Intensive management reduces butterfly diversity over time in urban green spaces

Urban Ecosystems - Loss and fragmentation of semi-natural grasslands have had negative consequences for grassland biodiversity, such as butterflies. Urban parks and other urban green spaces have so...     

Expanding and Diversifying South Mediterranean Exports through Trade Facilitation

This article explores whether trade facilitation – i.e. improved and simplified trade procedures – could be an important part of the reform agenda of the Barcelona Process. Adopting a Southern perspective by focusing on exports to the European Union (EU) from non‐EU Mediterranean countries, it tests whether the efficiency of trade procedures affects (i) bilateral volumes of exports and (ii) the number of products exported. The findings suggest that trade facilitation could lead to substantially increased export volumes and export diversification.     

Young Children's Prosocial and Aggressive Behaviors and Their Experiences of Being Targeted for Similar Behaviors by Peers

Children's target experiences (as recipients of prosocial peer acts and victims of peer aggression) were investigated for their concurrent and longitudinal associations with prosocial and aggressive behavior. Forty‐four children (initially 22–40 months) were observed in naturalistic interactions with peers during a two‐month period for each of three consecutive years. Results revealed no consistency over time in children's experiences as targets for aggressive or prosocial peer acts, although there was some indication that altruistic target experiences may be stable from the end of the preschool period. Early behavior appeared to affect the way children were later treated by peers, but no support was found for the idea that early target experiences influence later behavior. Prosocial behavior was concurrently and longitudinally associated with prosocial target experiences. Aggressive behavior reduced the likelihood of children being targets of prosocial peer behavior and, over time, also of their being targets of peers’ aggression.     

Do Political Institutions Shape Economic Policy?

Do political institutions shape economic policy? I argue that this question should naturally appeal to economists. Moreover, the answer is in the affirmative, both in theory and in practice. In particular, recent theoretical work predicts systematic effects of electoral rules and political regimes on the size and composition of government spending. Results from ongoing empirical work indicate that such effects are indeed present in the data. Some empirical results are consistent with theoretical predictions: presidential regimes have smaller governments and countries with majoritarian elections have smaller welfare‐state programs and less corruption. Other results present puzzles for future research: the adjustment to economic events appears highly institution‐dependent, as does the timing and nature of the electoral cycle.     

THE ORGANIZATION OF THE INNOVATION INDUSTRY: ENTREPRENEURS,VENTURE CAPITALISTS,AND OLIGOPOLISTS

We construct a model where incumbents can either acquire basic innovations from entrepreneurs, or wait and acquire developed innovations from entrepreneurial firms supported by venture capitalists. We show that venture‐backed entrepreneurial firms have an incentive to overinvest in development vis à vis incumbents due to strategic product market effects on the sales price of a developed innovation. This will trigger preemptive acquisitions by incumbents, thus increasing the reward for entrepreneurial innovations. We also show that venture capital can emerge in equilibrium if venture capitalists have cost advantages, or if development is associated with double moral hazard problems. (JEL: G24, L1, L2, M13, O3)     

Older People's “Voices”—On Paper: Obstacles to Influence in Welfare States—A Case Study of Sweden

The official rhetoric of welfare states unconditionally pays tribute to older people's right to express dissatisfaction. In practice, users of older services in welfare states may be deprived of their “exit” options and face considerable constraints when it comes to raising their “voices.” For example, when older people in nursing homes would like to lodge a complaint, they may well be referred to the very staff members they depend on in their everyday lives. This article analyzes a national case study in which these contradictory tendencies are especially explicit: formal influence channels for older people in Sweden. Using data from structured interviews with 100 representatives of Swedish municipalities and drawing on Hirschman's (1970) Hirschman, A. 1970. Exit, voice, and loyalty: Responses to decline in firms, organisations, and states, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.  [Google Scholar] theory on exit and voice, the article analyzes obstacles to older service users' influence in Sweden and develops explanations for these obstacles in terms of social contexts.     

“Now It's Not School,It's For Real!”: Negotiated Participation in Media Vocational Training

By taking up the strand in Lave and Wenger's writing on situated learning that directs attention to social dynamics and issues of power and positioning, the present article argues for the fruitfulness of including the concept of negotiated participation in approaches to teaching and learning. Based on a fieldwork in vocational media production projects, this study demonstrates the tensions and contradictions that came out of the hybrid nature of these vocational practices in high school. Establishing the professionally relevant modes of participation in the projects was fraught with struggles in which the project members had to bracket institutionalized school routines as well as handle and negotiate particular work life conditions (including cooperation with old timers in the target professions). It is argued that the way institutional contradictions are manifested and negotiated in everyday teaching and interaction can inform our understanding of the premises for multifunctional educational praxis.     

Local Sensemaking of Policy Paradoxes – Implementing Local Crime Prevention in Sweden

This paper analyses the policy implementation of local crime prevention and community safety programmes in Sweden. It focuses on the clash between the transnational idea-complex and the national context, i.e. the unavoidable policy paradoxes of a transnational idea diffusion, and how they are made sense of when handled at local level. In particular, it emphasizes how actors in socioeconomically different local contexts within the same urban area have partly different reasons and motives for implementation. By using a sensemaking approach, this article contributes to the understanding of how convergence at national level is followed by divergence at local level.