The half‐empty office: dilemmas in managing locational flexibility

Through a case study contrasting the impacts of formalised and informal teleworking practices on office‐based workers, multidimensional dilemmas between flexibility, control and equity are uncovered. Formal schemes, although problematic and rare, possess some advantages in resolving the three dimensions. A model is proposed to test findings further.     

Sample bias in contingent valuation: A comparison of the correction methods

Abstract

This article compares various methods for correcting contingent valuation aggregate benefits when the sample is known to be biased. A sample is defined as the population, and response rates are simulated on the basis of a measure of salience. The simulated response rates suffer from nonresponse bias and selection bias. Coefficient and benefit estimates that result from weighting and self‐selection correction approaches are compared with the true coefficient and benefit estimates. Our results indicate that at both low and high response rates the standard approach leads to bias, and either correction approach will reduce the bias in coefficient and benefit estimates.     

Change in income distribution and aggregate spending: constraints on full-employment?

During the 1980s, rising income inequality in the UK resulted partly from market conditions, and partly from supply-side policies that reduced social security benefits and income supports for low-wage earners. Greater Inequality, plus low levels of investment spending (relative to consumption)hinder the ability of demand management to raise the level of output and employment in the UK economy. Higher income earners have higher import propensities. Consequently, at any stage of the economic cycle, the trade dificit is now larger than it was before 1980. Increases in demand leak into a demand for imports, further reducing the incentive to invest. The paper argues for lower interest rates to encourage investment, and a fiscal policy that redistributes income towards those with lower incomes to solve these problems.     

Testing the impact of predefined and self-defined end anchors on the linearity of the category rating scale

In this research the impact of two types of end anchors on the linearity of the category rating scale is studied. Two functional measurement experiments were carried out, each requiring a different kind of judgement, i.e., job satisfaction ratings and attractiveness ratings. One group of participants rated the stimuli using a category rating scale with fixed anchors, while another group was presented with a self-anchoring category rating scale. The results indicate that researchers can be confident in the ability of both category rating scales to provide linear data. This implies that the different end anchors do not impact on the linearity of the category rating scale.     

Socio-economic impacts of migrant clustering on Dutch neighbourhoods: In search of optimal migrant diversity

The recent empirical literature on the impact of migrant clustering on socio-economic welfare indicators shows inconclusive and often even contradictory results. In this paper we argue that there is not an unambiguous empirical outcome of migrant or ethnic diversity, but that it depends on the level of migrant or ethnic composition itself. A low degree of socio-economic and cultural diversity may be beneficial for neighbourhoods, whereas an excessive degree of diversity may be harmful. We test this hypothesis by (i) constructing a migrant clustering index for all neighbourhoods in the Netherlands based on a gamma index; and, subsequently, (ii) incorporating it in a regression framework to assess three relevant socio-economic outcomes: neighbourhood income, number of students, and average housing value. We show that there is apparently an optimal level of migrant clustering, and that it is remarkably robust. For the Netherlands as a whole and for the ten largest Dutch cities as well, it is striking that largely similar effects were found. Our results suggest that population composition in neighbourhoods may vary up to about 40 per cent from the national average before migrant clustering generates negative effects.     

Should I take this seriously? A simple checklist for calling bullshit on policy supporting research

We propose a simple checklist for the users of policy supporting research in order to decide whether a piece of research begs further study or can be dismissed right away. The checklist focusses on the quality of the research question (is it a research question, and is the research question answerable); the kind of knowledge along with the order, level and quality of data needed for answering the RQ; the methods of analysis used; the degree to which the research results support the conclusions; and whether the conclusions provide an answer to the research question.     

Early-warning analysis for currency crises in emerging markets: A revisit with fuzzy clustering

Currency crises, also often called balance-of-payment crises, occur when massive capital outflows force a country to devalue or float its currency. The world-wide integration of capital markets since the 1980s and 1990s has increased the degree of capital mobility, which also determined a substantial turbulence in foreign exchange markets and frequent currency crises. In this paper, we explore advanced supporting instruments for predicting currency crises, based on an empirical study of the currency crisis episodes in 23 emerging markets around the world during the second half of last century. More specifically, we investigate the usefulness of prediction models built based on the fuzzy c-means method. First we build clustering models that partition data into a certain number of overlapping natural groups. Thereafter, we classify the data clusters into early-warning clusters and tranquil clusters. We compare the performance of our models with a conventional c-means clustering model and a benchmark probit model. The results show that the proposed models achieve a similar level of out-of-sample performance as the probit model and c-means model. The fuzzy approach also introduces additional explanatory advantages into the early-warning analysis process. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Is there a case for replacing parking charges by road user charges?

The price of parking is often considered an important tool with which to influence transport choice but, since many local authorities have limited control over off-street charges and since parking charges have no direct impact on through traffic, its influence on overall travel demand may be limited. Road user charges, on the other hand, do appear to offer an effective means of influencing overall demand. The problem is that public acceptance of such charges is low unless some obvious “carrot” can be identified. This paper explores the possibility that the removal of parking charges might be that “carrot”. Our analysis suggests that, although the removal of parking charges would reduce revenues and dilute the reduction in demand caused by the introduction of road charges, the combined effect might, in certain circumstances, be more beneficial to the local economy and might still yield a net increase in revenue. Given the incidence of impacts, it also appears that a combined scheme would be more equitable and might stand a greater chance of achieving public acceptance than a more conventional road charging scheme. The paper identifies the circumstances in which a combined scheme might work well and outlines the detailed analysis that would be necessary to confirm this.