A WHITER SHADE OF PALE: ON THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF REGULATORY INSTRUMENTS

We consider an intertemporal policy game between changing governments that differ in their attitudes towards a particular feature of market outcomes, exemplified with environmental pollution. When in power, a government will choose policy instruments and set strictness of regulation with a view to influencing the policy of future, possibly different, governments. We demonstrate that a “brown” government favours emission quotas over effluent taxes, as quotas establish property rights that are costly to reverse. Conversely, a “green” government prefers to regulate by taxes, in order to limit the incentives of future brown governments to ease regulations. Strategic behaviour tends to exaggerate policy differences (making green governments greener and brown governments browner) compared to when such strategic considerations were not an issue. (JEL: D81, D9, H23, L51, Q28, Q38)     

A Risk and Economic Analysis of Dirty Bomb Attacks on the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach

This article analyzes possible terrorist attacks on the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach using a radiological dispersal device (RDD, also known as a "dirty bomb") to shut down port operations and cause substantial economic and psychological impacts. The analysis is an exploratory investigation of a combination of several risk analysis tools, including scenario generation and pruning, project risk analysis, direct consequence modeling, and indirect economic impact assessment. We examined 36 attack scenarios and reduced them to two plausible or likely scenarios using qualitative judgments. For these two scenarios, we conducted a project risk analysis to understand the tasks terrorists need to perform to carry out the attacks and to determine the likelihood of the project's success. The consequences of a successful attack are described in terms of a radiological plume model and resulting human health and economic impacts. Initial findings suggest that the chances of a successful dirty bomb attack are about 10-40% and that high radiological doses are confined to a relatively small area, limiting health effects to tens or at most hundreds of latent cancers, even with a major release. However, the economic consequences from a shutdown of the harbors due to the contamination could result in significant losses in the tens of billions of dollars, including the decontamination costs and the indirect economic impacts due to the port shutdown. The implications for countering a dirty bomb attack, including the protection of the radiological sources and intercepting an ongoing dirty bomb attack are discussed.     

Brand management: Unveiling the delusion of control

Mainstream brand management literature views brands as products or organisations carrying brand names and brand managers as being in control of brand-related actions and outcomes. By contrast, recent empirical research shows the substantial influence of stakeholders on brands. Together with brand management, stakeholders shape brands by participating in brand-related interaction. European brand research accordingly treats brands as ongoing and complex processes in constant flux. Nevertheless, literature suffers from a significant lack of theoretical underpinnings for understanding brands as complex processes; in this respect, building on European philosophy is a fruitful avenue. This paper introduces the metaphor of the rhizome and draws on European process philosophy to further develop an integrative processual understanding of brands. Brand management claiming control over brands as processes turns out to be a delusion.     

Volunteering and Civic Action: Boundaries Blurring,Boundaries Redrawn

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - The aim of this introduction to the special issue is to call into question the presumed conceptual divide between...     

Patterns of Conflict About Risky Technologies

This paper examines taxonomies for classifying risks and conflicts about risky technologies. First, we describe six levels of conflict that represent various " shades of gray" between purely factual and purely value laden conflicts in technology disputes. Subsequently, we survey several recent taxonomies of risks and hazards that were at least partly intended to clarify the nature of the public conflicts about technologies and their risks. After pointing out that non-risk features frequently shape technology debates, we develop a taxonomy of the disputes themselves, based on a collection of 162 cases. Our taxonomy of technological controversies is related to the recent risk taxonomies and to the different levels of conflict. It turns out that the different technological disputes create quite different levels of conflict ranging from mainly factual (consumer products, drugs) to extremely value laden (nuclear power, genetic engineering). Depending on the type of controversy and level of conflict we suggest alternative conflict management strategies.     

Norwegian lottery winners: Cautious realists

The study investigated 261 lottery winners of prizes of NKR 1 million (US $150,000) or more in the years 1987–91 in a postal survey. The modal Norwegian winners were middle-aged married men of modest education, living in small communities. Emotional reactions to winning were few, aside from moderate happiness and relief. Winners emphasized caution, emotional control and unconspicuous spending, e.g. paying debts and sharing with children. There was only a slight increase in economic spending. A wish for anonymity was frequent, together with fear of envy from others. Betting was modest both before and after winning. Experiences with winning were predominantly positive. Life quality was stable or had improved. An age trend was observed, accounting for more variance than any other variable. The older winners seemed to represent a puritan subculture of caution, modesty and emotional restraint. A slightly more impatient pattern of spending was characteristic of younger winners. The results support Kaplan's 1987 and others' findings that lottery winners are not gamblers, but self-controlled realists and that tenacious, negative cultural expectations to the contrary are myths, but perhaps also deterrents of uncontrolled behavior.     

Aus dem Büro in den Wald

CHANGE OR DIE. The competitiveness of business companies continuously demands innovative ideas and the willingness to implement these from executive managers. Thereby their own personal needs are often neglected. The consequences range from stress and overload up to burnout symptoms. To support an appropriate handling of the imposed work load by managers, a scientifically grounded stress-tolerance-training will be designed and evaluated. For the first time, certain outdoor exercises will be used specifically among conventional elements as active experiences of challenges outside the office can deeply strengthen the constructive handling of stressful situations.     

The evolutionary anthropology of political leadership

Existing approaches within leadership studies often share a bias towards industrialized societies and lack broader cross-cultural and ethological reference. Meanwhile, cross-cultural and evolutionary approaches within anthropology are actively working to unify research on leadership and followership across the biological and social sciences. This review provides a novel and thorough view of political leadership as investigated by evolutionary anthropologists and highlights the benefits of incorporating findings from the evolutionary social sciences into leadership studies generally. We introduce the anthropological approach to leadership; describe evolutionary anthropology, its subdisciplines (including primatology, paleoanthropology, paleogenetics, human behavioral ecology, and gene-culture coevolution), and its complementary disciplines (particularly evolutionary psychology); review leadership and hierarchy in nonhumans, including our extinct hominid ancestors; review female leadership and sex-differences; and, primarily, discuss the relationships between evolution, ecology, and culture as they relate to the observed patterns of political leadership and followership across human societies. Through evolutionary anthropology's diverse toolkit, a deeper insight into the evolution and cross-cultural patterning of leadership is realized.