THE CONCEPTUAL LINKS BETWEEN RECREATION SITE DEVELOPMENT AND REGIONAL ECONOMIC IMPACTS*

ABSTRACT. Assessing regional economic impacts of recreation trips is important to public agencies' decisions about using recreation as a rural development tool. Minimizing the total cost of recreation trip production implies that households will spatially distribute their purchases of inputs to trip production, including both trip-specific inputs and durable recreation equipment. A recreation site contributes to a region's economic growth through household purchases of trip inputs. The site's cost effects, price information effects, and recreation and retail agglomeration effects cause changes in household recreation purchases and ultimately generate regional economic impacts.     

Neo‐liberalism,policy networks,and policy change: Agricultural policy reform in Australia and Canada

Developments favouring the liberalisation and globalisation of economic exchange and increasingly rigid constraints on domestic fiscal policy have provided support for neo‐ liberal policy ideas. Neolibcralism challenges the logic of embedded liberalism that underscored trade multilateralism in the post‐second world war period, and the exclusion of sectors like agriculture from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Focusing on agricultural policy, the article examines the pace and extent to which neo‐liberal ideas have been able to gain hold and displace non‐liberal domestic policies in Australia and Canada. The article shows that neo‐liberal ideas have been more easily translated into domestic policy change in Australia than in Canada. A significant part of the explanation for this cross‐national difference is found in the differing domestic political‐institutional arrangements, including federalism, bureaucratic arrangements, the presence or absence of a neo‐liberal epistemic community, and trie structure of interest intermediation systems. These factors, in turn, have their impact on policy change through their effects on the structures of agricultural policy networks and policy communities.     

Capital Assistance for Small Firms: Some Implications for Regional Economic Welfare

This paper analyzes the role of finance capital in regional economic development. A cost‐benefit approach is invoked in order to estimate the welfare impacts of a regional loan and guarantee program for small firms in Israel. Program‐created employment is treated as a benefit and an employment account that separates net from gross employment, is presented. An estimate of net wage benefits is then derived. This involves adjusting wages across different earnings classes in order to account for the variation in opportunity costs of labor at different levels. The estimation of costs includes the opportunity costs of capital, administration, default, and tax‐raising costs. Results point to substantial regional welfare effects. We stress the need to account for changing regional economic structure in this kind of evaluation framework.     

Industrial change and meso‐corporatism — a comparative view on three German states

Tripartite‐arrangements between state, unions and employers associations played a prominent role in the theory and practice of corporatism, with incomes policy at national level providing the paradigm for this approach. Now the focus has changed. Concepts of meso‐corporatism have gained significance in research on interest groups; alternative modes of political‐economic governance in general, and problems of industrial restructuring in particular, have become central to the discussion. Accordingly, important contributions have come from industrial and economic sociology and from the theory of the state, marking a distinctive expansion of the analytical framework. At the same time, studies of meso‐corporatism have neglected the regional perspective in favour of sectoral studies. This paper undertakes to remedy this by examining the governance of industrial adjustment through industrial policy in three Länder of the Federal Republic of Germany. The three cases can be considered as different variants of meso‐corporatism: ‘Corporate’ corporatism in Baden‐Württemberg; ‘staged’ corporatism in North Rhine‐Westphalia; ‘situative’ corporatism in Saxony. In its final part the paper raises questions on the conditions for those arrangements and the prerequisites for their continuance.     

SOCIAL COST MINIMIZATION: A NATIONAL POLICY APPROACH TO THE PROBLEMS OF DISTRESSED ECONOMIC REGIONS*

This paper makes a distinction between output maximizing and cost minimizing approaches to national economic policy. The paper argues that because the benefits of economic activity and its cost are frequently conferred upon distinct groups in society, it is not automatically true that output maximization is the best strategy, as is presently assumed. This result is especially true when the problems of distressed economic regions are the focus of our concern. The national and multi-national firms which make decisions pertaining to the economic life of local communities make those decisions not on the basis of the costs and benefits to the community, but with regard to their private balance sheet. As a result, it frequently happens that communities of individuals must bear social costs far in excess of the private gains to the firms in question. From a policy standpoint, this is not an efficient use of our social and economic resources. In the absence of any type of comprehensive economic planning a rational market-oriented economic strategy would be one which seeks to minimize social costs.     

What Is the Benefit of Community Benefits? Exploring Local Perceptions of the Provision of Community Benefits from a Commercial Wind Energy Project

Where community ownership of renewable energy projects is not feasible, there remains potential for residents to profit from locally sited projects through a ‘community benefits’ package from a commercial developer, usually as an annual cash payment to a community organisation. Despite support from policy-makers and developers for community benefit packages, the relationship between the benefit package and acceptance of renewable energy projects is not straightforward. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with local residents and other community actors near a wind development in central Scotland, this paper examines the ‘process’ and ‘outcome’ dimensions of the design and provision of community benefits, and considers how the relationship between these two dimensions affects local perceptions of the benefit of community benefits. Analysis of interviewees’ perceptions of the community engagement ‘process’ at the planning stage and the community benefit package ‘outcome’ reveals how a poorly defined engagement process, combined with a benefits package that is not deemed suitable for the needs of the community, can lead to negative perceptions of the project, even when these were initially positive. These findings have implications for renewable energy policy in Scotland, particularly as there is currently no legal obligation for developers to consult communities on community benefit arrangements.     

基于价值转移方法的我国游憩活动价值评价

鉴于目前我国在构建价值转移模型中存在的限制因素,本文采用基于Meta分析的价值转移方法并尝试利用国外游憩活动价值评价的实证研究结果,构建基于Meta分析的国际间价值函数转移模型,估算了我国10种游憩活动的日平均消费者剩余.通过将价值转移模型估算的游憩活动价值“转移值”与国内97个游憩价值评价的“真实值”做比较,对价值转移模型的有效性和可靠性进行统计检验,平均转移误差为18.74％.最后,总结了提高我国Meta回归价值转移模型的具体、可操作性方法及途径.     

Transport corridors and their wider economic benefits: A quantitative review of the literature

Transport corridors can generate both wider economic benefits (WEBs) and costs through their effects on diverse development outcomes. To advance understanding of how corridors could generate WEBs, this paper undertakes a quantitative review and meta-analysis of the literature that estimates the impacts of large transport infrastructure projects. The analysis finds that characteristics of individual studies and the design of the transport infrastructure influence estimated benefits. It also shows that, on average, while corridor interventions tend to benefit economic welfare and equity, they often detrimentally impact the environment. To mitigate trade-offs, policymakers can consider using complementary interventions.     

Examining social inclusion among pedestrian plans in Canada

Canadian policymakers promote walking to meet several goals related to transportation demand management, public health, and economic welfare. However, unequal pedestrian outcomes stubbornly persist across Canadian society. Recent debates at the intersection of social inclusion and transportation policy underscore the responsibility of stakeholders to address such inequalities and promote social engagement among excluded groups in planning procedures and their outcomes. Pedestrian plans are rare opportunities to strategize across the disparate stakeholders impacting walkable spaces—private developers, transit, parks and recreation—yet the social inclusion measures of pedestrian plans remain understudied in Canada and elsewhere. We examine pedestrian plans from 27 municipalities across the country using a social inclusion framework with participation and policy criteria. Results include that Canadian pedestrian plans fall short in promoting social inclusion with infrequent opportunities for collaborative contributions by the public; lacklustre outreach to socially‐excluded stakeholder representatives; and oversight of socioeconomic groups among accountable policies. We discuss recommendations to augment social inclusion in plan development such that socially‐excluded groups can more substantially benefit from accessible and safe walkable spaces conducive to personal well‐being and engagement with society.     

Framed for Compromise? The Role of Bill Framing in State Legislative Behavior on Natural Gas Policy

State legislative decision making on natural gas policy has become a balancing act, as legislators are forced to grapple with tensions between economically beneficial policies and environmental impacts. Despite increased public attention to the benefits and costs related to hydraulic fracturing, there has been little scholarly attention paid to how policy framing affects legislator behavior on this issue. We analyze recorded votes on bills relating to natural gas policy in Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico between 1999 and 2008; a time period spanning the recent boom. Using a novel database of bill frames, we create a ratio measure that accounts for the proportion of environmental to economic arguments within each piece of legislation. We find status quo–challenging, anti‐development policies can receive bipartisan support, as long as economic frames balance or are greater than environmental frames. Framing natural gas as a win‐win scenario where economic benefit and environmental protection can be achieved simultaneously is an effective legislative strategy. Using the case of natural gas policy, this study demonstrates bill framing substantively affects state legislator vote choice and implies bipartisan compromise is possible given the right balance of frames.     

The Social and Economic Performance of Australia's Large Regional Cities and Towns: Implications for Rural and Regional Policy

Australia's large regional cities and towns display wide variation in how they are adjusting to the socio‐economic transitions occurring in Australia. That variation is exposed using a multi‐variate model analysing performance on a range of socio‐economic variables over the decade 1986 to 1996 for 122 cities and towns with populations of 10 000 and above at the 1996 census. Those places are classified into seven clusters of community performance reflecting opportunity/vulnerability, and their spatial patterns are mapped. The resulting framework is then used to show how the recent geography of the socio‐economic performance of the large regional cities and towns has a distinctive selectivity and contributes to opportunity in some places and the vulnerable performance of others. The influence of that selectivity can be seen in the mismatched geographic patterns evident from an analysis of shares of national population and employment change, investment in non‐residential construction, levels of welfare dependency, and the ratio between household income tax generation and transfer benefits received. The paper uses the insights drawn from that analysis to pose questions suggesting the need to rethink national policy perspectives for addressing change in non‐metropolitan Australia.     

Institutions,Markets and Economic Co‐ordination: Linking Development Policy to Theory and Praxis

This article explores policy applications of ‘new institutional economics’ theory in relation to markets and economic development. It argues for application of an analytical framework which instead of looking at institutions primarily in terms of their contributions to making competitive markets work better, sees such markets as one form of institution fulfilling exchange and co‐ordination functions in an economy. A key element in this is recognition of the importance of processes of change in non‐standard market arrangements in economic development, and there are strong theoretical, practical and historical grounds for more consistent policy in this area.     

水体游憩环境的体验感知测评——以丹东为例

水体游憩环境是一种服务于人们游憩活动,融环境、经济、社会等功能于一体的生态体验景观网络。以辽宁丹东的青山沟镇、大梨树村、大孤山镇(大鹿岛)及长甸镇(河口岛)等四个村镇为例,采用结构方程模型(SEM)验证了水体生态体验景观网络中活动、背景、体验及利益等行动体属性之间的结构关系,为水体游憩环境规划管理模式的构建奠定理论基础。在模型验证过程中,运用SPSS11.0及AMOS6.0软件测试水体景观网络行动体的结构关系模型及相互作用路径系数;拟合度检验表明,该结构方程模型具有较高的可靠性。     

Cost‐benefit appraisal of the industrial areas programme in Greece: Aims,methodologies and assumptions

The Industrial Areas Programme in Greece aims to promote and propagate industrial activity in targeted regions. The policy mainly provides for the acquisition of industrial land and the development of the public infrastructure and has been operational since 1968. The objectives of this research are to evaluate the cost‐effectiveness of this policy in terms of the stated aims. Cost‐benefit methods are used to compare the likely outcomes of the policy in the light of the resources deployed. The research illustrates the variety in performance levels that individual projects achieve but concludes overall that the programme has been more than worthwhile. This paper deals with the objectives of the study and how they are to be achieved.     

The Politics of Policy Circulation: Unpacking the Relationship Between South African and South American Cities in the Adoption of Bus Rapid Transit

This paper utilizes the introduction of bus rapid transit (BRT) in South Africa to unravel the role of South–South connections in local policymaking. While the South African systems are unmistakably modeled after Bogotá's Transmilenio, whose accomplishments have been touted as the low‐cost, high‐quality transport solution, the process through which other Southern cities influenced the circulation of BRT remains underexplored. In so doing, this paper asks how and why certain cities are brought into conversation with one another and what happens as a result? This analysis suggests that policy circulation is never a rational survey of best practices but a political process through which policymakers select their sites of learning in accordance with wider aspirations, ideologies and positioning. Illustrating the way in which policymakers deploy different meanings of the global South and their position within this construct to justify local policy decisions adds a critical dimension to understandings of policy mobilities.     

SQUATTING ON GOVERNMENT LAND

This paper presents an economic theory of squatter settlements in developing countries. It adds to the existing literature by explicitly modeling squatting on government‐owned land and presents a unified framework for analysis of issues related to squatting, urban planning and policy. In the model, a squatter‐organizer optimally controls squatting so as to forestall eviction. The model highlights how the existence of an eviction cost leads to formal residents tolerating squatting, trading‐off “open space” to avoid paying taxes toward evicting squatters. The paper derives comparative‐static results under some functional form assumptions. The analysis is extended to examine the comparative‐static effects for the case where squatters freely migrate into the city. The framework for exploring a combined model of squatting on government and private land is also laid out. Finally, some policy analysis of squatter formalization is carried out.     

Australia's Indigenous Carbon Economy: A National Snapshot

Many Indigenous communities in Australia are well situated to provide greenhouse gas abatement and carbon sequestration benefits, but little is known about the factors affecting the capability of Australia's Indigenous organisations to participate in climate change mitigation strategies. This paper provides a ‘snapshot’ summary of certain aspects of Australia's Indigenous organisations' participation in carbon offset schemes. The snapshot provides insight into the degree to which Indigenous organisations are aware of carbon market opportunities in Australia, the level that these Indigenous organisations participate in or engage with carbon‐based economic enterprises, and the key pathways through which Indigenous carbon market opportunities are pursued. Analysis of data collected from a national survey conducted between 2011 and 2012 show that most obstacles to Indigenous participation in carbon offset schemes relate to land tenure arrangements; geographic and biophysical factors; low levels of requisite technical, human and financial resources; and appropriate recognition of Indigenous knowledge and cultural responsibilities. The snapshot also highlights the value of supporting regionally specific capacity‐building strategies to enable Indigenous people to participate in emerging carbon offset activities and the generation of associated ecosystem services. Cultural, socio‐economic or demographic factors that are also likely to influence the ability of many Indigenous communities to participate in carbon market opportunities are identified as important areas for further research.     

The collective capitalism of Northeast Asia and the limits of orthodox economics

In an effort to offer a more balanced assessment of Northeast Asian political economy than is typically found in the conventional neo‐classical tradition, this paper highlights forms of business collectivism and state‐economy interaction that have, arguably, played an important role in Northeast Asian economic dynamism. Beyond this, there is an account of why mainstream economic analysis has been so one‐sided in its analysis of Northeast Asia. A number of policy implications are also drawn from the analysis.     

Women and Money: Lessons from Senegal

This article examines the complexity and diversity of women's informal financial practices using data from surveys conducted in Senegal. It suggests that these practices are at the centre of a constant dialectic between short‐term and long‐term horizons, between the requirements of daily survival and the demands of community solidarity, and between personal aspirations and collective constraints. These practices also clearly illustrate a desire among the women in Senegal to impose a form of financial self‐discipline, and to create situations that will oblige them to earn income. The socio‐economic diversity among these entrepreneurs is also underscored. Informal financial arrangements are both a product and producer of gender inequalities and inequalities among women, as reflected in the research. This has direct policy implications, especially for microfinance products. If they are to be effective, microfinance services must develop beyond a standard, one‐size fits all model and become more innovative and adaptable to the diverse demands of women. They must be combined with complementary measures that challenge the systemic causes of inequality. Microfinance programmes should draw on informal financial arrangements while challenging their tendency to perpetuate inequality.     

Contagious Social Practice?

This paper explores the usefulness of spatial innovation diffusion theory for understanding the observed evolution of the social practice of attaining public support as a substitute for working. The empirical example chosen is sick leave. Several European countries have experienced a striking increase in costs for sick leave during the recent years, nowhere however as dramatic as in Sweden. Public costs for sick leave have doubled since 1997 while general health and life expectancy continually improve. No more than a small percentage of this change can be assigned to compositional changes in the population and labour market with respect to age, sex, education, location and sector of employment. Neither has economic benefit conditions changed substantially during this period. What essentially remain, as possible explanations, are changes in attitudes and practices among beneficiaries and physicians. One can observe substantial regional differences in the level of sick leave and apparent traces of spatial autocorrelation in the pattern. The spatial diffusion hypothesis was examined by help of a multivariate analysis based on socio‐economic panel data including sick leave benefits and location for each individual in the labour force 1996–2000. The analysis indicates that the neighbourhood effect is substantial on the local (290 municipalities) and the regional (21 counties) level. Largely, the regional diffusion effect remains when also controlling for more persistent average differences between counties. A semi‐public spatial attitude diffusion process, mainly operating at municipality and county levels, seems to be responsible for a substantial part of the observed increase in cost for sick leave in the period 1996–2000.