Low‐Carbon Gentrification: When Climate Change Encounters Residential Displacement

This article focuses on the emergence of ‘low‐carbon’ gentrification as a distinct urban phenomenon, a process that we see as the outcome of efforts to change the social and spatial composition of urban districts under the pretext of responding to climate change and energy efficiency imperatives. The article develops a conceptual framework for scrutinizing low‐carbon gentrification, predicated upon insights from literatures on ecological gentrification and displacement. It documents the existence of an ‘eco‐social paradox’ associated with new patterns of socio‐spatial segregation and energy efficiency retrofits. We interrogate the discursive and policy frameworks, socio‐spatial implications and political contestations of low‐carbon gentrification. Evidence is drawn from case study research in an inner‐city district of the Polish city of Gdańsk, where such processes have been unfolding since 2006 due to the implementation of a targeted urban regeneration programme. This investigation is positioned within a wider analysis of secondary written sources about similar developments in other geographical contexts across Europe and North America, where anecdotal evidence suggests that low‐carbon gentrification may be widespread and common.     

NON PURE PRIVATE GOODS IN THE ECONOMICS OF PRODUCTION PROCESSES

In this article the concept of nonrival input is re-examined as a possible source of increasing returns, by taking a production process as the elementary unit of analysis. Nonrivalry of inputs is redefined in order to furnish an analytical tool to be used for extending the theory of value and distribution beyond the case of pure private goods and constant returns. Furthermore, the reformulation of the same concept is implemented for a critical appraisal of the notion of industrial design which has been adopted by Romer in his modelling approach to the theory of endogenous growth.     

Welfare Impacts of Cross-Country Spillovers in Agricultural Research

The welfare implications of intellectual property protection (IPP) for private sector agricultural research are analyzed, focusing on the realistic cases where countries provide different IPP levels, technology spills over across countries, and the public sector is involved in research. A model is developed to determine who benefits from, and who should pay for, the associated research. The article contains some interesting results on the implications of a harmonization of IPP policies through multilateral agreements or via technology that allows research firms to prevent the copying of plants and animals that express traits that have emerged from their research.     

Role redesign in a modernised NHS: the case of health care assistants

This article examines role redesign in the National Health Service (NHS), which has been central to the Labour government's modernisation agenda, focusing on the role of health care assistants (HCAs). Drawing on data from two acute hospital trusts, this article focuses on variation in HCA roles between trusts, indicating that there may not have been a uniform expansion of the HCA role as the government's HR agenda and most commentators suggest. Although the modernisation agenda has curtailed registered nurses' role in direct care, there are significant variations in the degree to which HCAs undertake a ‘relief’, ‘substitute’ or ‘apprentice’ role at trust level. These variations in HCA role stem from distinctive models of the nursing workforce with differing assumptions about the respective roles of registered and non‐registered nurses. The variations in HCA role have important consequences for the prospects for role redesign and HR policy in the NHS.     

A folk theorem for minority games

We study a particular case of repeated games with public signals. In the stage game an odd number of players have to choose simultaneously one of two rooms. The players who choose the less crowded room receive a reward of one euro (whence the name “minority game”). The players in the same room do not recognize each other, and between the stages only the current majority room is publicly announced. We show that in the infinitely repeated game any feasible payoff can be achieved as a uniform equilibrium payoff, and as an almost sure equilibrium payoff. In particular we construct an inefficient equilibrium where, with probability one, all players choose the same room at almost all stages. This equilibrium is sustained by punishment phases which use, in an unusual way, the pure actions that were played before the start of the punishment.     

Transaction Costs and the Present Value “Puzzle” of Farmland Prices

The present study introduces a theoretical land pricing model that allows for proportional transaction costs, and a corresponding kernel regression test. The model is tested with farmland returns data for 20 individual states, and also with two aggregate U.S. level series. The constant discount rate (CDR) present value model (PVM) of farmland prices is strongly rejected. However, it is found that the behavior of land prices and rents is consistent with the CDR-PVM in the presence of empirically observed values of transaction costs. Findings are very robust in that they apply to both individual state-level data and the U.S. aggregate-level series.     

The Effects of Competition on Variation in the Quality and Cost of Medical Care

We estimate the effects of hospital competition on the level of and the variation in quality of care and hospital expenditures for elderly Medicare beneficiaries with heart attack. We compare competition's effects on more-severely ill patients, whom we assume value quality more highly, to the effects on less-severely ill, low-valuation patients. We find that low-valuation patients in competitive markets receive less intensive treatment than in uncompetitive markets, but have statistically similar health outcomes. In contrast, high-valuation patients in competitive markets receive more intensive treatment than in uncompetitive markets, and have significantly better health outcomes. Because this competition-induced increase in variation in expenditures is, on net, expenditure-decreasing and outcome-beneficial, we conclude that it is welfare-enhancing. These findings are inconsistent with conventional models of vertical differentiation, although they can be accommodated by more recent models.