Research agenda for low-carbon mobility: Issues for New World cities

ABSTRACT

Low-carbon mobility (LCM) features strongly in debates about the sustainability of cities and their resilience in the face of demographic, economic, and climate change. Transport is a major source of carbon emissions and there are indications that these continue to increase, despite the considerable recent advances in vehicle, engine, and fuel technologies. Reducing carbon emissions from transport may become more difficult, not easier. A particular issue relates to the New World cities, typified by those of North America and Australasia, which largely developed from the latter half of the nineteenth century onward and whose transportation systems were largely based around private vehicle ownership and usage. These cities are typically composed of low-density, dispersed suburbs, which are highly car dependent and resource and carbon emission intensive. This article develops a research agenda directed at determining and testing policy and planning measures relevant to the quest for low carbon mobility in New World cities. It suggests a rich agenda for essential research on LCM. Much of this agenda falls within the realm of the integration of transport and land use, with attention to urban design details to enhance the perceptions of and opportunities to use low carbon transport alternatives. Research topics identified for LCM research include (1) urban design and land use–transport integration (LUTI), (2) low carbon mobility policies directed at achieving widespread behavior change, (3) opportunities for new technology and its application, including requirements for systems and infrastructure, and (4) analysis and tools for informed decision making, including modeling, measurement, visualization, and especially assessment.     

Employee mobility,spin‐outs,and knowledge spill‐in: How incumbent firms can learn from new ventures

Research summary: We consider conditions in which incumbent firms are particularly poised to benefit from knowledge spilling in from new ventures that employ individuals previously employed by the focal incumbent firm. We distinguish between inventors who leave their incumbent employers to found spin‐outs and those who become non‐founding employees of existing new ventures. Using a sample of new ventures and incumbent firms in the U.S. information technology (IT) sector, we find that incumbents are more likely to benefit from patented knowledge that spills in from their spin‐outs than from new ventures that employ non‐founding inventors formerly employed by the respective incumbent. Any advantage that parent firms have in reaping such knowledge quickly dissipates, however, when these parents have a history of misappropriating the intellectual property of others. Managerial summary: It has long been acknowledged that new ventures can acquire valuable knowledge from their larger and more established counterparts by hiring away their talented employees. We consider the possibility of a reverse flow of knowledge where established firms learn from those new ventures that have poached employees from them. We find that established information technology (IT) firms are more likely to learn and build on the technology of their spin‐outs (i.e., new ventures founded by their former inventors) than from new ventures that simply employ non‐founding inventors formerly employed by the respective IT firm. Any advantage that these IT firms had in reaping technical know‐how from their spin‐outs quickly dissipated, however, when they had a history of misappropriating the intellectual property of others. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Encouraging behavioural change towards sustainable tourism: a German approach to free public transport for tourists

Constantly growing transport demand by tourists within holiday destinations and related increases in CO₂ emissions have helped foster a new trend amongst German destinations towards promoting a green transportation mode for vacationers. A key innovation is the “Gästeticket” or Guest Ticket concept, which offers tourists free public transport, on buses and trains, within defined destination areas throughout their stay. This paper describes the background to this concept, and the many different ways in which it has been created, designed, implemented and administered. A qualitative research methodology interviewed key public and private sector stakeholders, including local and regional politicians, accommodation providers, public transport providers and public transport authorities to identify favourable starting conditions, successful financial and institutional implementation strategies, and both supporters and opponents of guest tickets. Local politicians and many small accommodation providers opposed the concept, while regional and national politicians supported it, as did public transport providers and public transport authorities. The concept is compared to the more holistic Alpine Pearls concept founded in Austria, and the case made for better explanation of the Guest Ticket concept to its opponents, better marketing, further research and closer cooperation between transport providers and planners with tourism attractions and accommodation providers.     

中国居民家庭收入代际传递性分析

本文通过对父子收入代际弹性和家庭收入代际弹性的研究,发现子女收入很大程度上受到父亲收入或家庭收入的影响,证明了中国居民收入代际之间存在着较为明显的传递效应,特别是低收入群体。通过内外因分析,可以发现教育成为影响中国居民收入代际传递现象的重要因素。教育是一种重要的代际流动机制,个人教育水平提高和教育环境的公平可以使低收入群体有机会流向更高收入阶层。     

Where Should the Elderly Live and Who Should Pay for Their Care?*

We consider a model with a population consisting of earners and retired persons; elderly care is publicly provided. There is one big city, where congestion effects and agglomeration forces are at work, and a number of small villages. We show how the externalities related to population mobility lead to an inefficient spatial distribution of earners and retirees, and we characterize the second‐best solution. Decentralization of this solution in a fiscal federalism structure requires the use of taxes and subsidies proportional to the number of earners and retired persons living in the city and the villages.     

Social Mobility in Nineteenth Century Rural Sweden – A Micro Level Analysis

Abstract

Pre-industrial rural societies have often been pictured as stationary and immobile both in geographical and social terms. In the last decades this image has begun to change, especially as regards geographical mobility, while our knowledge of social mobility of rural pre-industrial Europe is still rudimentary. This study focuses on social attainment and mobility in a rural community of nineteenth-century southern Sweden, making use of high quality micro-level demographic and socioeconomic data. We show that intergenerational social mobility was quite frequent. Downward mobility was more prevalent than upward, and also increased over time. Social attainment and mobility were determined by a combination of inherited factors and individual agency. Social origin was of major importance, and so was the social origin of the spouse, which points to the crucial role played by partner selection in determining individual social outcome. Availability of networks as measured by place of birth also played a role in social achievement.     

Mobility of public researchers, scientific knowledge transfer, and the firm's innovation process

The present study provides evidence on the mobility effects of researchers from the public R&D system with regard to firm's innovation process. This issue is particularly novel and important as these researchers contribute to the production and transfer of knowledge previously developed and accumulated in the public R&D system. The findings confirm that scientific knowledge which public researchers provide has a positive influence on both inputs and outputs of the firms' innovation process. The fact that firms have access to additional knowledge which is complementary to that they already hold represents a spur for exploiting and applying this new knowledge. The firms in this study continually increased their in-house R&D investments. As a result of these investments firms create new knowledge of a unique and valuable type. The study draws two important conclusions geared to providing a greater efficiency in human resource management and to improve the design of technology policies.     

International capital market integration: Implications for convergence, growth, and welfare

This paper studies the effects of international capital market integration on welfare and the speed of adjustment in a two-region endogenous growth model. Monopolistic firms undertake research and development (R&D) to improve their productivity level. National and international knowledge spillovers affect the returns to R&D. The two countries differ with respect to the initial productivity level and R&D capability (which is a proxy for human capital and structural policies). Long-run productivity gaps are determined by the difference in R&D capability. Over time, there is conditional convergence in productivity levels. The speed of convergence is larger with integrated international capital markets than without. Long-run gaps in consumption levels are larger in the former situation than in the latter. Capital market integration harms (benefits) the leading (lagging) region if domestic spillovers are more important than international spillovers and differences in R&D capabilities are small.The authors research is supported by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. He thanks Lucas Bretschger, Theo van de Klundert, and Richard Nahuis, Thomas Steger, and Helmut Wagner for comments on an earlier version.     

人口新常态约束下特大城市的规模调控与转型升级

不同国家、不同历史时期的特大城市人口规模变动极大,运用 Kernel 密度函数对中国城市人口规模分布的分析表明,当前以城区常住人口“500万以上”为特大城市的划分标准是合理的。从城市人口规模变动的动态历程来看,该变动主要受城市产业与经济发展的影响。对中国主要特大城市实有人口规模变动的分析表明,特大城市的人口规模调控应因时因地而动,不能搞一刀切,而且人口调控政策重点应该从数量控制转向结构优化。特大城市转型升级面临着农民工供给短缺、大学毕业生相对过剩、老年和少儿非劳动力人口持续增长等人口新常态约束。在这种人口增长新常态背景下,特大城市应坚持市场化改革方向,促进政府制度创新和企业技术与管理创新是城市转型升级的根本动力。     

Optimal International Taxation and Growth Rate Convergence: Tax Competition vs. Coordination

Optimal international taxation and its implications for convergence in long run income growth rates are analyzed in the context of an endogenously growing world economy with perfect capital mobility. Under tax competition (i) the residence principle will maximize national welfare; (ii) the optimal long run tax rate on capital incomes from various sources will be zero in all countries; and (iii) long term per capita income growth rates will be equalized across countries. Under tax coordination, (i) becomes irrelevant while (ii) and (iii) will continue to hold. In other words, optimal tax policies are growth-equalizing with and without international policy coordination. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.