港口城市长期战略的经济回弹力、可居住性和城市规划

全球化,城市间竞争与港口城市的未来城市间的竞争在全球范围加剧,这使城市面对新的两难局面,即在保持经济回弹力同时也要为其居民创造一个可以居住的城市。大多数的城市让步于短期的压力,用公共的资源通过国外的投资换取经济增长,而忽略了环境和幸福生活空间所必需的设施。本文     

Slack and the performance of state-owned enterprises

Organizational slack has been recognized as critical to firm performance, although its impact is not always positive. Slack may be used to fuel innovation or alternatively excess resources may be squandered on pet projects. However, most research on slack is rooted in studying private firms in developed economies, especially the United States. Whether prior research on organizational slack can readily inform our understanding of state-owned enterprises’ (SOEs) behavior is questionable since SOEs prioritize goals such as social welfare and full employment differently than do the privately owned enterprises (POEs). The differences between SOEs and POEs influence their sources and use of slack due to the nature of their ownership, budget constraints, and agency relations. To bring insight to this issue we develop an institutional change lifecycle model to study the relationship between slack and the economic and social aspects of SOE performance.     

Leadership,Pragmatism and Grace: A Review

Leadership takes a central role in the public affairs agenda. This article is a review of published works on leadership focusing on the concept of grace. It discusses the role of compassion and kindness in current leadership theory and practice and whether these attributes have value in sustainable models. Findings indicate that there is conceptual confusion regarding the definition of compassion and its application in leadership practices. Kindness is not discussed within the concept of compassion and kindness itself may be viewed as a weakness in contemporary self-selected leadership characteristics. The conclusions suggest there is disconnect between contemporary models of leadership and calls for sustainable ethical leadership in the spheres of public and business environments. Compassion and kindness remain in the side-lines yet the implications for future trust and commitment are neglected in times where discretionary effort of workers and volunteers is crucial to goal achievement.     

Alternatives to traditional Medicare: Medicare Part C poised to prosper

Recent events indicate that Medicare Part C (Medicare Advantage) plans are poised to prosper. Yet many employers express hesitation to offer Medicare Advantage, formerly known as Medicare+Choice, plans to their retirees because they are concerned about the potential withdrawal of those plans if there is a reversal of federal funding rules. This article addresses those concerns. It provides a historical overview of Medicare Part C and describes the impact of the most recent agency guidance. The author cites plan trends, raises employer implications and concludes that Medicare Advantage plans will continue to expand, possibly facilitated by employers as they implement leading-edge retiree medical designs.     

Where is the opportunity in opportunity zones?

In December 2017, the U.S. Congress passed into law the Opportunity Zone (OZ) program. As an OZ, designated low-income census tracts provide considerable tax breaks to property investors, intending to attract investments and spur economic growth. As the success of the program is dependent on investors' responses, we analyze market reactions in a difference-in-differences framework. We identify two potential effects on property markets: tax breaks for investors and expected land value appreciation. Our results show that tax breaks are priced efficiently. Qualified properties increase by 7–20% in price, while vacant land increase up to 37%. In contrast, we find limited signs of expected land value appreciation.     

Proxy variable estimation of productivity and efficiency

We model productivity and inefficiency jointly, instead of modeling and estimating either only productivity or only inefficiency with many variable and quasi-fixed inputs. In the first model, we use a multi-step procedure. We use the proxy variable method based on the first-order condition (FOC) of expected profit maximization with respect to the single variable input to take care of the endogeneity problem arising from both productivity and inefficiency. To separate mean inefficiency from mean productivity we assume them nonparametric functions of different sets of exogenous variables. In the second model, we consider a novel system consisting of the production function and the FOCs of expected profit maximization for the multiple variable inputs. Distributional assumptions are made on all the random errors associated with the production function, the FOCs, productivity, and inefficiency functions in the second model. We use the Colombian food manufacturing data as an application of our model.     

IMAGINING A DECOLONIZED CITY IN AND FROM AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND

Imagining decolonized cities creates space to explore how urban places could strip away colonial dominance and restore the ability of Indigenous people to live, know and be. In this essay, we describe one attempt to create such space. While working in Porirua in Aotearoa New Zealand, we ran an urban design competition, hosted workshops with young people and held a symposium. Through all three phases we drew on utopian thinking to imagine beyond the current constraints of urban form in Aotearoa New Zealand to consider how cities might reflect the diverse realities of Māori. While this approach is an attempt at generating hopeful geographies, it also sat in tension with (post)colonial realities, such as racist attempts by white people to claim Indigeneity, and the ongoing need for land to be returned to Indigenous people. We argue that envisioning how cities might be decolonized is useful and needs to be rooted in the particular politics of place, but this imagining needs to be paired with action to confront persistent colonialism.