People,Pipelines, and Probabilities: Clarifying Significance and Uncertainty in Environmental Impact Assessments

Determinations of significance play a pivotal role in environmental impact assessments because they point decision makers to the predicted effects of an action most deserving of attention and further study. Impact predictions are always subject to uncertainty because they rely on estimates of future consequences. Yet uncertainty is often neglected or treated in a perfunctory manner as part of the characterization, evaluation, and communication of anticipated consequences and their significance. Proposals to construct fossil fuel pipelines in North America provide a highly visible example; casual treatment of how uncertainty affects significance determinations has resulted in poorly informed stakeholders, frustrated industry proponents, and inconsistent choices on the part of public decision makers. Using environmental assessments for recent pipeline proposals as examples, we highlight five ways in which uncertainty is often neglected when determining impact significance and suggest that a mix of known methods, new guidelines, and appropriate oversight could greatly improve current practices.     

信心、货币政策与中国经济波动关系的统计检验

文章基于时变视角,依据行为经济学理论,构建了一个包含企业家信心、投资者信心、利率、货币增长率、经济增长率和通货膨胀率六变量的TVP-VAR模型,研究信心、货币政策与经济波动之间的时变特征。结果表明:企业家信心和投资者信心能够影响利率和货币增长率,即信心可以通过影响货币政策进而作用于宏观经济。货币增长率和利率能够影响投资者信心和企业家信心,进而可以通过信心影响宏观经济。从时变角度看,企业家信心一单位的正向冲击在整个样本区间内均会促进经济的增长;在短期内投资者信心和货币增长率对经济增长具有促进作用,但是在长期内货币增长率的提高会阻碍经济的增长。     

Supply chain agility as an acclimatisation process to environmental uncertainty and organisational vulnerabilities: insights from British SMEs

Abstract

Even though supply chain agility (SCA) has been considered an essential concept in supply chain management (SCM) research, the way it is experienced and manifested, especially by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), has received much less attention. Our purpose is to focus on SME organisational vulnerabilities in the context of increased environmental uncertainty, and explore how SCA is developed and applied by SMEs amid their vulnerabilities. By relying on insights from comparative case studies of three British SMEs, we examine SME SCA as an acclimatisation process and delve into SMEs’ experiences of facing environmental uncertainty while developing and applying SCA. Our findings highlight that organisational attitudes underlie how SMEs perceive environmental uncertainty, tackle organisational vulnerabilities and develop SCA as an acclimatisation process. Our findings also reveal that resource constraints, supply chain relationships, interorganisational power dynamics, and access to information play important roles in developing SCA.     

Urban greening and mobility justice in Dhaka’s informal settlements

ABSTRACT

Urban greening in Dhaka, Bangladesh is fraught with injustice for slum dwellers. Access to the commons for the enactment of gardening, farming and foraging by the urban poor, many recent internal migrants from rural areas, is contested by wealthier citizens, developers and political elites. Through qualitative research with households within the informal settlement of Korail in Dhaka’s urban core, and a range of stakeholders in governmental and non-governmental organizations, this study critiques competing policy visions that involve urban greening and urban green infrastructure. Repurposing the conceptual lense of ‘mobility justice’ to analyse environmental and ecological issues in the global South, the findings highlight the importance of mobility concerns to just futures for urban planning.     

Varieties of liberalism: A comparative analysis of family policy and poverty outcomes across the 50 United States

The United States is generally recognised as an exemplar of liberal policy regime types. However, given evidence of state-level divergence in social policy, this article investigates to what extent such variation is present and relevant in state-level family policy. To this end, we pose a primary and secondary research question. Our primary question is whether varieties of liberalism exist across the 50 states in the United States. Our secondary question is whether these varieties of liberalism correspond to variety in social indicators of families' economic well-being. To answer our primary question, we first construct a family policy index that scores the relative generosity and coverage of state-administered social programmes that contribute to the (de)commodification and (de)familialisation of households with children. We then perform a cluster analysis to group states by shared decommodifying and defamilialising features. To answer our secondary question, we investigate how our family-policy clusters are associated with social indicators of families' financial security. Our findings suggest that varieties of liberalism do, indeed, exist within the United States. With the exception of Vermont, which stands out with respect to its comparatively generous family policies, we classify states into two groups: those with ‘soft’ liberal family policy in states featuring relatively generous and accessible policies and ‘hard’ liberal family policy in states achieving little of either. We find that these differences help explain state-level heterogeneity in levels of economic security among households with children, particularly single-mother households.     

Response strategy to environment context factors using a lean and agile approach: Implications for firm performance

Based on the environment-strategy performance perspective and dynamic capabilities framework, we develop a theoretical model and hypotheses specifying how supply chain collaboration as a response to environment context factors – competitive intensity, supply uncertainty, technological turbulence and market turbulence, using a lean and agile strategy may influence firm performance. We test the model using partial least square structural equation modelling on data collected from a field survey with responses from 152 manufacturing firms representing a variety of industries. Empirical findings generally support the relationship between collaboration and firm performance using a lean and agile strategy. Also, for firms in industries that face environments characterised by high supply uncertainty and competitive intensity with, technological turbulence, the study finds evidence of a direct relationship between these environmental factors and supply chain collaboration. The findings provide an initial strategic response framework for appropriately aligning a lean and agile supply chain strategy through collaboration with environment context factors to achieve firm performance improvements.     

食品安全犯罪的法律归属再探讨

新近学界泛起将食品安全犯罪的法律归属调整到危害公共安全罪的观点，其立论的最大“法宝”在于食品安全犯罪侵害了不特定多数人的健康生命权，即公共安全。其实，“危害后果严重”不是判断主要客体的依据，食品安全犯罪的法律归属取决于其行为特性和本国立法价值取向及立法传统。食品安全犯罪与传统的危害公共安全罪不具有兼容性，将其归属于生产、销售伪劣商品罪并无不妥。     

Another Issue Comes Out: Gay Rights Policy Voting in Recent U.S. Presidential Elections

Drawing from the theory of policy voting, this study examines the impact of opinions about gay rights on voting for presidential candidates. Qualitative analysis of the major party platforms and candidate campaign rhetoric from the six presidential elections held between 1988 and 2008 indicates that Democratic and Republican presidential candidates began openly expressing opposing positions on gay rights issues in 1992. Quantitative analysis of public opinion shows that, starting in 1992 and continuing through 2008, gay rights issues became more salient to the public, and opinions about gay rights began to exert a significant effect on vote choice. The study concludes with a discussion of the partisan forces that shaped the electoral significance of gay rights issues during the period from 1988 to 2008 and speculation about the role of gay rights issues in shaping future partisan electoral strategy.     

走出对道德与经济基础关系认识的误区

学术界对经济基础概念的理解存在着误区，把经济基础看作经济水平、经济条件即生产力，认为生产力直接决定道德，不理解生产力对道德的影响是间接的而不是直接的，从而无法说明人的私有观念的产生和发展，无法说明道德的阶级性，看不到政治思想、政治制度对道德的影响，夸大了道德的相对独立性。     

19世纪末20世纪初俄国远东经济发展中的亚洲移民--以中国人和朝鲜人为例

1860年后，俄国远东地区出现大量亚洲移民，其中包括中国人、朝鲜人和日本人。日本人数量较少，主要进行捕鱼作业。中国人和朝鲜人则遍布俄国远东各个经济领域。虽然俄国政府对外来移民的政策几经调整，但在远东劳动力极度匮乏的情况下，中国人和朝鲜人在俄国各经济领域仍然得到广泛使用，中国人和朝鲜人不仅为俄国远东提供了廉价劳动力，也为远东地区经济发展，边区稳定做出了重要贡献。