Flexible versus simple trade-in strategy for remanufacturing

Some enterprises recently start to offer the flexible trade-in option to attract customers from competitors, in contrast to the simple one that only allows them to return used products to the same manufacturers for new. Based on analytical and numerical analyses, this study compares the environmental impacts of two trade-in strategies (simple versus flexible) in combination with different carbon tax policies. From the perspective of consumer switching behaviour, a Hotelling model with two market segments is established. Under the flexible trade-in strategy, the carbon emission of enterprises turns out to be significantly higher than that under the simple trade-in strategy. An appropriate carbon tax policy, especially with preferential tax rates on green products, is capable of guiding enterprises to choose a more environment-friendly trade-in strategy included in the model. The findings fill the research gap in comparing the pros and cons of simple and flexible trade-in strategies in terms of sustainable development, and provide managers and policy-makers the insights on how to promote the healthy development of the remanufacturing industry with trade-in strategizing and carbon taxation

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN ROMANIA

The purpose of this paper is to identify the main opportunities and limitations of corporate social responsibility (CSR). The survey was defined with the aim to involve the highest possible number of relevant CSR topics and give the issue a more wholesome perspective. It provides a basis for further comprehension and deeper analyses of specific CSR areas. The conditions determining the success of CSR in Romania have been defined in the paper on the basis of the previously cumulative knowledge as well as the results of various researches. This paper provides knowledge which may be useful in the programs promoting CSR.Corporate social responsibility, Supportive policies, Romania

Bus rapid transit

Effective public transit is central to development. For the vast majority of developing city residents, public transit is the only practical means to access employment, education, and public services, especially when such services are beyond the viable distance of walking or cycling. Unfortunately, the current state of public transit services in developing cities often does little to serve the actual mobility needs of the population. Bus services are too often unreliable, inconvenient and dangerous. In response, transport planners and public officials have sometimes turned to extremely costly mass transit alternatives such as rail-based metros. Due to the high costs of rail infrastructure, cities can only construct such systems over a few kilometres in a few limited corridors. The result is a system that does not meet the broader transport needs of the population. Nevertheless, the municipality ends up with a long-term debt that can affect investment in more pressing areas such as health, education, water, and sanitation. However, there is an alternative between poor public transit service and high municipal debt. Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) can provide high-quality, metro-like transit service at a fraction of the cost of other options. This document provides municipal officials, non-governmental organizations, consultants, and others with an introduction to the concept of BRT as well as a step-by-step process for successfully planning a BRT system

A Qualitative Assessment of the Private Sector Antimalarial Distribution Chain in Benin, 2009

In Benin, as in many low‐income countries, private commercial providers play an important role in the treatment of malaria.  To design effective interventions for improved access to accurate diagnosis and effective malaria treatment, there is a need to understand retailers' behaviour and identify the factors that influence their stocking and pricing decisions.  Private commercial retailers are the last link in a chain of manufacturers, importers and wholesalers, and their supply sources are likely to have an important influence on the price and quality of malaria treatment that consumers can access.  However, there is limited rigorous evidence on the structure and operation of the distribution chain for antimalarial drugs that serves the retail sector. The ACTwatch Supply Chain Study, one of the ACTwatch project components, aims to address this gap by conducting quantitative and qualitative studies on distribution chains for antimalarials in the ACTwatch countries (Benin, Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Madagascar, Nigeria, Uganda and Zambia). This report presents the results from qualitative interviews with antimalarial drug wholesalers, retailers and other key stakeholders conducted in Benin in June 2009. To provide a complete description of the supply chain for antimalarial drugs, this report should be read in conjunction with the report on the results of the structured supply chain survey also conducted as part of this study, available at www.actwatch.info

A Qualitative Assessment of the Private Sector Antimalarial Distribution Chain in Benin, 2009

In Benin, as in many low‐income countries, private commercial providers play an important role in the treatment of malaria.  To design effective interventions for improved access to accurate diagnosis and effective malaria treatment, there is a need to understand retailers' behaviour and identify the factors that influence their stocking and pricing decisions.  Private commercial retailers are the last link in a chain of manufacturers, importers and wholesalers, and their supply sources are likely to have an important influence on the price and quality of malaria treatment that consumers can access.  However, there is limited rigorous evidence on the structure and operation of the distribution chain for antimalarial drugs that serves the retail sector. The ACTwatch Supply Chain Study, one of the ACTwatch project components, aims to address this gap by conducting quantitative and qualitative studies on distribution chains for antimalarials in the ACTwatch countries (Benin, Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Madagascar, Nigeria, Uganda and Zambia). This report presents the results from qualitative interviews with antimalarial drug wholesalers, retailers and other key stakeholders conducted in Benin in June 2009. To provide a complete description of the supply chain for antimalarial drugs, this report should be read in conjunction with the report on the results of the structured supply chain survey also conducted as part of this study, available at www.actwatch.info

Optimizing Household Water Decisions for Managing Intermittent Water Supply in Mexico City

Nearly 1 billion people around the world experience intermittent water supply (IWS), including about 70% of residents in the Mexico City area. Households with IWS often rely on multiple sources of water to meet their needs, including municipal piped water, trucked water, and rainwater. When calculating water costs and reliability of supply, models of these systems must account for household decision-making regarding the volume of water to use from each different source each day. Modeling these household decisions (or “control policies”) is challenging, especially when households use rainwater as a water source, due to the complexity of the input variables involved (e.g. intermittent water schedule, season, day of week), but is critical to understanding the role that household-level interventions, such as household storage and rainwater harvesting, may play in water access. Universal approximators provide a solution to this challenge by allowing for flexible shaping of these control polices. This study uses Radial Basis Function Networks to determine optimal household water management decisions, maximizing reliability of water supply while minimizing costs for an arbitrary household in Mexico City. The model design is informed using data collected during interviews with households in the city. The model produces Paretooptimal solution sets that demonstrate which household-level investments are most effective for improving the reliability of water access. Results show that household storage tanks are a critical component of water access, especially in households with very low access to the municipal piped water supply. A tank volume of around 1500-2500 liters can provide most of the savings, depending on the availability of municipal water, although a larger tank is better able to collect rainwater. IWS households with sufficient storage are able to meet their water needs with piped water nearly as reliably as those with continuous water supply, as long as a minimal threshold of water is delivered. When household storage is limited, households are more vulnerable to disruptions in the piped network, and costs increase if supply is not delivered consistently. Rainwater harvesting systems are shown to be economically viable at the DocuSign Envelope ID: 3F0D957B-51D2-42AE-9AE7-C1921FE89C34 iv household level regardless of the frequency of municipal piped water service. The techniques presented in this study are a crucial step in modeling water resources in cities with IWS

Fear of Oversight: The Fundamental Failure of Businesslike Government

This article discusses the National Performance Review\u27s (NPR\u27s) broad-reaching effort to reinvent government by making it more businesslike, focusing on its successful effort to reform the Federal procurement process. The article shows that the reformed system couples greatly increased buyer discretion with dramatically reduced oversight of government spending - both internal and external. This article asserts that this combination erodes the public\u27s confidence in the procurement system, violates established norms, and is antithetical to a host of Congressional mandates and policies. More particularly, the article provides empirical evidence of the dramatic, sustained reduction in government contract related litigation during the 1990\u27s. The article expresses concern because the trend coincided with two significant changes: (1) a large-scale Congressionally-mandated reduction in acquisition personnel, which materially reduced internal oversight, and (2) the sweeping NPR re-invention initiatives, which considerably increased purchaser discretion. The article offers a provisional list of explanations for the decrease in litigation. It asserts that, in this context, litigation - a form of external monitoring initiated by private attorneys general - is a public good. Reduced litigation relating to the award and performance of the government\u27s contracts threatens the public\u27s trust in the reinvention agenda. Litigants, in this context, serve the public interest while pursuing their own self interest. Moreover, the need for the private sector to provide this service increases as internal oversight decreases. The article suggests that, despite the success of procurement reform, the current paradigm elevates its facially attractive norms - efficiency and discretion - at the expense of other established, yet apparently undervalued, norms that guide the procurement system, e.g., transparency, integrity, and competition. It cautions that businesslike government has diluted existing internal and external oversight mechanisms and threatened sustained public confidence in the procurement system

The role of water markets in climate change adaptation

Abstract Water markets were first introduced in Australia in the 1980s, and water entitlement and allocation trade have been increasingly adopted by both private individuals and government.Irrigators turned to water markets (particularly for allocation water) to manage water scarcity and Governments to acquire water for the environment (particularly water entitlements. It is expected that further adoption of water markets will be essential for coping with future climate change impacts. This report reviews the available literature related to the relationship between southern Murray-Darling Basin (sMDB) water markets and anticipated climate change effects; the economic, social and environmental impacts of water reallocation through markets; and future development requirements to enhance positive outcomes in these areas. The use of water markets by irrigators can involve both transformational (selling all water entitlements and relocating or switching to dryland) and incremental (e.g. buying water allocations/entitlements, using carry-over, changing water management techniques) adaptation to climate change. Barriers to both adaptations include: current and future climate uncertainty; poor (or non-existent) market signals; financial constraints; information barriers; mental processing limits; inherent attitudes toward or beliefs about climate change; institutional barriers and disincentives to adapt. A better understanding of trade behaviour, especially strategic trade issues that can lead to market failures, will improve the economic advantages of water trade. There remains community concerns about the impacts of transfers away from regional areas such as reduced community spending and reinvestment; population losses; loss of jobs; declining taxation base, loss of local services and businesses, regional production changes; and legacy issues for remaining farmers. However, it is hard to disentangle these impacts from those caused by ongoing structural change in agriculture. Rural communities that are most vulnerable to water scarcity under climate change and water trade adjustment include smaller irrigation-dependent towns. Communities less dependent on irrigation are better able to adapt. Further, where environmental managers use water markets to deal with water variability and to ensure ecological benefits, irrigators are concerned about its impact on their traditional use of markets to manage scarcity. Climate change and water scarcity management are intertwined, suggesting that policy, institutional and governance arrangements to deal with such issues should be similarly structured. Water users will adapt, either out of necessity or opportunity. The cost of that adaptation at individual, regional and national levels—particularly to future water supply variability—can be mitigated by the consideration of the existing advantages from future opportunities for water marketing in Australia

Higher education reform: getting the incentives right

This study is a joint effort by the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) and the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies. It analyses a number of `best practices¿ where the design of financial incentives working on the system level of higher education is concerned. In Chapter 1, an overview of some of the characteristics of the Dutch higher education sector is presented. Chapter 2 is a refresher on the economics of higher education. Chapter 3 is about the Australian Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS). Chapter 4 is about tuition fees and admission policies in US universities. Chapter 5 looks at the funding of Danish universities through the so-called taximeter-model, that links funding to student performance. Chapter 6 deals with research funding in the UK university system, where research assessments exercises underlie the funding decisions. In Chapter 7 we study the impact of university-industry ties on academic research by examining the US policies on increasing knowledge transfer between universities and the private sector. Finally, Chapter 8 presents food for thought for Dutch policymakers: what lessons can be learned from our international comparison

Green port development in Hong Kong - reduction of marine and port-related emissions

The Conference proceedings' website is located at http://www.hsmc.edu.hk/images/scm_CallForPaper/Conference%20Proceedings.pdfThe impact of air pollutant emissions from shipping and port operations towards environment and health is a pressing global concern. The marine and port sectors have contributed significantly to the growth of the supply chain industry and the economic development, while, at the same time, the pollutant emissions rising from ships and port-related operations have inflicted adverse public health concerns. Leading ports and terminals continuously impose measures to reduce the greenhouse gas emitted during vessel berthing. Hong Kong, being the third largest container port in the world and having the second cruise terminal running into operation, urgently requires comprehensive green port operations and practices. This paper evaluates and benchmarks the latest measures conducted by the leading ports over the world in reducing the greenhouse gas emissions from ship and port operations. International regulations, onshore power supply, vessel speed reduction, and fuel switching are analyzed. Recommendations on the future green port development in Hong Kong are proposed.postprin