The Multi-Actor Multi-Criteria Analysis (MAMCA) application in the Flemish long-term decision making process on mobility and logistics

The Multi-Actor Multi-Criteria Analysis (MAMCA) is a methodology to evaluate different policy measures whereby different stakeholders’ opinions are explicitly taken into account. This paper describes the MAMCA methodology and how it has been used in the “Flanders in Action Process”. One of the objectives of this process is to turn Flanders into a top region in terms of mobility and logistics by attracting logistic activities with a large added value, realizing fluent and widely accessible mobility, a huge increase in traffic safety and a decrease of the environmental impact of transport. As there are a wide range of actors with different interests involved in this process, the MAMCA methodology was applied to evaluate a set of possible policy measures being proposed to reach this objective. An important advantage of this methodology is that it is able to support the decision maker in his final decision as the inclusion of different points of view leads to a general prioritisation of the proposed policy measures.     

Reciprocity in Ranked Relationships: Does Social Structure Influence Social Reasoning?

Many economic and evolutionary theories have modeled cooperation as the evolutionary outcome of decisions made by autonomous, self-interested agents operating in a social vacuum. In this paper we consider the implications for cooperative interactions when prior social structures and corresponding social norms exist. In particular we investigate the influence of social rank/status on perceptions of fairness and tolerance of cheating. We review evidence from a series of experiments employing the Wason selection task (a test of conditional reasoning) and the ledger task (a decision making task) suggesting that people cued to adopt a perspective of high social rank are more tolerant of cheating and simultaneously believe that they have been more fairly treated (even when cheated) than people cued to adopt a perspective of low social rank. However, the evidence also suggests interesting cross-cultural differences in perceptions of fairness and tolerance of cheating in ranked relationships. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Defensible Space on the Move: Revisiting the Urban Geography of Alice Coleman

This article traces the movement of the concept of ‘defensible space’ from New York City in the 1970s, where it was developed by the Canadian architect/planner Oscar Newman, to London in the 1980s and into design interventions in British public housing in the 1990s, through British geographer Alice Coleman, who acted as an especially powerful transfer agent. In focusing on this urban design ‘concept’ on the move we contribute to existing scholarship on policy mobility and city building in a number of ways. First, we explore an instance of the movement/mobility of a planning concept in a historical period (the recent past) largely overlooked to date. Secondly, we demonstrate that this movement was the result of a disaggregated series of expert knowledge transfers and localized translations of pre‐policy expert knowledge, generated through university‐based research work and networks. We theorize this instance of urban planning mobility by way of the interlinked insights offered by the sociology of science and policy‐mobilities literatures. As this is an instance of university research shaping public policy it also offers an opportunity to reflect upon the meaning of ‘evidence‐based policy’ and the impact agenda in contemporary higher education.     

Real Estate Returns: A Comparison with Other Investments

Real estate returns, measured unleveraged, have been between those of stocks and bonds over 1960–1982. Due to appraisal smoothing and imperfect marketability, one must be careful about directly comparing measured real estate returns with those on other assets. It is likely, however, that low correlations with stocks and bonds make real estate a diversification opportunity for traditional portfolio managers. In addition, the issue of how various assets are priced is addressed. While stocks are priced primarily on market or beta risk, and bonds are priced primarily on interest rate and default risk, the real estate pricing mechanism includes residual risk and non-risk factors such as taxes, marketability costs and information costs.     

Capital Structures in Developing Countries

This study uses a new data set to assess whether capital structure theory is portable across countries with different institutional structures. We analyze capital structure choices of firms in 10 developing countries, and provide evidence that these decisions are affected by the same variables as in developed countries. However, there are persistent differences across countries, indicating that specific country factors are at work. Our findings suggest that although some of the insights from modern finance theory are portable across countries, much remains to be done to understand the impact of different institutional features on capital structure choices.     

Mitigating America's demographic dilemma by pre-funding social security

Financing Social Security benefits at current levels implies significant increases in payroll taxes within the next 20 years under current US demographic developments. Using a general-equilibrium overlapping-generations model with realistic patterns of fertility and lifespan extension, this study shows that future generations would be harmed during the demographic transition due to rising payroll taxes, which crowd out savings and slow real wage growth below the rate of technological progress. A faster rate of technological progress would mitigate only some of the payroll tax increase and its economic consequences but could not overcome them. Addressing the financing problem by reducing Social Security benefits as needed or by raising the eligibility age for benefits imposes major welfare losses on current or near term retirees. By contrast, a pre-funding of Social Security financed with consumption taxes more evenly spreads the welfare losses across generations, and it helps future generations, especially the poor, by stimulating capital formation.