Accountability in Voluntary Partnerships: To Whom and for What?

This paper contributes to the understanding of accountability in collaborative governance by presenting views of practitioners from partnerships formed between K-12 public schools and private and nonprofit organizations in the United States. It focuses on two questions: what do partnership practitioners see the partnerships as being accountable for? And to whom do they see the partnerships as being accountable? The findings suggest that partnership participants reveal more of client-based and results-oriented views of accountability. They are more directly concerned about professional accountability and accountability to the partners. A concentric-circles model is then developed to illustrate the accountability relationships in partnerships.     

Small Theories and Large Risks—Is Risk Analysis Relevant for Epistemology?

Ought we to take seriously large risks predicted by “exotic” or improbable theories? We routinely assess risks on the basis or either common sense, or some developed theoretical framework based on the best available scientific explanations. Recently, there has been a substantial increase of interest in the low‐probability “failure modes” of well‐established theories, which can involve global catastrophic risks. However, here I wish to discuss a partially antithetical situation: alternative, low‐probability (“small”) scientific theories predicting catastrophic outcomes with large probability. I argue that there is an important methodological issue (determining what counts as the best available explanation in cases where the theories involved describe possibilities of extremely destructive global catastrophes), which has been neglected thus far. There is no simple answer to the correct method for dealing with high‐probability high‐stakes risks following from low‐probability theories that still cannot be rejected outright, and much further work is required in this area. I further argue that cases like these are more numerous than usually assumed, for reasons including cognitive biases, sociological issues in science and the media image of science. If that is indeed so, it might lead to a greater weight of these cases in areas such as moral deliberation and policy making.     

The Tradeoffs of Inclusionary Zoning: What Do We Know and What Do We Need to Know?

Inclusionary zoning (IZ), a controversial planning tool for supplying affordable housing, grew significantly during the 2000s' housing boom in the USA. We review the resultant scholarly literature on IZ. Our key reading is that IZ can include both tradeoffs and practical efforts to address them. There is also a need for additional research. More specifically, we find that IZ programs (i) have many components and vary considerably; (ii) can increase affordable housing production and social integration, but there can be a tradeoff between these goals; and (iii) can have slight adverse market effects, but cost-offsets can help mitigate the outcomes. Finally, we discuss the need for more research, particularly in-depth case studies and make suggestions.     

Children and Planning: To What Extent Does the Scottish Town Planning System Facilitate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child?

Children are often not given explicit attention in land use planning outside of allocating space for schools, parks and playgrounds. This is problematic as children both use and navigate beyond these settings, and findings from research on and with children report how they are frequently marginalized in society. This is partly affected by the way town planning systems treat children's spatial needs and participation. Therefore, this article investigates whether and how the Scottish town planning system acknowledges children, particularly in light of the internationally recognized rights set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). It uses critical discourse analysis of key Scottish planning policies, along with a survey of Scotland's planning authorities to ascertain the extent to which children are provided for and participate in the system. It argues that children's rights are not widely acknowledged or incorporated into town planning policy and practice, and suggests this must be addressed to achieve greater social justice and support Scotland's commitments as a signatory of the UNCRC.     

Warning Triggers in Environmental Hazards: Who Should Be Warned to Do What and When?

Determining the most effective public warnings to issue during a hazardous environmental event is a complex problem. Three primary questions need to be answered: Who should take protective action? What is the best action? and When should this action be initiated? Warning triggers provide a proactive means for emergency managers to simultaneously answer these questions by recommending that a target group take a specified protective action if a preset environmental trigger condition occurs (e.g., warn a community to evacuate if a wildfire crosses a proximal ridgeline). Triggers are used to warn the public across a wide variety of environmental hazards, and an improved understanding of their nature and role promises to: (1) advance protective action theory by unifying the natural, built, and social themes in hazards research into one framework, (2) reveal important information about emergency managers’ risk perception, situational awareness, and threat assessment regarding threat behavior and public response, and (3) advance spatiotemporal models for representing the geography and timing of disaster warning and response (i.e., a coupled natural‐built‐social system). We provide an overview and research agenda designed to advance our understanding and modeling of warning triggers.     

Internal and External Social Capital for Radical Product Innovation: Do They Always Work Well Together?

We examine the role of internal and external relational social capital (SC) as determinants of radical product innovation (RPI). By analysing both sides of SC, we provide interesting insights on their relative influence and their interaction effect on this type of innovation. Besides, traditional assumptions on SC and innovation are questioned. In our empirical study using a sample of 142 manufacturing and service companies we found that, of the two types of SC analysed, internal SC is the most relevant predictor of RPI in relation to either technological or market dimensions. The influence of external SC is not as strong as the internal one. Regarding their interaction effect, external SC reduces the positive effect of internal SC on the market dimension of RPI. Interesting implications arise for practitioners, who should pay special attention to the higher impact of internal SC on RPI and the need to carefully manage the difficulties that emerge when it is combined with external SC.     

“U.S. Pharmaceutical Gray Markets: Why Do They Persist—and What to Do about Them?”

This article illustrates how a traditional U.S. pharmaceutical industry supply chain operates, beginning with pharmaceutical compounds and ending at patient‐dispensing hospitals or pharmacies. Furthermore, to place the problem of U.S. drug shortages in historical perspective, a review of the annual volume of such shortages over the last decade is undertaken. Following this review of recent drug shortages is an analysis of the market forces and business decisions that drive the creation of a pharmaceutical gray market, its attendant “price gouging” and product integrity issues, and the alterations in the traditional pharmaceutical industry supply chain model. In response to persistent drug shortages, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently been empowered by the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government to actively address this issue. To reflect these FDA challenges, a thorough review of these new agency charges and responsibilities is undertaken. Lastly, an analysis of the results of recent FDA public policy actions on mitigating drug shortages, as well as recommendations tor market‐based solutions to the gray market problem that pharmaceutical manufacturers, hospitals and pharmacies could institute as industry‐wide standards of business practice, are discussed in the conclusion.     

Hazardous Times for Monetary Policy: What Do Twenty‐Three Million Bank Loans Say About the Effects of Monetary Policy on Credit Risk‐Taking?

We identify the effects of monetary policy on credit risk‐taking with an exhaustive credit register of loan applications and contracts. We separate the changes in the composition of the supply of credit from the concurrent changes in the volume of supply and quality, and the volume of demand. We employ a two‐stage model that analyzes the granting of loan applications in the first stage and loan outcomes for the applications granted in the second stage, and that controls for both observed and unobserved, time‐varying, firm and bank heterogeneity through time*firm and time*bank fixed effects. We find that a lower overnight interest rate induces lowly capitalized banks to grant more loan applications to ex ante risky firms and to commit larger loan volumes with fewer collateral requirements to these firms, yet with a higher ex post likelihood of default. A lower long‐term interest rate and other relevant macroeconomic variables have no such effects.