A model of trade flows in differentiated goods

In modelling trade competition for final products within a sector, the assumption of product homogeneity is often quite unrealistic. Even where the demand for different versions of the product can be attributed to relatively independent submarkets, considerable heterogeneity may still exist within each submarket. For each submarket, such as that for a medium-priced family car, it is assumed that more product heterogeneity exists between countries or regions than within them. Heterogeneity between regions is related to the existence of importers, acting as intermediate agents, who make trade-offs between cif import prices of goods and the willingness-to-pay by consumers. Aggregate spatial supply and demand functions based on plausible distributional assumptions are presented and estimated using a unified theoretical basis for each regional grouping of producers, importers and consumers. Conditions for simultaneous equilibrium for these three sets of agents are established, and illustrated via a small numerical example.     

Multiple equilibria, stability, and asymmetries in Krugman's core-periphery model

Paul Krugman developed a general equilibrium model with two sectors and two regions in 1991, from which two patterns of industrial localization could be endogenously deduced, dispersion at 50% and total concentration. The introduction of transport costs, which depend on the size of the population, are meant to capture effects produced by the trade-off between congestion costs and advantages derived from the possession of infrastructure, thus generates stable asymmetric multiple equilibria. The outcome of asymmetric stable multiple equilibria demonstrates the fruitfulness of this extension of the original model. Received: 23 June 1998 / Accepted: 5 October 1999     

Growth determinants in the core-periphery of Korea

"This article describes the emergent spatial dispersion pattern of the urban system of the Republic of Korea, where the government has instituted a strong decentralization policy. Intraregional decentralization is underway within the core area, while intraregional polarization towards larger regional centers is evident in periphery areas. Through the use of step-wise regression analysis, determinants of the differential growth rates of urban centers in the core and periphery are identified. The different spatial development processes operating in the core and periphery have implications for growth pole theory and regional development planning."     

Public-private partnerships in the water sector: A review

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) offer possible solutions for governments seeking to achieve better value for money and fund the investments needed to provide infrastructure and manage public services. Water-sector projects demand extensive, up-front and sunk investments, and inefficiency levels are often significant. This study conducted a systematic review of previous research on water sector PPP projects. The research design is innovative in that it relied on a hybrid methodology combining systematic quantitative, semantic network and narrative analyses. The literature review protocol applied found 122 relevant studies published in top journals. Five key topics within water-related PPP studies were identified: risk management, PPP contractual arrangements, financing and tariffs, infrastructure, and governance. The most important topic is risk management, within which individual scholars’ contributions were tracked. However, a consensus has not been reached about the best risk matrix for improving PPP contracts in the water sector.     

Clean energy transition in the Turkish power sector: A techno-economic analysis with a high-resolution power expansion model

The Turkish power sector achieved rapid growth after the 1990s in line with economic growth and beyond. However, domestic resources did not support this development and therefore resulted in a high dependency on imported fossil fuels. Furthermore, the governments were slow off the mark in introducing policies for increasing the share of renewable energy. Even late actions of the governments, as well as significant decreases in the cost of wind and especially solar technologies, have recently brought the Turkish power sector into a promising state. A large-scale generation-expansion power-system model (TR-Power) with a high temporal resolution (hours) is developed for the Turkish power generation sector. Several scenarios were analyzed to assess their environmental and economic impacts. The results indicate that a transition to a low-carbon power grid with around half of the electricity demand satisfied by renewable resources over 25 years would be possible, with annual investments of 3.97–6.88 billion in 2019 US$. Moreover, TR-Power indicates that the shadow price of CO₂ emissions in the power sector will be around 17.1 and 33.8 $/per tCO2 by 2042, under 30% and 40% emission reduction targets relative to the reference scenario.     

Collaboration in disasters: A cultural challenge for the utilities sector

Understanding the interdependency of organizations in a disaster is necessary to facilitate collaboration. Interdependencies in the utilities sector have traditionally focused upon the technical aspects of these dependencies. This research used empirical research methods that included an observational study of utility stakeholders during a real-time disaster. The study investigated the cultural challenges associated with the socio-cultural interdependencies that stakeholders from the utilities sector encountered when working in emergency management. Participants identified that a lack of legitimacy and trust created barriers to collaboration. The paper concludes with recommendations for the industry to address the potential cultural barriers encountered in a disaster.     

Challenging electronic procurement in the AEC sector: A BIM-based integrated perspective

The AEC sector has been lagging behind other sectors in the adoption of e-procurement. Building Information Modeling (BIM) is changing the way companies in the AEC sector are working, providing new processes for collaboration. This paper describes how the BIM combined with the Model-Driven Architecture, Service-Oriented Architecture, and Cloud Computing may challenge e-procurement in the AEC sector. It presents the application of the SOA4BIM Framework in the context of electronic procurement and describes an industrial research case study for validation of the proposed approach in the conception and design phases of building/construction projects.     

Market concentration in the Spanish turbot aquaculture sector: A regional analysis

This paper analyses the regional evolution of the market structure in the Spanish turbot industry, which is the leading turbot producer in Europe, using different concentration rates. The analysis is performed considering several factors that have influenced the evolution of the sector, the most important being the application of technology, business strategies and the institutional framework. The results confirm a process of concentration. Starting from an initial phase in which the sector was composed of a considerable number of small companies, this industry has evolved towards a situation in which only two large firms dominate the market.     

Development of an energy model for the residential sector: Electricity consumption in Andalusia, Spain

Electrical energy consumption in the residential sector has soared over the years. This is largely due to the growing number of residential housing units. The development of models allows us to estimate and predict the evolution and behavior of electricity consumption in this sector as well as its end-uses. The data thus obtained are extremely useful for the elaboration of energy-saving measures that can enhance energy efficiency. In June 2008 the Spanish government approved a set of guidelines in the document titled, Estrategia Española de Cambio Climático y Energía Limpia [Spanish Strategy for Climate Change and Clean Energy]. Its main objective was to replace conventional incandescent light bulbs with energy-saving light bulbs in the residential sector. This process would be carried out over a three-year period.This article describes the design, development, and application of a model capable of calculating electricity consumption for lighting in the residential housing sector. These results were reinforced by data from questionnaires administered to a representative sample of households. Finally, this energy model was applied to Andalusia. This allowed us to obtain the savings in electricity consumption for lighting when the objectives in the Spanish strategy for energy conservation had been achieved.     

Value creating construction virtual teams: A case study in the construction sector

The research explores factors influencing knowledge value creation of virtual teams in the construction industry. Collectiveness and conscientiousness emerge as important socio-cultural enablers for value creation. Collectiveness represents the degree of cohesiveness and social relationships between virtual team members and conscientiousness represents an awareness of the situation and avoidance of uncertainty and risk by team members. Moreover, technology assets, human networks, social capital, intellectual capital, and change management are identified as essential ingredients that have the potential to ensure effective knowledge value creation.     

Tariff recommendations: A Panacea for the Portuguese water sector?

In Portugal, in the early twenty first century, the water utilities industry was still quite complex displaying considerable financial shortcomings. That issue occurred, mainly, at the retail level due to faulty rate setting practices, stressing, perhaps, arbitrariness and political influence in price-setting strategies. To cope with that situation, the water sector regulator published tariff guidelines to harmonize cost analyses, tariff structures and levels, creating a basis for comparison. The suggestion of two-part tariffs with increasing block rates seems to lack enough flexibility and proper supporting material. Thus, our analysis focuses on assessing whether the recommendations issued are able to achieve the proposed objectives through the suggested procedures, reviewing the structure proposed and possible adjustments.     

A strategy for introducing competition in the water sector

The authors took part in an independent review of competition and innovation in the water industry in England and Wales, undertaken for United Kingdom and Welsh government ministers. Privatised twenty years ago, subject to a price control regime which has permitted high levels of investment, and unchanged as a set of vertically integrated regional monopolies, the sector now faces fresh challenges associated in particular with the consequences of climate change. The review identified a programme for the introduction of competition and use of market-type instruments into the sector, beginning with opening up retailing to business customers and reforms of the arrangements for abstraction and discharge which are intended to achieve a more rational use of water resources and to stimulate trading across company boundaries. Then, subject to an appropriate governance structure, competition would be introduced into upstream treatment activities, either by the creation of a single buyer of wholesale water or through a common carriage regime. At the same time, the balance of risk of and return to companies’ remaining regulated activities would be changed to encourage more innovative approaches, especially those which avoid heavy capital investment. Heightened stimuli to investment would also flow from relaxing restrictions on mergers and takeovers, and measures to enhance the innovative capabilities of companies. The paper explains the logic of the proposed measures and of their sequencing.     

The geographic distribution of social housing in Ontario,Canada: Comparing public housing and locally sponsored,third sector housing

This paper provides a perspective on the contemporary debate over the production of social housing. Its main focus is on the issue that geographic patterns of service levels may be related to the type of supply program in place. The paper describes the social housing programs in Ontario, Canada over the post‐war period. Two main approaches have been taken: public housing, an essentially centralized program; and locally sponsored, third sector housing provided through non‐profit corporations and co‐operatives. The programs operated in different time periods and the analysis suggests they do have distinctive geographic distributions. The distribution of public housing shows strong correlations with need as defined by the incidence of poor housing conditions and mother‐led families. Provision under the localized program is also strongly correlated with the incidence of mother‐led families; however, the most consistent associations are with measures of socio‐economic status. These results may be partly understood in terms of the changing concept of housing need over the temporal span of the study. Program influences may be that the centralized nature of the public housing program enabled the direction of allocations to high need areas; whereas under the localized program the distribution is more closely related to the social differentiation of leadership roles in service provision under a third sector delivery model. As this approach becomes more prevalent it may be important to examine its potential impacts on service provision.     

The export-base model with a supply-side stimulus to the export sector

In the export-base model, the level of a region??s economic activity is underpinned by the performance of its export sector (Daly in Econ J 50:248?C258, 1940; Dixon and Thirlwall in Oxf Econ Pap 27:201?C214, 1975; Kaldor in Scott J Polit Econ 17:337?C348, 1970; North in J Polit Econ 63:243?C258, 1955). This theory is now almost universally represented as a primitive version of the familiar Input?COutput or Keynesian demand-driven approach, where regional output is linked to regional exports through a rather mechanistic multiplier process (Romanoff in J Reg Sci 14:121?C129, 1974). Further, in a standard IO inter-regional framework, the expansion of output in one region always generates positive impacts on other regions. That is to say, there is always a positive spread, and no negative backwash, effect. However, these models typically embody no supply-side constraints. What is more, the stimulus to the export sector is often thought to come through supply-side improvements (North in J Polit Econ 63:243?C258, 1955; McCombie in Appl Econ 24:493?C512, 1992). Whilst accepting that the development of a healthy export base is generally central to promoting the growth of the regional economy, the relationship is likely to be much more complex than is usually thought. Also whilst an increase in regional exports typically increases economic activity in the target region, the effect on other regions is less straightforward (Myrdal in Economic theory and underdeveloped regions Duckworth, London, 1957). In this paper, we begin by using a single-region IO analysis of the operation of a stylised export-base model. The impact of a conventional increase in export demand is compared to a situation in which increased competitiveness underpins the improved export performance. This analysis is then extended through the use of an inter-regional (Scotland?CRest of the UK) Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model. In simulation, different exogenous demand and supply side disturbances are calibrated so as to generate the same long-run expansion in Scottish manufacturing exports. The subsequent specific evolutions of regional GDP and employment in both Scotland and the rest of the UK (RUK) are then tracked.     

Homelessness and the intermediate accommodation sector: A demand and supply analysis

This paper reports on a survey of applications for shelter made to local authority, probation and voluntary sector agencies — the intermediate sector — by homeless individuals in Nottingham, England. It analyses the characteristics of demand for accommodation and models the supply response on the part of accommodating agencies. The problems of the generalised excess demand identified are shown to be irresolvable within the capacities of the intermediate sector itself.     

Hybridity in the housing sector: examining impacts on social and private rented sector tenants in Scotland

Abstract

Housing Associations in many countries exhibit increasing levels of ‘hybridity’, as reductions in state financing for social housing, exacerbated by austerity policies since the 2008 crash, have instigated ‘enterprising’ approaches to maintaining income. Alongside this, hybrid organisations have emerged in the Private Rented Sector (PRS), responding to sectoral growth and consequent increases in vulnerable households entering private renting. These developing hybridities have been considered at a strategic level, but there has been little exploration of the impacts on tenants. This article examines two organisations, operating across the social and private rented sectors, to elucidate potential implications for tenants. The research suggests that different forms of hybridity can affect tenant outcomes and, moreover, that examining such impacts is important in understanding hybridity itself. Furthermore, the study suggests that emerging forms of hybridity, particularly in the PRS, may be blurring the boundaries between housing sectors, with implications for policy and research.     

Estimates of a model of pricing behaviour in the private sector rented housing market

This study looks at the behaviour of prices in the student rented housing market It investigates the role of different housing characteristics such as damp, location, heating, noise and legal factors as influences on rental. Of the factors considered it appears that only three are statistically significant — distance from college site and dampness reduce rental whilst the presence of a written contract raises it.     

A rent index for the private rental sector in Flanders

This paper describes the construction of a rent index for Flanders, Belgium. This annual index, referred to as the huurprijsindex (rent index), is designed to detect changes in rents for the overall stock of rental homes. We use the matched model methodology based upon repeat tenancy agreements, analogous to Case and Shiller’s geometric repeat sales model, to estimate the rent index. We use recoded data on the tenancy agreements of nearly five hundred thousand rental homes; more than 30,000 of these represent repeat agreements between 1990 and 2010. The accuracy of the index is determined using the 95 % confidence interval. Given our target (a geometric mean index value) and the characteristics of the dataset (large but without property characteristics) our repeat tenancy agreements method seems to be adequate for calculating a rent index for Flanders.