Urban agriculture,gender and empowerment: An alternative view

Studies of urban agriculture (UA) in South Africa, and more broadly in southern Africa, have drawn on quantitative research methodologies to explain the involvement in UA of people from low-income households. Such studies tend to explain UA with reference to the direct economic and monetary gains that are made through agricultural activity. In Cape Town, the contribution of UA to income generation and expenditure substitution is limited. However, UA is important to women of low-income households in ways less directly related to monetary gain. Women use UA in processes of empowerment, to establish social networks, to symbolise a sense of security and to encourage community development. Policy-makers should extend their perception of UA's benefits beyond narrow economistic notions to include these positive social effects.     

Auditors' Liability, Vague Due Care, and Auditing Standards

This paper expands the set of previously considered liability rules to include a negligence liability rule with a vague specification of due care. Auditors who are negligent in conducting their audit are liable for losses that result from reliance on misstated financial statements. However, what constitutes negligence for auditors is not clearly specified in the law. Consequently, courts often resort to Generally Accepted Auditing Standards (GAAS) and Statements on Auditing Standards (SAS) as benchmarks for determining due care. A liability regime that consists of a vague negligence rule supports and amplifies the credibility of auditing standards. While auditing standards alleviate some of the vagueness that is inherent in the legal standard, they also form a lower bound on due care, since an audit of a quality that is lower than the quality that auditing standards require would be considered negligent. Thus, the vague specification of due care enables auditors to commit to audit quality as pronounced in auditing standards. This paper explores this link between professional standards and auditors' legal liability. It establishes that the commitment to auditing standards could not have been as credible as it is, if auditors' liability was determined based on the strict liability rule, or based on a negligence rule with a clearly specified due care, since under these two liability rules courts would not need to refer to auditing standards to establish fault. The paper also demonstrates that a legal regime where audit standards are used as a benchmark to evaluate negligence is not the same as a legal regime where due care is defined clearly. Therefore, previous studies that assumed a negligence regime with clear due care may have overstated the effort level that is induced by legal liability.     

Increasing correlations or just fat tails?

Increasing correlation during turbulent market conditions implies a reduction in portfolio diversification benefits. We investigate the robustness of recent empirical results that indicate a breakdown in the correlation structure by deriving theoretical truncated and exceedance correlations using alternative distributional assumptions. Analytical results show that the increase in conditional correlation could be a result of assuming conditional normality for the return distribution. When assuming a popular alternative distribution – the bivariate Student-t_r – we find significantly less support for an increase in conditional correlation and conclude that this is due to the presence of fat tails when assuming normality in the return distribution.     

Opportunities for Air Pollutant and Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction through Local Transport Planning

This paper has three main objectives: firstly, to provide quantitative information on the potential greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions reductions resulting from a number of future road transport scenarios; secondly, to illustrate the emission reduction measures available to local transport planners; and thirdly, to highlight the potential for these measures to be integrated into strategies that deliver other transport priorities. The results are drawn from a case study of Norfolk in the UK. We conclude that while technology can play a large part in reducing emissions of air pollutants, demand management is crucial to the delivery of long term greenhouse gas emission reduction and ultimately of air pollutant emissions too.     

美元霸权与中国崛起——兼论如何应对美国强制人民币升值

作为与黄金脱钩的世界货币,美国倚仗美元霸权绝对的融资优势,可以轻松地收购世界各国经济的关键部门,支撑为维护帝国而花费的庞大军事开支。在当前美国等西方经济陷入长期停滞之际,国际金融资本的下一步目标直指中国。美国对中国发动经济战争的最终目的,是取得对中国经济制高点的控制权,从而取得对中国资产的控制权,这既可以消除中国经济增长对美国霸权地位的威胁,又可以享有中国经济增长的好处。美国实现这一目标最重要的步骤是要中国放弃金融主权,进一步推动金融自由化。这是美国对中国发动汇率战的真实背景。为应对国际金融资本的进攻,中国应采取包括回购外资企业在内的一系列政策措施。     

The Effects of Idealized Advertising Imagery on Social Comparisons,Psychological and Emotional Outcomes,and Consumer Vulnerability: A Conceptual Model

This article integrates marketing and social psychology theories and findings into a conceptual model that describes the conditions for which idealized advertising images induce positive (or negative) consumer outcomes. Extending Bessenoff's moderated mediation model, the authors propose that: (1) effect of social comparison on the relationship between exposure to idealized advertising images and psychological/emotional outcomes will be moderated by internalization of ideals and self-discrepancy; (2) effect of psychological/emotional outcomes on the relationship between social comparison and consumer vulnerability will be moderated by attainability of ideals; and (3) product claims should moderate the relationship between psychological and emotional outcomes and consumer vulnerability.     

Exploring local projects for sustainable energy in system transition: local perceptions of success

In the sustainability transitions literature, ‘success’ is conceived as the transition from an unsustainable system to a sustainable one. However, this view hides a more profound complexity in individual projects which can contribute to system transition. This paper focuses instead on local projects as key sites for change. In two case studies of UK sustainable energy projects, success is shown to be characterised by different causative beliefs held by different people about the problems being addressed, which predetermines solutions to those problems; and hence the nature of success. By acknowledging this multiplicity of success, as perceived by ordinary residents and project organisers as well as transition scholars, ‘narratives of success’ can be recognised, enabling future projects to build on success, and continue along the path to transition. This reconceptualisation provides transition scholars with new ways of understanding and effecting transitions; by focusing on the project level, which is useful in contexts with varying commitment to sustainability.