Linking transportation and population health to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in transportation injury: Implications for practice and policy

In both developing and advanced economies, it is commonly believed that lower income and minority populations are disproportionately at risk of being injured or killed in a motor vehicle crash, especially as pedestrians. However, this risk is rarely quantified with information about exposure. We argue that a combined transportation–population health framework is one way to quantify, and therefore prioritize, equity considerations in transportation safety decision-making. We illustrate this approach with an analysis that compares age-adjusted fatal and nonfatal injury rates per 100 million person-trips by race/ethnicity and sex for motor vehicle occupants, bicyclists, and pedestrians. We found that, per trip, whites are equally safe as pedestrians and motor vehicle occupants, whereas other racial and ethnic groups for whom we have data are less safe when they walk. In addition, black/African-American female motor vehicle occupants and pedestrians have higher inpatient injury risk than female travelers of other races and ethnicities (for whom we had sufficient data). Such differences in transportation injury risk by race and ethnicity warrant deeper analysis to understand the underlying reasons, such as whether certain groups of travelers are exposed to qualitatively different hazards when they travel. We discuss frameworks for including information about injury disparities in decision-making.     

Design Factors Influencing Willingness‐to‐Pay Estimates in the Becker‐DeGroot‐Marschak (BDM) Mechanism and the Non‐hypothetical Choice Experiment: A Case of Biofortified Maize in Zambia

Two of the experimental methods used to estimate willingness‐to‐pay (WTP) for a non‐market good, the Becker‐DeGroot‐Marschak (BDM) mechanism and the non‐hypothetical choice experiment (nHCE) often lead to significantly different WTP estimates, complicating the choice between the methods. In Zambia the same group of researchers used both techniques to evaluate WTP for orange maize, which provides more vitamin A than other varieties. This provided an opportunity to analyse the sources of the difference. In the BDM experiment, one group of respondents was provided with more training opportunities than the other, and made higher bids. Accounting for lexicographic behaviour in the nHCE reduced the estimated WTP. These two design factors together resulted in a decrease in the WTP difference for orange maize (1,279–632 ZMK) although the difference remains statistically significant. More training was also shown to eliminate the effects of different orders in which maize varieties were presented.     

CALCULATING ENERGY-RELATED CO2 EMISSIONS EMBODIED IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE USING A GLOBAL INPUT–OUTPUT MODEL

The Global Resource Accounting Model (GRAM) is an environmentally-extended multi-regional input–output model, covering 48 sectors in 53 countries and two regions. Next to CO₂ emissions, GRAM also includes different resource categories. Using GRAM, we are able to estimate the amount of carbon emissions embodied in international trade for each year between 1995 and 2005. These results include all origins and destinations of emissions, so that emissions can be allocated to countries consuming the products that embody these emissions. Net-CO₂ imports of OECD countries increased by 80% between 1995 and 2005. These findings become particularly relevant, as the externalisation of environmental burden through international trade might be an effective strategy for industrialised countries to maintain high environmental quality within their own borders, while externalising the negative environmental consequences of their consumption processes to other parts of the world. This paper focuses on the methodological aspects and data requirements of the model, and shows results for selected countries and aggregated regions.     

Endogenous Cycles and Menu Costs: A Dynamic Macroeconomic Model of Monopoly

We present a dynamic model of price setting in which price adjustments are costly for the monopolist. The general price level changes endogenously due to welfare changes. For the resulting two‐dimensional dynamical system the existence of a continuum of stationary points is proven. Furthermore, simulations show that endogenous cycles of output can occur.     

Introduction to expert systems and potential ammonia plant applications

A conceptual approach for applying expert systems to ammonia plants, on an off-line basis, is discussed. These systems can be used for plant problem diagnostics, operator training, safety studies, and risk analysis.     

Cocooned: path dependence and the demise of Anderson & Robertson Ltd,Scotland’s last silk throwsters

This study applies the insights of path dependence theory to a Scottish yarn producing firm which existed from 1877 to 1964. Previous longitudinal studies of firms and their strategies have concentrated on larger entities, but the present one tests the relevance of path dependence to smaller firms. The article explains why the firm studied may be seen as an example of path dependence and lock-in, going on to point out why the generally accepted three-stage pathway of reducing organisational choice leading to lock-in appears to fit the case, but that more empirical research in the field would be beneficial. The article highlights in detail the factors which reinforce path dependence and in particular, the role of organisational culture, which has not previously been demonstrated with any precision.     

Cullen, Lochhead and Brown, architects: the business, financial and accounting history of a non-profit maximising firm, 1902-2002

The study which follows charts the business and financial progress of a Scottish regional architectural practice, Cullen, Lochhead and Brown, from 1902-60 in detail, and from 1960 to the present in outline. It examines the firm's origins, the architectural context in which it has operated and the strategies by which it has survived and prospered over its life to date. Analyses of the firm's fee income and sources of work are given, together with details of its financial progress and accounting arrangements. The study concludes with some observations of relevance to the business strategy and small business literatures. Drawing brief comparisons with a Canadian study by Mintzberg et al. (1986), it also provides empirical evidence to suggest that at least some architectural practitioners are motivated by non-financial as well as financial rewards, and points to financial practices which may be characteristic of such firms.     

The influence of project novelty on the new product development process

In this paper we review the range of formal tools and techniques available to support the new product development process, and examine the use and usefulness of these by means of a survey of 50 projects in 25 firms. For each firm, we compare routine and novel development projects, and identify the influence of project novelty on the frequency of use and perceived usefulness of a range of different tools and methods. In terms of usefulness, focus groups, partnering customers and lead users and prototyping are all considered to be more effective for high novelty projects, and segmentation least useful. Cross-functional development teams are commonplace for all types of project, but are significantly more effective for the high novelty cases. In addition, many tools rated as useful are not commonly used, and conversely some tools in common use are considered to be of limited use.     

Greening the Danes? Experience with consumption and environment policies

Consumer-oriented environmental policies came high on the political agenda during the 1990s. Internationally, consumers were assigned a key role in environmental policies; also in Denmark, political initiatives were taken to promote sustainable consumer behaviour. In this article, the results of Danish policies related to consumption and environment are assessed by considering first, the environmental impacts of the political measures, and second, whether the policies have succeeded in addressing the dynamics behind increasing consumption. The study combines a theoretical understanding of consumption as an inseparable part of daily practices with empirical analyses of three fields of consumption: housing, transportation, and information and communication technology. It is pointed out that policies to promote sustainable consumption are successful only when technological development, economic structures, and information are all in accordance with each other, and this is the case only when sustainable consumption does not conflict with economic growth. A more fundamental critique thus concerns the failure of Danish consumer-oriented environmental policies to address consumption growth and the rising standards for “normal consumption.”     

Resources and transaction costs: how property rights economics furthers the resource‐based view

Property rights economics furthers the resource‐based view of strategic management in a number of ways. First, resources are conceptualized as being composed of multiple attributes for which property rights may be held. Second, a resource owner's ability to create, appropriate, and sustain value from resources depends on the property rights that he or she holds and on the transaction costs of exchanging, defining, and protecting them. While transaction costs are a major source of value dissipation, reducing such dissipation may create value. Implications for the RBV analysis of sustained competitive advantage are derived. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.