Bioeconomic analysis of herpetofauna road-kills in a Florida state park

Road-kills are a major cause of mortality for a wide variety of herpetofauna, but management decisions on remediation procedures for reducing losses are based in economic realities. Because funding is finite for species conservation, bioeconomic analysis can assist in justifying, evaluating, and maximizing returns on conservation expenditures, especially for low-profile species such as herpetofauna. Here, we present a bioeconomic analysis of road-killed herpetofauna in Jonathan Dickinson State Park, Florida. Road surveys were conducted daily for four years to identify and enumerate the numbers of each reptile and amphibian species killed by vehicles. Conservative individual valuations applied to the losses formed the basis of a benefit-cost analysis aimed at identifying the thresholds at which remediation expenditures would be justified. We found an average of 64 reptiles and amphibians were killed/year, justifying conservation expenditures up to $32,000/year. However, if less conservative valuations were applied, especially for threatened and endangered species, justifiable expenditures rise dramatically.     

Cobden's stance on the currency and the political forces behind the approval of the Bank Charter Act of 1844

Contemporary scholars consider the banking legislation of the first half of the nineteenth century, to have inhibited the development of British industry, However, some doubts about this conception should have arisen due to Richard Cobden's stance on the currency question in general and on the Bank Charter Act of 1844 in particular. Cobden, who is usually viewed as a representative of industrial interests, was expected to oppose the Bank Act. However, he did not.

This paper attempts to show how can Cobden's views regarding monetary policy be reconciled with his stand as one of the most prominent leaders of industry at the time.     

Political risk analysis for Canada and Mexico

A new methodology for political risk analysis was developed and applied to Canada and Mexico. The ideas of an interdisciplinary team of corporate and country experts were obtained in mid-1982 via a two-round Delphi inquiry on socioeconomic change and a survey on business contingencies in Canada and Mexico. The information provided by the panelists was used to describe possible future conditions in Canada and Mexico in the context of alternative U.S. and international conditions.     

CITIES AND THEIR GURUS: The Role of Superstar Consultants in Post-political Urban Governance

While consultants have crept into various aspects of municipal governance, a selected few have transcended the others reaching the status of urban gurus. Although consultants are often perceived as depoliticizing urban affairs, research shows that the urban guru often instigates politicization. Research on urban gurus does thus highlight distinctions between gurus and ‘lay’ consultants, but it has paid insufficient attention to describing how, through their interaction with cities, politicization occurs. Moreover, the literature often portrays this interaction as an authority relationship in which the guru is superior, while in fact cities play an important role in bestowing ‘guru’ status. Using fieldwork, I examine the long-term interaction between Richard Florida and the City of Toronto, explaining how Florida's elevation to guru status by being brought to Toronto ended with him self-describing as ‘persona non-grata’. To explain the anomaly of this interaction and the way in which gurus instigate politicization, I differentiate between consultants’ ‘substance’ and ‘process’ roles in policy formulation processes. I show that, regarding substance, the guru offers a policy paradigm rather than policy instruments and, regarding process, their strength is in performing ideas rather than pulling strings behind the scenes—in both respects making the policy process more public and contested.     

Richard Kahn's fellowship dissertation: The fate of ‘The Economics of the Short Period’

Abstract

In 1930, Richard Kahn became a fellow of King's College, Cambridge, on the basis of his book-length dissertation ‘The Economics of the Short Period.’ It was finally published in the 1980s. Why did he not publish his thesis in the 1930s, when it would have made a substantial impact? We present two arguments. In 1932/33, Joan Robinson published many of Kahn's main ideas, rendering subsequent publication by him derivative. And by the mid-1930s, Kahn discovered that parts of his dissertation left untouched by Robinson were no longer new or distinctive because of rapid progress in research on imperfect and monopolistic competition.     

Florida in the Global South: How Eurocentrism Obscures Global Urban Challenges—and What We Can Do about It

According to Richard Florida, the world is in the grip of a ‘New Urban Crisis’. In his most recent book Florida recounts a visit to Medellín that provoked an epiphany in which he realized that the New Urban Crisis is global in scope. Unfortunately, Florida's discovery of the global South is informed by a deeply Eurocentric understanding of urbanization. This leads him to conclude that Southern cities should ‘unleash’ creativity, and he proposes that the United States should develop a global urban policy that would export a version of American urbanism. In this essay we deconstruct Florida's notion of the New Urban Crisis and show that its Eurocentric assumptions obscure the very real environmental, economic and political challenges facing cities in the global South and their residents.     

人力资本对区域创新效率影响的实证研究

佛罗里达国家风景游径以展现和保护自然风景资源为目标连接全州动植物栖息地,并提供以远足为主的游憩活动,率先在全美设立了保护野生动物安全迁徙的生态廊道。在田野踏查和参与游径维护的体验基础上分析了佛罗里达国家风景游径的选线方法、规划重点和维护管理,发现该游径的设立营造了城镇地区与原始自然地的缓冲带,实现了生态走廊构建、水环境治理、科普教育和历史文化保护等多功能,并为佛罗里达州每年带来了高额的旅游经济收入,具有显著的生态保护综合效益。     

Empirical analysis of media versus environmental impacts on park attendance

This study examined whether park attendance was affected by red tide events. The analysis found that the presence of red tide, objectively measured with four models including nearby cell counts, did not affect park attendance. However, the appearance of the search phrase “red tide” in local newspapers revealed significant reductions in average daily park attendance of 398 (21 percent) visitors, representing revenue losses of $16,955. An effective red tide impact mitigation strategy may be to educate members of the press regarding the public response resulting from red tide coverage.     

Competition in government and industry procurement contracting

This study explores government and industry procurement official's perception of inhibiting factor importance to competition in Federal contracting. Within the government sector as well as the industrial sector there are no significant differences in perceived factor importance. However, between the industry and government sectors significant differences in perceived factor importance do exist. The study also reveals some commonality of factors identified by both sectors as important inhibitors to competition.     

Richard Lin Leads the Energy Evolution

Leaders emerge as time requires. Richard Lin, Chairman of Dynamotive Energy Systems Corporation, steps forward during the worldwide energy evolution.