Daily urban systems explained from the household perspective: an exploratory research on how the spatial interactions of the individual households shape the structure of daily urban systems

The concept of the Daily Urban System (DUS) has gained relevance over the past decades as the entity to examine and explain the functionality of the urban landscape. Daily Urban Systems are usually defined and measured by the strength of commuter or shopper flows between the nodes of the system. It is important to realize that these Daily Urban Systems are the accumulated pattern of individuals making frequent, recurring trips to other localities than their own. Understanding the microeconomic decisions behind these spatial interactions will help in assessing the functional and spatial structure of DUS. In this paper is explored how, based on Dutch empirical data, the individual household’s spatial interactions shape the daily urban system and how the destination of these interactions correlates with personal and spatial variables and motives for interaction. The results show that the occurrence of non-local spatial interactions can be explained by the size-based Christallerian hierarchy of the localities of residence, but that it is the regional population – or market potential – that explains and moderates the sorting of households and the intensity and direction of their spatial interactions in the DUS, matching agglomeration theory.     

Does geographical location matter for ethnic wage gaps?

This paper analyzes ethnic wage gaps in Great Britain by comparing minorities to majority workers in the same local labor market and focuses on the variation of wage gaps across areas. As wage gaps vary across areas, using one single national measure may be misleading. Higher wage gaps across groups are associated with higher occupational segregation and ethnic diversity, while higher wage gaps within groups are associated with higher regional specialization and proportion of co-ethnics. Policies could help by improving job location and selection into occupations across groups.     

跨国公司地方嵌入新视角:基于地方劳工市场的研究进展与理论思考

20世纪90年代以来,跨国公司地方嵌入研究相对聚焦于资本密集型或技术密集型企业,而需要大量非熟练工人的劳动密集型跨国企业并未引起足够关注,建立在产业联系、技术外溢、社会网络等核心概念基础上的跨国公司地方嵌入分析框架很显然不能很好地解释劳动密集型跨国公司地方嵌入的理论与实践问题。在劳工地理学、新经济地理学等学科背景下,基于全球生产网络、关系嵌入、空间修复等核心概念,研究分别从劳工能动性的空间尺度、跨国公司地方嵌入的劳工要素、劳工管控对跨国公司的地方嵌入、区域劳工景观的空间修复等视角出发,系统梳理相关研究进展并提出未来主要研究议题,包括如何识别劳工供需因素对跨国公司地方嵌入的影响机制,如何剖析特殊劳工管控体制下劳工空间实践与能动性的关系,如何刻画跨国公司地方嵌入对区域劳工经济地理景观的影响,如何总结跨国公司地方嵌入与区域发展的战略耦合模式等。     

邮轮旅游供应链的旅行社激励机制研究:组织游客奖励还是营销推广扶持?

考虑到旅行社在我国邮轮旅游销售供应链中的重要性,邮轮港口所在地政府为推进邮轮旅游产业发展,普遍对旅行社实施两种激励政策——组织游客奖励与营销推广扶持。但两类激励政策对当地政府、邮轮公司及旅行社的效益影响尚不明确。本文首先建立“政府-邮轮公司-旅行社”三阶段主从博弈模型,以研究两种激励政策对两企业运营决策的作用机理,并给出政府在最大化市场需求目标下的最优激励政策。其次,借助数值仿真实验分析了不同情形下基于最优激励政策时市场需求和企业利润的变化。结果表明:站在政府角度,激励政策有两种选择——仅采取营销推广激励或者两种激励方式并存,而且最优激励设计受到补贴预算、旅行社营销推广能力及其岸上游收益的影响。站在旅行社角度,作为激励政策的直接受益方,其定价与营销努力决策会受到两类激励方式的不同影响;而对于营销推广能力较强的旅行社,可以依赖于政府奖励适当提高船票价格,以改善当前国内邮轮市场的低价竞争。站在邮轮公司角度,即使自身没有直接得到激励资金,其仍能间接获得激励政策所带来的红利。研究结论可为政府的邮轮旅游激励政策的设计提供理论参考,并为邮轮公司与旅行社在面对政府财政干预时提供决策建议。     

清末苏南厘金征收的基层实态与区域市场结构

厘金制度是近代重要的商税制度,影响着商品经济和市场发展。晚清苏南地区的厘金征收实态可以复原,进而可以梳理征收名目及各类征收模式。征税模式并不完全以商品划分,而是有多种选择,既便于商人据自身情况选择缴纳,又保证官方尽可能多收款项,以此平衡两者关系。以厘卡为对象进行ArcGIS泰森多边形分割,分析苏南地区的市场空间结构,结果显示,清末苏南厘卡半径范围为5.56—6.67千米,府局半径范围为16.45—21.93千米。基于府级厘局与厘卡所生成的泰森多边形差异,与施坚雅模式条件下的区域市场分析不尽相同,这种差异源于区域市场内空间载体属性的差别,部分反映“厘金局的地方市场问题”的空间特征。     

‘A Billion Dollar Racket’: the United States,South Vietnam,and Global Currency Manipulation during War, 1968–9

While most historians have discussed corruption as a key factor leading to South Vietnam's downfall, they have not fully analysed the US and international dimensions of South Vietnamese corruption. This article argues that economic, political, and diplomatic circumstances of the Vietnam War encouraged widespread US participation in currency manipulation, an economically destructive form of corruption that had serious implications for the stability of the South Vietnamese state. The US inability to shape South Vietnam's setting of the official exchange rate allowed South Vietnam to overvalue the piaster at the cost of US taxpayers. Combined with the structural economic problems produced by the war, such as inflation, the favourable exchange rate encouraged Americans, Vietnamese, Indians, Chinese, Koreans, and other internationals to make quick profits through illegal transactions. From bookstores in Saigon to banks in Hong Kong, Dubai, and New York, currency manipulation involved a host of individuals and organisations around the globe. Although many critics of the war cited South Vietnamese corruption in their arguments for US withdrawal, congressional investigation into currency manipulation revealed that without the direct contributions of US soldiers and civilians, the magnitude of illegal economic transactions would not have existed as it did.     

Tracing the origin of blue and white Chinese Porcelain ordered for the Portuguese market during the Ming dynasty using INAA

The existing documentary history of Chinese porcelain ordered for the Portuguese market (mainly Ming dynasty.) is reasonably advanced; nevertheless detailed laboratory analyses able to reveal new aspects like the number and/or diversity of producing centers involved in the trade with Portugal are lacking.In this work, the chemical characterization of porcelain fragments collected during recent archaeological excavations from Portugal (Lisbon and Coimbra) was done for provenance issues: identification/differentiation of Chinese porcelain kilns used. Chemical analysis was performed by instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) using the Portuguese Research Reactor. Core samples were taken from the ceramic body avoiding contamination form the surface layers constituents. The results obtained so far point to: (1) the existence of three main chemical-based clusters; and (2) a general attribution of the porcelains studied to southern China kilns; (3) a few samples are specifically attributed to Jingdezhen and Zhangzhou kiln sites. In a chronological point of view, for the studied samples we assist to an increasing improvement of the production procedure from late 15th till the 17th centuries of the Chinese porcelains sent to Portugal, especially enhanced by the association of late porcelains with refining processes of the original raw material, consistent with removal of more heavy minerals. In the case of some samples a kiln attribution was possible, but for the majority of the samples we haven't found yet the specific kilns.     

Value chains,business conventions,and market adaptation: A comparative analysis of Norwegian and Icelandic fish exports

Business transactions’ value chains can constrain their capacity to maximize market value from limited resources. Seafood markets exhibit a strong demand for fresh, high‐quality seafood yet empirical studies show large variations in value chains’ adaptation and exploitation of market opportunities. This article presents a comprehensive model that identifies the main drivers and constraints in value chains for wild harvested seafood that generate differences in market adaptation. The model is built on theories of value chains, business conventions, competitive behaviour, governance conventions, legal regulation, and direct ecological and economic constraints. The model is applied in a comparative case analysis of market adaptation by value chains for North Atlantic cod products in Norway and Iceland, which explains why business conventions in Iceland are more consumer market adapted than those in Norway.     

Does a Change in Presidency of the US Really Matter in an Age of Economic Globalization?

Abstract

This article exposes the cracks in the US economy, in politics and in its image in the world. The US has, particularly in the Bush era, strayed away from the values enshrined in the lives and witness of its founders. It has refused to recognize and use creatively its potential in playing a constructive leadership role in the world. In fact many of its actions have contributed to the erosion of global commitments. The focus is on the impact the crisis the US economy has on the world. In such a context, it asks the question as to whether a change in Presidency of the US really matters? The article challenges the churches to address the structural consequences of globalization and to critique neo-liberal corporate capitalism and engage in the search for alternatives. The churches have acted with compassion and charity to eradicate poverty and to serve the people. What is required now is for the churches to put aside their reluctance to speak out boldly, whether they be from the North or the South, and engage in radical actions for transformation.     

Labour Migration and the Swedish Labour Market Model: a case study of recruitment of Yugoslav workers to Svenska Fläktfabriken in Växjö, 1969–1970

This essay deals with active labour recruitment from Yugoslavia to Sweden at the end of the 1960s and early 1970s. It is a case study of recruitments of foreign-born workers to one particular manufacturing industry. It focuses primarily on trade-union actions and strategies in connection with the recruitments, analysed in the light of the power relations within the corporatist Swedish labour market model. This approach illuminates how the Swedish labour market model dealt with an issue involving both conflicting and coincident interests between labour and capital, with the state as an intermediary. But the recruitments are also analysed from the recruited workers' points of view. The essay reveals great union influence in the process of labour recruitment, and suggests that the national Swedish labour market authority only approved as many work permits for non-Nordic workers as the trade union concerned accepted. This power, in combination with the shortage of workers, could be used by the unions as a forceful instrument in their struggle to transform working life according to their members' interests. Accordingly, the labour recruitments to Sweden were framed by the power relations and the corporative practices within the Swedish labour market model.