Exploring the social and spatial potential of an intermodal approach to transport planning

Gilbert and Perl (2007 Gilbert, R., &; Perl, A. (2007). Transport revolutions: Moving people and freight without oil. London: Earthscan. [Google Scholar]) established how different epochs in human history came with specific “transport revolutions.” Our research suggests that intermodal approaches could constitute an invisible transport planning revolution.

Based on a review defining “social” sustainability as it applies to urban passenger transportation, we consider the potential of an intermodal focus to better integrate non-motorized (walking-cycling) and public transportation. We start from the premise that rather than being a primary “mono-mode” such as buses or trains, sustainable transport is best understood as an ecology of modes with specific strengths and complementarities that can be mobilized through planning.

Using data from Metropolitan Santiago (Chile), we explore this potential, from a conceptual, mainly social, and spatial perspective. We find that paying more attention to different formats of cycling, public transport integration could significantly improve low-cost alternatives for individual and feeder trips. Moreover, adjusting land use to non-work trip purposes could yield substantial benefits. This approach also offers the possibility of developing relatively simple tools helpful for improving the deliberative aspects of participatory planning, thereby increasing buy-in as well as improving health, efficiency, safety, and other benefits of sustainable transport.     

A review of the IPCC Fifth Assessment and implications for tourism sector climate resilience and decarbonization

The Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2013–2014 was the most comprehensive analysis of anthropogenic climate change, its impacts, and potential responses. It concluded that climate change is “unequivocal” and human activities are the dominant cause. Avoidance of “dangerous” climate change will require sustained substantial reductions of emissions by mid-century and that net emissions decrease to zero before 2100. This paper describes, reviews and explains the place of tourism in AR5 and AR5's relevance for tourism's future, including impacts, adaptation, vulnerabilities, and mitigation. Tourism's position in AR5 has strengthened, particularly with respect to the recognition of transboundary impacts, the sector's contribution to climate change and its mitigation requirements. Major regional knowledge gaps persist. A lack of understanding of the integrated impacts of climate change and the effectiveness of adaptation strategies potentially hinders the development of resilient tourism operations and destinations. Uncertainties regarding tourist response to climate change impacts and mitigation policy impede predictions of tourism demand. The implications of different decarbonization pathways for the future of international tourism represent a key knowledge gap. The limited response of key tourism organizations to AR5 contributes to the risks climate change poses to the sector.     

A report on the Paris Climate Change Agreement and its implications for tourism: why we will always have Paris

Sustained international diplomatic efforts culminated in the signing of the Paris Climate Agreement by 196 countries in December 2015. This paper provides an overview of the key provisions of the agreement that are most relevant to the tourism sector: much strengthened and world-wide participation in greenhouse gas emission reduction ambitions, an enduring framework for increased ambitions over time, improved transparency in emissions reporting and a greater emphasis on climate risk management through adaptation. The declared carbon emission reduction ambitions of the tourism sector and international aviation are found to be broadly compatible with those of the Paris Agreement, however, claims of reduced emission intensity in the tourism sector since 2005 and a roadmap by which emission reduction ambitions for 2020 and 2035 might realistically be achieved both remain equivocal. The need for international tourism leadership to improve sectoral scale emission monitoring capacity to meet the increasing requirements for transparency, convene an assessment of risks from climate change and climate policy, foster greater collaboration on destination climate resilience and accelerate technological, policy and social innovation to put tourism firmly on a pathway to the low-carbon economy are all emphasized, as is the need for dialogue between tourism and tourism researchers.     

Leverage causes fat tails and clustered volatility

We build a simple model of leveraged asset purchases with margin calls. Investment funds use what is perhaps the most basic financial strategy, called ‘value investing’, i.e. systematically attempting to buy underpriced assets. When funds do not borrow, the price fluctuations of the asset are approximately normally distributed and uncorrelated across time. This changes when the funds are allowed to leverage, i.e. borrow from a bank, which allows them to purchase more assets than their wealth would otherwise permit. During good times, funds that use more leverage have higher profits, increasing their wealth and making them dominant in the market. However, if a downward price fluctuation occurs while one or more funds is fully leveraged, the resulting margin call causes them to sell into an already falling market, amplifying the downward price movement. If the funds hold large positions in the asset, this can cause substantial losses. This in turn leads to clustered volatility: before a crash, when the value funds are dominant, they damp volatility, and after the crash, when they suffer severe losses, volatility is high. This leads to power-law tails, which are both due to the leverage-induced crashes and due to the clustered volatility induced by the wealth dynamics. This is in contrast to previous explanations of fat tails and clustered volatility, which depended on ‘irrational behavior’, such as trend following. A standard (supposedly more sophisticated) risk control policy in which individual banks base leverage limits on volatility causes leverage to rise during periods of low volatility, and to contract more quickly when volatility becomes high, making these extreme fluctuations even worse.     

An exploratory study of product development in emerging economies: evidence from medical device testing in India

Recent research has studied innovation in emerging economies. However, microlevel product development processes in these economies are relatively unexplored, and the mechanisms by which the emerging economy context might affect such processes are still unclear. In this paper, we explore the testing routines fundamental to product development in one emerging economy. Based on an exploratory field study of medical device development projects in India, we observe the frequent, iterative testing of prototypes in clinical settings and investigate the related learning process. The observed testing approach is distinctly different from the comparatively linear and sequential approach adopted by medical device development teams in developed countries like the United States. Further, we suggest that such testing is feasible in India because of the prevailing regulatory flexibility, the cognitive orientation of device development practitioners and the normative orientation of medical professionals.