Overview of industrial forest concessions and concession-based industry in Central and West Africa and considerations of alternatives

Concessions in Africa have a long history and mixed records. From the 1980-90¿s onwards, concessions were gradually requested to bear new responsibilities, previously carried out by governments, such as the management of production forests and the oversight of some parts of the territories where forest concessions are prominent. The concessions sector is still dominated by the Europeans, but with an increasing prominence of Asian companies, which are already dominant in Equatorial Guinea, CAR and South-Congo. There is, however, a room and a need for diversification of forest tenure models, which might be seen as complementary rather, at least for the foreseeable future, than alternatives competing with the current system

Determinants of the influence of voters and interest groups on the political decision making process

This paper provides a comprehensive theoretical model of the political decision making process. Therein two ideologically different political parties compete for power. Their primary instrument in this competition are programmatic concessions in favor of voters and interest groups. As any concession causes losses in utility for the party members, the parties try to win the election with as little concessions as possible. The efficient amount of concessions and their distribution on different groups of voters and interest groups is derived. These concessions are taken as an indicator for the influence of these two groups of political agents on the political decision making process. Hence the political model developed in this paper helps to determine the political influence of voters and interest groups. The illustrations show that the efficient amount of concessions depends on the closeness of the election race. The closer the initial distribution of votes, the more concessions can voters and interest groups wring from the political parties. The characteristics of the political landscape, e.g. the share of informed voters and the degree of ideological polarization, are found to determine the efficient amount of concessions and thus the influence of voters and interest groups on the political decision making process. --Public Choice,theory,voters,interest groups,election

Towards concessions 2.0 in Central Africa. Managing overlapping rights between industrial concessions and community forestry

In Central Africa, industrial forest concessions and protected areas occupy most of the forested space while community forests are confined to the margins. This separation ignores the reality of land rights and overlapping uses, as well as the need for governance involving different users of the same space. The mapping of local land rights lays the foundation for sharing timber revenues and the development of new economic activities involving industrial operators and communities. A partnership based on rights between industrial operators, communities and other economic operators would lead to a new type of institution of territorial development, which we call Concession 2.0. These redesigned concessions would cohabit and interact with community concessions. The latter would remain forest landscapes offering exclusive rights for autonomous community development

Recent Union Contract Concessions

macroeconomics, union concessions

Can a Preferential Trade Agreement Benefit Neighbor Countries without Compensating Them?

PTAs are generally negotiated without any tariff concessions or transfers to non-member countries. Can such a PTA benefit the neighbors’ welfare? In a two-good competitive equilibrium model in the absence of an entrepot, a PTA without concessions to the outsider will hurt the outsider’s welfare when goods are normal. If one of the member countries is an entrepot, however, it definitely improves the neighbors’ welfare. In a multiple-good model, a PTA without concessions deteriorates the neighbors’ welfare, provided that all the goods are normal and substitutes, and that initial tariff levels are small.PTA, Neighbor’s Welfare, Kemp-Wan theorem, WTO, GATT Article 24, Entrepot

Concessions Rejected

[Excerpt] On November 19, steelworkers came within 90 votes of making giveaways worth as much as $6 billion dollars to the basic steel industry. By a vote of 231-141 the Presidents who make up the Basic Steel Industry Conference rejected a unanimous recommendation from the International Executive Board to grant the biggest package of concessions in the history of the American labor movement

Scientifically based biodiversity management in timber concessions: contribution to conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity

During the past 25 years, forest laws in Central African countries have undergone major changes. Management plans were made mandatory: nearly 19 million hectares of timber concessions (38% of total granted concessions) were subject to a management plan in 2013 and the dynamics is currently underway. The management plan is based on a set of technical and scientific studies, including statistical surveys (management inventories) covering the whole concession and taking into account all timber species, large mammals and the main non timber forest products. These inventories allow, at concession level, to characterize ecosystems and to assess the forest conservation values, through floristic and faunal biodiversity indicators and by taking into account threats to the forest ecosystems, especially anthropogenic ones. Such management inventories are used especially for planning and forecasting harvests, while minimising environmental impacts on the forest structure and functioning, and retaining regeneration capacities of the timber species and the forest ecosystems. The knowledge gained on specific and ecosystemic biodiversity helps to define management rules to ensure the sustainability of different timber species' populations, noticeably the exploited ones. It is also used to design areas within the concessions were exploitation will not take place due to conservation interest (most biodiversity-rich areas, protection of rare or endangered species...). Such so-called “conservation series” therefore complement the protected areas network. Well-managed forest concessions can help conserve the regional forest ecosystems and maintain essential functions that they provide. However, management plans were up to now designed at the concession scale. Data acquired in forest concessions also significantly contribute to improve knowledge of the forest ecosystems and their functioning at the regional level. Using this data, the CoForChange Project (http://www.coforchange.eu) issued a map of the forest ecosystems developed in the "Sangha River Interval" region. This project suggested that those forest ecosystems could react differently to disturbance, and could need an adaptation of management methods to each ecosystem. Based on forest inventories, other initiatives are underway to map the forest types and the biomass stock at the scale of Central Africa, and might be of particular interest for policy decisions on forest ecosystems. (Texte intégral

The Capitalization of Seller Paid Consessions

Using a hedonic pricing model, we analyze the capitalization of total seller paid discount points and closing costs into the price of a house. We hypothesize that sellers are concerned about the sales price net of total seller paid concessions (SPNC), rather than the exact terms of the transaction. Since the SPNC is easily ascertained in the negotiation process, we further hypothesize that total seller paid concessions (TSPC) are fully capitalized into the sales price. To test this hypothesis, sales price is regressed on a set of control variables including TSPC. In this framework, TSPC will be positive and not significantly different from one if concessions are fully capitalized. The empirical results provide support for the capitalization hypothesis. Negotiation strategies and study limitations follow from the empirical results.

Concessions Bargaining in Auto

[Excerpt] David Bensman\u27s Concessions at South Works in the Winter issue of Labor Research Review was an excellent recounting and analysis of the concessions process at United Steel workers Local 65. However, it misrepresents the nature of both the concessions and the concessions process in the United Auto Workers. Not only did the UAW\u27s contracts with Ford and General Motors fail to provide job security as advertised, they were also arrived at by a process fully as manipulative as that in the USWA

A Theory of BOT Concession Contracts

In this paper, we discuss the choice for build-operate-and-transfer (BOT) concessions when governments and …rm managers do not share the same information regarding the operation characteristics of a facility. We show that larger shadow costs of public funds and larger information asymmetries entice governments to choose BOT concessions. This result stems from a trade-o¤ between the government’s shadow costs of …nancing the construction and the operation of the facility and the excessive usage price that the consumer may face during the concession period. The incentives to choose BOT concessions increase as a function of ex-ante informational asymmetries between governments and potential BOT concession holders and with the possibility of transferring the concession cost characteristics to public …rms at the termination of the concession.Public-private-partnership, privatization, adverse selection, regulation, natural monopoly, infrastructure, facilities