing the region with great potential for economic development. Vanuatu and its neighbouring Small Island Developing States and Territories experience a high vulnerability to climate change impacts. The tourism sector in Vanuatu is particularly vulnerable, and it needs to develop and implement effective adaptation strategies to reduce climate change risks. Policies play an important role by providing the platform on which adaptation can occur and resilience be built. This study examines the policy environment in Vanuatu for its conduciveness to climate change adaptation. It identifies the types of adaptation processes (explicit or implicit) and types of adaptation measures (technical, business management, behavioural, policy, and research and education) and critically analyses the current tourism-related policies for their effectiveness in assisting the sector to address climate change. It is found that the majority of policies identified deal with climate change through implicit adaptation processes and mainly through the use of policy and research and education measures. The authors argue that in order to strengthen the resilience of the tourism industry, the Government of Vanuatu needs to develop and implement explicit climate change adaptation policies for the tourism sector.     

Gender and competition in adolescence: task matters

We look at gender differences among adolescents in Sweden in preferences for competition, altruism and risk. For competitiveness, we explore two different tasks that differ in associated stereotypes. We find no gender difference in competitiveness when comparing performance under competition to that without competition. We further find that boys and girls are equally likely to self-select into competition in a verbal task, but that boys are significantly more likely to choose to compete in a mathematical task. This gender gap diminishes and becomes non-significant when we control for actual performance, beliefs about relative performance, and risk preferences, or for beliefs only. Girls are also more altruistic and less risk taking than boys.     

Testing of the mean reversion parameter in continuous time models

In this paper we use the approximate bias expressions developed in Yu (2012) and Bao et al. (2013) to improve the testing of the ordinary least squares or quasi-maximum likelihood estimator of the mean reversion parameter in continuous time models. We follow the approach given in Iglesias and Phillips (2005) and Chambers (2013), where if we bias correct the estimated mean reversion parameter, we can improve on the small sample properties of the testing procedure. Simulation results confirm the usefulness of this approach using a t$t$-statistic in this setting in the near unit root situation when the mean reversion parameter is approaching its lower bound. Therefore we always recommend bias correcting when applying a t$t$-statistic in practice in this context.     

The Arctic Environmental Responsibility Index: A method to rank heterogenous extractive industry companies for governance purposes

The Arctic Environmental Responsibility Index (AERI) covers 120 oil, gas, and mining companies involved in resource extraction north of the Arctic Circle in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Finland, Norway, Russia, and Sweden. It is based on an international expert perception survey among 173 members of the International Panel on Arctic Environmental Responsibility (IPAER), whose input is processed using segmented string relative ranking (SSRR) methodology. Equinor, Total, Aker BP, ConocoPhillips, and BP are seen as the most environmentally responsible companies, whereas Dalmorneftegeophysica, Zarubejneft, ERIELL, First Ore-Mining Company, and Stroygaz Consulting are seen as the least environmentally responsible. Companies operating in Alaska have the highest average rank, whereas those operating in Russia have the lowest average rank. Larger companies tend to rank higher than smaller companies, state-controlled companies rank higher than privately controlled companies, and oil and gas companies higher than mining companies. The creation of AERI demonstrates that SSRR is a low-cost way to overcome the challenge of indexing environmental performance and contributing to environmental governance across disparate industrial sectors and states with divergent environmental standards and legal and political systems.     

Employment relationship in the small firm: Revisiting orientations to work

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role that owners’ orientations to work play in the employment relationship in the small business. Through four case studies in the restaurant sector the work challenges whether sector and size are influential or whether agency is vital to the discussion. The paper positions the importance of orientations to work in discussing the small business owner and highlights the role orientation to work plays on the employment relationship in these firms. Four alternate orientations to work operating within the businesses are discussed and their impact is evaluated through two examples: interacting with the labour market and pay setting.     

Economic impact of introducing TYRX amongst patients with heart failure and reduced ejection fraction undergoing implanted cardiac device procedures: a retrospective model based cost analysis

Background and aims: Infection is a serious and expensive complication of Cardiac Implantable Electronic Device (CIED) procedures. A retrospective based cost analysis was performed to estimate Trust level savings of using the TYRX antibacterial envelope as a primary prevention measure against infection in a tertiary referral centre in South London, UK.

Methods: A retrospective cohort of heart failure patients with reduced ejection fraction undergoing Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD) or Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy (CRT) procedures were evaluated. Decision-analytic modelling was performed to determine economic savings of using the envelope during CIED procedure vs CIED procedure alone.

Results: Over a 12?month follow-up period following CIED procedure, the observed infection rate was 3.14% (n?=?5/159). The average cost of a CIED infection inpatient admission was £41,820 and, further to economic analysis, the additional costs attributable to infection was calculated at £62,213.94. A cost saving of £624 per patient by using TYRX during CIED procedure as a primary preventative measure against infection was estimated.

Conclusions: TYRX would be a cost-saving treatment option amongst heart failure patients undergoing ICD and CRT device procedures based on analysis in the local geographical area of South London. If upscaled to the UK population, we estimate potential cost savings for the National Health Service (NHS).     

The Consolidation of the ESG Rating Industry as an Enactment of Institutional Retrogression

The socially responsible investing (SRI) movement has been aiming to create lasting institutional change by infusing the investment sector with new norms and values. Environmental, social and governance (ESG) rating agencies have emerged in response to the needs of SRI actors for reliable data on the social performance of firms. Since 2005, the ESG rating industry has witnessed a number of national and cross‐border consolidations. Based on a set of 37 interviews and secondary data, the paper explores the driving forces behind this consolidation as well as its impact. Our focus is on four ESG rating agencies, based in the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Switzerland. We conclude that in effect consolidation has at least partially resulted in institutional retrogression, whereby the traditional norms and values have reaffirmed their primacy, thereby somewhat negating the institutional change sought by the SRI movement. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Equilibrium existence in infinite horizon economies

In sequential economies with finite or infinite-lived real assets in positive net supply, we introduce constraints on the amount of borrowing in terms of the market value of physical endowments. We show that, when utility functions are either unbounded and separable in states of nature or separable in commodities, these borrowing constraints not only preclude Ponzi schemes but also induce endogenous Radner bounds on short-sales. Therefore, we obtain existence of equilibrium. Moreover, equilibrium also exists when both assets are numéraire and utility functions are quasilinear in the commodity used as numéraire.     

Bilateral investment treaties as deterrents of host-country discretion: the impact of investor-state disputes on foreign direct investment in developing countries

The recent boom of investor-state disputes filed under international investment agreements has fueled a controversial academic and policy debate. We study the impact of these compensation claims on foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to the responding host country. Our econometric analysis focuses on differences in the FDI response from BIT-partner and non-partner countries of developing host countries. This approach allows us not only to distinguish competing hypotheses about BIT function, but also to address endogeneity concerns in earlier studies. We find that BITs stimulate bilateral FDI flows from partner countries—but only so long as the developing host country has not had a claim brought against it to arbitration. Our results provide an additional explanation for the policy-changes observed in many states subsequent to their first experience of an investor-state dispute.