Social housing in France: A permanent and multifaceted challenge for public policies

This paper examines the dynamics of the overwhelmingly generous social housing in France that covers a wide spectrum of recipients. Being influenced by electoral power of rotating ruling parties and social ideals, policy formulations are often reflected by idealistic politics which tends to over-stretch the nation’s budget and restrict its scope in reaching its target groups. From the 1990s, fund availability has been further hit by economic globalization causing falling business profitability and high unemployment rates affecting notably ethnic minorities. Upcoming social crisis has been met with public response via a series of technical-led remedial acts to promote social integration in housing and by identifying social ills and polarization in sensitive and problematic urban quarters. New technical and financial measures in coping with the complexity and magnitude of social housing are expected to remain highly challenging in the French parliamentary politics.     

公司社会声望与高管薪酬:公共服务抑或职业声誉

本文基于“隐性—显性”契约激励研究范式,探讨公司社会声望对高管薪酬的影响以及作用机制。本文选取2009—2017年间的非金融A股上市公司为样本,研究发现,拥有较高社会声望的公司,其高管显性薪酬较低。具体而言,公共地位较高的国有企业、具有较高市场声誉的民营上市公司,其高管薪酬平均而言分别比其他上市公司低4.97%和6.30%。进一步地,我们发现公司声望对我国高管显性薪酬契约存在两种作用机制:一方面,公共地位较高的国有企业,可以为高管带来较高的社会声誉和社会认可,满足了“公共服务”类高管的社会声望偏好,从而降低了显性薪酬的支付水平;另一方面,市场声誉较高的民营企业,可以为高管带来较高的职业声誉和未来职业利益,符合“以商为荣”类高管的社会声望偏好,使高管愿意接受较低的显性薪酬。本文的结论为公司声望作为一种有价值的资源,可以对高管显性薪酬形成议价能力提供了重要证据,揭示了公司声望对高管显性契约激励的影响路径;同时,为国有企业高管薪酬契约设计以及激励机制提供了一定启示。     

Climate adaptation in ‘new world’ cultural landscapes: The case of Bay of Fundy agricultural dykelands (Nova Scotia,Canada)

North America has few cultural agricultural landscapes, and often commensurately poor governance arrangements for managing change in such settings. This research uses the Acadian dykelands of Nova Scotia, Canada, as an opportunity to explore the social and governance limits to coastal climate adaptation in ‘new world’ cultural agricultural landscapes, as well as inform local decision-making. Approximately half of Nova Scotia’s coastal wetlands were converted to dykeland in the 1600s, lowering local resilience to the increased frequency and storm severity anticipated with climate change. Today, dykelands protect a diversity of public and private interests, meanings and values, yet are controlled by the agricultural sector, which can no longer afford to maintain them all to 2050 climate projections. We report here on a representative online Q-methodology survey of 183 adult Nova Scotians in the spring of 2015. Respondents sorted 34 statements along a normal distribution about whether they prefer dykeland maintenance or wetland restoration, and under what governance arrangements. Four factors were derived: the dominant discourse was local, female and strongly pro-dykeland, indicating the likelihood for local resistance to dykeland removal on for cultural, recreational and farming reasons. The second factor was supportive of wetland restoration for reasons of efficiency, not wetland affinity, but characterized by those in positions of management power. The two minority viewpoints were less informed about dykelands, characteristic of outsiders, and concerned more with governance. More education is needed about the challenges facing dykelands, the benefits of coastal wetlands, and the management options, but this research shows proposals to change landscape should emphasize flood mitigation over cost-saving. Cultural values and status quo bias are clearly barriers to adaptation planning, even when discussing the removal of man-made structures. The factors were surprisingly polarized, suggesting the forced-normal distribution affects the space available to convey nuanced perspectives. Large p-set Q-method of this kind is likely most useful for characterizing the emergent discourses demographically, and understanding their prevalence; the same discourses had emerged within a much smaller pilot study.     

Public sector enterprise disinvestment in India: Efficiency gains in a political context

India instituted a program of state enterprise disinvestment in 1991 as part of a sweeping reform initiative. This study analyses the effect of disinvestment on enterprise performance, conditioned on political context as characterized by the ideological leanings of the parties in power at state and central levels. Using stochastic frontier analysis, measures of firm efficiency are generated for 238 central public sector enterprises for the period 1991–1992 to 2010–2011. The relationship between efficiency so measured and disinvestment is then estimated using a two-stage instrumental variables approach to control for endogeneity between firm efficiency and selection for disinvestment. Initial disinvestment is associated with substantial efficiency gains, but subsequent disinvestment much less so and the proportion of shares disinvested only loosely so. This may be explained by the transformative effect of initial stock market listing on accountability and profit orientation that is not repeated with further rounds of disinvestment. The effect of disinvestment on performance is stronger if the enterprise is located in a state governed by a right leaning party or one that is ideologically aligned with the party in power at the centre.     

Pure meat – Public perceptions of risk reduction strategies in meat production

Experience has shown that both the assessment and implementation of new technologies in food production are challenged by negative assessments of the technologies by the public. This article seeks to deepen our understanding of the concerns that may underlie negative attitudes to various kinds of risk reduction strategy in meat production, with the aim of distinguishing between forms of risk reduction in terms of their acceptability. The paper reports the result of a focus-group study. Six focus groups with Danish citizens (N: 5–9) were conducted during May 2006. The design of the groups took a bottom-up approach and included elements of meat quality, meat safety and risk reduction strategies. The study shows the dilemma risk reduction presents to members of the public. On the one hand, people want safe meat; on the other, the study showed that with the exception of hygiene practices, people generally have an aversion to risk reduction strategies. Some variation was found, however, in the rejection of the strategies. Thus, more acceptable strategies are characterised by a low degree of technological interference, and by being close to the consumer’s experience in everyday life and/or familiar to the participants’ picture of meat production. It is also important that the strategy does not alter the quality of the end-product (meat) in an unfavourable way. The implications of the results and the inherent dilemma for meat safety policy formation are discussed.     

The Managerial Lineages of Neoliberalism

Managerialism is often depicted as a key practice of neoliberalism yet relatively little has been written by scholars of neoliberalism about the actual relationship between managerialism and neoliberalism. Usually subsumed under a functional reading of neoliberalism, managerialism has too often been understood simply as a means for neoliberal ends (i.e. to promote market rule or competition). This paper challenges this perspective on the grounds that it conflates practices that stem from two different historical lineages. As we show, managerial governance not only has a very different history than neoliberal theory, but it also rests on different principles. Its development can be traced back to the US defence sector in the 1950s and the pivotal role of the RAND Corporation. On the basis of this historical perspective, we argue for the need to analyse managerialism on its own terms and make the case for considering the rise of managerial science as a paradigmatic shift in governance. In doing so, we show how managerial governance represented a radical rupture from previous management practices and show how it profoundly reshaped how we have come to understand governance.     

Determinants of holistic passenger experience in public transportation: Scale development and validation

Transportation literature is shifting its focus from passengers’ perception of transit quality to understanding passenger experience from a holistic perspective. Few studies have investigated passenger experience factors from a holistic perspective; however, they are explored independently. A holistic approach can help the transport service providers to understand the complete journey of the passenger. This study proposes the concept of holistic passenger experience (HPX) and identifies the determinants of HPX in the context of public transportation with specific reference to Indian Railways. The study develops a comprehensive scale that measures the influence of these determinants on HPX to address this gap. Following a systematic scale development process, this study identified and validated (content, construct, convergent, and discriminant validity) a seven factor structure scale that determines HPX. Of these seven factors, four factors (vehicle maintenance, comfort & security, off board service, and travel information) constitute the core services offered by the transport service provider. Interestingly these four factors can be effectively managed by the service provider. The other three factors (social environment, supporting services, and accessibility) cannot be entirely managed by the transport service provider effectively, as these factors fall beyond the scope of the service provider.Nomological validity results are explained by constructing a matrix (holistic passenger experience Matrix) which reveals that most of the constructs that are can be managed by the transport service provider can be mapped to the cognitive component of customer experience, whereas most of the factors which go beyond the scope of the transport service provider could be mapped to the emotional component of customer experience. The findings can assist the transport sector executives to identify the key determinants to deliver superior passenger experiences throughout the journey.     

Progress in indicators to assess agricultural landscape valuation: how and what is measured at different levels of governance

Landscape is defined by the European Landscape Convention as “an area perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors”. Many efforts have been devoted in addressing the core concepts on which this definition roots: perception and interaction of men and nature, but when coming to large (continental) scale assessments, the latter prevail on the former.This paper aims at presenting a framework for a measurable landscape awareness indicator as a key link to the public demand for a specific type of landscape: the agricultural landscape. This is a necessary effort to complement more physically based assessments, which include as well the impact of human activities on landscapes.The analysis is carried out at different levels of governance: EU and regional, using an example from the Alentejo region in Portugal and EU wide databases, and addresses conceptual and practical questions: what type of societal landscape awareness can be monitored and by whom (e.g., individuals, specific social groups, society as a whole); what are the landscape dimensions that should be assessed; what are the limitations imposed by data-related constraints. By applying the methodology to build composite indicators to map landscape societal awareness, the paper shows the regional and local meaning of indicator approaches developed at European level, presents developments for downscaling to regional level, while introducing the social component to support sound policy development for European rural landscapes.     

Analysing the provision of agricultural public goods: The case of irrigated olive groves in Southern Spain

Analysis of the joint production of private and public goods (PGs) by farming activities is a fertile research field. These joint production processes are typically characterised by a high level of complexity derived from the intense relationship between the production of both kinds of outputs. An integrated approach is strongly recommended for the study of the provision of agricultural PGs and the design of public intervention in this sector. Here, we propose a theoretical framework to apply an integrated approach using the analytic network process (ANP) to analyse the production of PGs by agricultural systems to support public decision-making concerning the design and implementation of agricultural policies. We introduce a novel approach in applying ANP along both directions of the influences among elements, allowing us to identify the most influenced PGs and the farmers’ most influential decisions. This methodological approach is empirically applied to a particular farming system: the irrigated olive groves (IOG) of Southern Spain. Results show that the PGs most influenced by olive growers’ decisions are soil fertility, the visual quality of agricultural landscapes and farmland biodiversity. In addition, the most influential factors affecting the provision of PGs are the structural ones, namely farm size and tree density, and, to a lesser extent, management factors dealing with fertilisation, soil and irrigation management. These results are useful for supporting agricultural policy decision-making to enhance adequate management of this farming system regarding PGs production.     

An economic–geographic assessment of the potential for a new air transport hub in post-Gaddafi Libya

Post-war Libya is faced with the challenge of adopting an air transport strategy for the future. One issue is how to address projects inaugurated under the Gaddafi government, such as the terminal extension at Tripoli International Airport. Additionally, the state-owned Afriqiyah Airlines had been establishing a niche hub in Tripoli before the 2011 war, but this development has subsequently been stalled.Against this background, we analyse the prospects of an air transport hub operation in Libya, focusing on traffic between Africa and Europe, from a bird’s-eye economic–geographic view. First, a literature review is undertaken to identify general success factors for air transport hubs. Second, a weighted average distance penalty (WADP) indicator is developed and applied to Tripoli as a potential hub location. This indicator considers all 4755 O&Ds between Europe and Africa with more than 100 passengers in 2012. For sensitivity reasons, alternative WADPs are estimated for the 3209 traffic flows not including North Africa and for (forecasted) future air traffic demand in 2020. The results for Tripoli International Airport are benchmarked against competing hub locations, such as Algiers, Cairo, and the major European airports. We conclude by discussing the implications of the current and anticipated future security and economic situation in the country.