Private car use in Austria by demographic structure and regional variations

Due to its manifold impact on the environment private car use represents an important dimension of en-vironmental behaviour in industrialized countries. Obviously, private car use is related to demographic characteris-tics of households such as the life-cycle stage and the living arrangement the household lives in. In addition sys-tematic regional differences of private car use have to be taken into account. In this paper a causal model is de-rived, which aims to explain regional variations in car use (as measured by the distance driven) by regional demo-graphic differences and region-specific control factors such as attitudes towards car use, car technology, and insti-tutional factors. Using aggregate data from an household survey in Austria and data from Austrian official statistics causal effect coefficients are then estimated. By applying path analysis the estimated effects of regional demo-graphic characteristics on region-specific car use can be decomposed into direct and indirect effects, with the latter effects being mediated by the control factors. Almost no significant direct demographic effect on car use can be found. Region-specific averages of distances driven are best predicted by using the considered control factors as predictor variables. Nevertheless, many of the presumed indirect effects turn out to be of importance. For instance, the regional mean age of household heads can be discerned as a key factor of demographic effects on car use since it significantly influences several of the region-specific control factors. Moreover our results evidence that the regional pattern of car use is covered by various combinations of control factors. (AUTHORS)Austria

Water, public hygiene and fire control in medieval towns: facing collective goods problems while ensuring the quality of life

'Frisches Wasser, saubere Straßen und Brandschutz waren auch in mittelalterlichen Städten wichtige Faktoren für Lebensqualität. Durch umweltschädliches Verhalten und den leichtsinnigen Umgang mit Feuer gefährdeten die Stadtbewohner jedoch ihr Lebensumfeld beständig selbst. Diese Überbeanspruchung gemeinschaftlicher Ressourcen, in der ökonomischen Literatur als Tragedy of the commons behandelt, verkomplizierte sich dadurch, dass öffentliche Hygiene und Feuerverhütung öffentliche Güter waren, von denen kein Stadtbewohner ausgeschlossen werden konnte, und im Sinne des Allgemeininteresses auch nicht sollte. Genau deshalb war allerdings auch niemand freiwillig bereit, mit seinem Verhalten zu Sauberkeit und Brandschutz beizutragen. Ausgehend von spieltheoretischen Überlegungen wird gezeigt, dass die Räte der Stadt in der Lage waren, durch Kommunalisierung und Übertragung von Eigentums- und Nutzungsrechten an Privatpersonen und Korporationen das Angebot an Wasser und Infrastruktur sicherzustellen. Mit Appellen und Strafen gelang es ihnen aber nicht, die Bürger zu einem schonenderen Umgang mit ihrer Umwelt zu bewegen. Unter Verwendung des Konzeptes der Environmental Kuznets Curve kann auch gezeigt werden, dass Verschmutzung und Gefährdung, die zunächst infolge des starken Bevölkerungswachstums bis zum frühen 14. Jahrhundert zugenommen hatten, nicht mit dem ebenfalls gestiegenen Wohlstand der Städte zurückgingen, sehr wohl aber das Bewusstsein für die Gefahren des umweltschädlichen Verhaltens zunahm.' (Autorenreferat)'Clean water, neat streets and fire prevention determined the quality of life also in medieval towns. While ensuring an environment worth living citizens were faced with collective goods problems. As a result of the environmentally harmful urban way of life common-pool resources like waters and streets were over-exploited, polluted and degraded. This urban tragedy of the commons was even more complicated, as public hygiene and fire prevention, both necessary to cope with pollution and fire hazard, were public goods and their realisation caused a public goods dilemma. Due to coordination efforts - municipal administration, transfer of property rights, enhancement of voluntary cooperations and regulations - common-pool resources like water and infrastructure could be provided, but municipal authorities barely succeeded in enforcing polluters to internalise the social costs of their behaviour and managing the supply of public preventive goods. Differently from the suggestion made in the concept of Environmental Kuznets Curve emergence of environmental externalities and treatment of communal risks were not only related to economic development, but also to population growth.' (author's abstract

Modelling Maritime Trade Systems: Agent-Based Simulation and Medieval History

Maritime trade grew enormously in Europe after c. 1100 AD, thereby contributing much to the European economic take-off commonly considered as the “Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages.” In this article, determinants of both the formation of the Hanse’s network-based system of trade in Northern Europe and its later dissolution are analysed using a multi-agent model. Findings are connected to the discussion in institutional economics and economic history concerning the importance of institutional developments in long-distance trade for economic growth in medieval Europe, the efficiency of self-enforcing institutions, and the divergence of institutional arrangements in medieval maritime trade. Finally, both potentials and limitations of agent-based models for historical research are discussed

How important are household demographic characteristics to explain private car use patterns? A multilevel approach to Austrian data

Private car use is one of the major contributors to pollution in industrialised countries. It is therefore important to understand the factors that determine the demand for car use. In explaining the variability in car use, it is important to take into account household demographic characteristics and local and regional differences in infrastructure, in addition to the economic variables commonly used in the prevailing literature on the topic. The appropriate tool to explain car ownership and car use is, therefore, a multilevel statistical approach. An Austrian household survey from 1997 finds that household characteristics such as age, gender, education and employment of the household head, household size and housing quality can effect the variability of car ownership and car use. The same survey also gives a clear indication of regional heterogeneity. This heterogeneity persists when we controlled for the variability of regional economic welfare and infrastructure as indicated by population density.

Institutions of Hanseatic Trade

The merchants of the medieval Hanse monopolised trade in the Baltic and North Sea areas. The authors describe the structure of their trade system in terms of network organisation and attempts to explain, on the grounds of institutional economics, the coordination of the merchants’ commercial exchange by reputation, trust and culture. The institutional economics approach also allows for a comprehensive analysis of coordination problems arising between merchants, towns and the ‘Kontore’. Due to the simplicity and flexibility of network trade the Hansards could bridge the huge gap in economic development between the West and the East. In the changing economic conditions around 1500, however, exactly these characteristics proved to be a serious limit to further retain their trade monopoly

Erfolgreiche Koordination durch Kultur? Herrschaftsmythen der Frühen Neuzeit und die Organizational-Culture-These

Herrschaftsmythen können als spezifische Gestaltungselemente einer Organisationskultur interpretiert werden. Sie waren in den frühneuzeitlichen Systemen Mittel des politischen Zusammenwirkens, gerichtet auf Integration und Definition der jeweiligen Organisation. Gegenstand der Untersuchung sind neun frühneuzeitliche Mythen, darunter der Roi Soleil, Neues Israel und Wilhelm Tell. Hinterfragt wurden wahrgenommene Ähnlichkeiten zwischen den neun Mythen, deren integrative und revolutionäre Muster sowie die unterschiedlichen Grade der Integration und Definition innerhalb der verwandten politischen Systeme. Tatsächlich bestätigen sich durch die Befragung die Auffassungen, dass das sehr integrative Muster eines Mythos und sein hoher Grad kollektiver Orientierung mit einem republikanischen politischen Kontext korrespondieren. Hauptsächlich das integrative Muster führte zu signifikanten Wirkungen der politischen Integration. (prh)'Creating a myth was an often used and seemingly successful strategy of early modern sovereigns and power-bearing social elites to legitimate their claim on government and to establish a mechanism, which created collective identity. Through myths, the sovereign's predestination to rule could have probably been communicated in an easy and understandable manner. Viewing early modern political systems as organizations, the organizational-culture-approach shows, that myths of power have been specific appearences of organizational culture and explains, that they worked as means of political coordination, raising both integration and definition of the organization. In order to get some quantitative information about the characteristics of nine early modern myths of power and their respective effects, the instrument of expert interrogation was tested. Undergraduate students with specific knowledge in early modern myths and their political context were asked to evaluate within a structured questionnaire their pairwise perceived similarity between myths, the degrees of collective orientation, revolutionary and integrative design of the myths and the degrees of integration and definition within the affiliated political systems. This data was used to construct a graphical representation of myths via multidimensional scaling and to test the impact of mythological characteristics on degrees of integration and definition of the respective political systems. Following the experts' perceptions, it was both the very integrative design of a myth and its high degree of collective orientation, which corresponded with a republican political context. But it was mainly the integrative design, that yielded significant effects on political integration.' (author's abstract

Hunger and market dynamics in pre-modern communities: insights into the effects of market intervention from a multi-agent model

'Nahrungsmittelknappheit und Hungerkrisen waren ein wichtiger Faktor des Lebensstandards in vormodernen städtischen Gemeinwesen. Die Räte der Stadt versuchten üblicherweise, die sich bei solchen Ereignissen ergebende Marktdynamik durch Intervention unter Kontrolle zu halten. Unklar ist allerdings, ob damit der starke Anstieg von Nahrungsmittelpreisen und Löhnen tatsächlich langfristig gedämpft werden konnte. Mit einem Multi-Agenten-Modell, in dem in vereinfachter Form die wesentlichen ökonomischen Austauschbeziehungen einer vormodernen Stadt abgebildet sind, werden die Wirkungen von Markteingriffen der städtischen Obrigkeit bei Hungersnöten auf die langfristige wirtschaftliche und demographische Entwicklung simuliert. Marktintervention zeigt sich dabei grundsätzlich als eine Strategie, mit der die wohlfahrtsmindernde Wirkung einer Nahrungsmittelknappheit sehr wohl beschränkt werden konnte. Um allerdings zu verhindern, dass sich aus einer Nahrungsmittelknappheit eine Hungerkrise entwickelte, mussten Marktinterventionen zielgerichtet und in mehrere Märkte gleichzeitig erfolgen, ebenso wie sich ihr wohlfahrtserhaltender Effekt erst nach einiger Zeit entfaltete.' (Autorenreferat)'Food shortages and hunger had been a great threat to the standard of living in urban communities in the Middle Ages and in early modern times. In order to cope with this sort of critical events, local governments and municipal councils commonly tried to control market dynamics, but it is not clear, whether in cases like this the typical market reaction of rising prices of foodstuffs and wages could really be moderated in the long-run through an intervention in markets. In the present article, a simplified multi-agent-based model of the pre-modern urban economy is used which allows a simulation of effects that different strategies of crisis management had on the medium-term and long-range economic and demographic developments in an urban community experiencing a food shortage. Intervention in markets turns out to be a strategic choice of local authorities by which very likely wealth-destroying consequences of food shortages or even famines could be reduced to some extent. A successful intervention preventing a temporary food shortage turning into a substantial nutritional crisis nonetheless had to be goal-directed and of complex design, and showed its full wealth-keeping effects only after a considerably long period of time.' (author's abstract

Lavoro e impresa nelle società preindustriali

Come si lavorava, come si accumulava il reddito e come si faceva impresa nelle società preindustriali? Scorrendo il volume il lettore scoprirà, grazie alle esperienze descritte, un insieme di caratteri qualificanti le diverse attività lavorative. Alcuni sono ben noti, altri forse meno, ma tutti ricadono in tre ambiti: la diversificazione delle fonti di reddito, la costruzione di reti di contatti (professionali e parentali, politici e religiosi), l’adozione di complesse strategie imprenditoriali

Evaluating the effectiveness of agricultural adaptation to climate change in preindustrial society

The effectiveness of agricultural adaptation determines the vulnerability of this sector to climate change, particularly during the preindustrial era. However, this effectiveness has rarely been quantitatively evaluated, specifically at a large spatial and long-term scale. The present study covers this case of preindustrial society in AD 1500–1800. Given the absence of technological innovations in this time frame, agricultural production was chiefly augmented by cultivating more land (land input) and increasing labor input per land unit (labor input). Accordingly, these two methods are quantitatively examined. Statistical results show that within the study scale, land input is a more effective approach of mitigating climatic impact than labor input. Nonetheless, these observations collectively improve Boserup's theory from the perspective of a large spatial and long-term scale.postprin