Social Implications Of A Wind Driven Generator Located In A Residential Area

The main findings described in this report result from a survey project to assess the impact on residents and passing drivers of the Wind Driven Generator located in the Energy Park, Milton Keynes. This report has been prepared by the Survey Research Team of Milton Keynes Development Corporation who designed and managed the project. The British Market Research Bureau Ltd we-re appointed to undertake fieldwork and data preparation for a large part of the project. Funding for the Research was provided by the Department of Energy through the Energy Technology Support Unit, Harwel

Learning from defects in the UK housing sector using action research: a case study of a housing association

Purpose: Maximising the benefit of learning from defects is regarded by UK housing associations (HAs) as a key opportunity to meet their challenges of building more homes with reduced government funding and rent incomes. Despite learning from defects being a frequent recommendation to reduce defects in the construction literature, there is scarce empirical evidence into how HAs actually learn from defects. This research aims to better understand how HAs learn from past defects and induce change to reduce defects. Design/methodology/approach: Guided by organisational learning (OL) as the theoretical lens, a 21-month action research (AR) project explored one HA’s defects management and learning processes. Findings: OL has the potential to reduce defects in new homes but is a secondary task which is reliant on a defects management team analysing defect data to identify priority areas. As such, learning from defects can be reduced due to peaks in workload if data analysis is a manual process. . Furthermore, a dual learning approach plays a significant role for HA’s learning consisting of designing out defects (codification) supported by networking (personalisation) to tackle issues of workmanship on site and those defects that cannot be designed out. Originality/value: This study demonstrates OL has the potential to reduce defects in new homes but is a secondary task in HA’s practice; and highlights the practical challenges of academia and industry co-production in AR in construction

A soft systems methodology approach to the improvement of a housing association’s defects management and learning systems

Rapid growth in the production of new homes in the United Kingdom (UK) is putting build quality under pressure as evidenced by rising numbers of defects. Housing Associations (HAs) contribute approximately 20% to the UK’s housing supply. HAs are experiencing challenges of central government funding cuts and rental revenue reductions. Maximising the benefit of learning from defects is recognised as being a key opportunity for HAs to help meet these challenges. This paper explores how a HA is introducing change to improve the way they learn from past defects in an effort to reduce the prevalence of defects in future new homes. Soft systems methodology was used to assist a HA who were intent on making such change, but were unable to identify a clear improvement opportunity. The findings identify a significant mismatch between what the HA’s system should be doing to enable the HA to manage and learn from defects and the current situation. The mismatch has revealed to the HA that a modification to their information system is necessary to improve performance and enhance learning via live data analysis and reporting. This research is ongoing and the HA is currently in the ‘taking action’ stage

Financial sector and economic growth in the Republic of Croatia 1995-2005

Financial sector in the Republic of Croatia had a strong growth between 1995 2005.g. Liberalization of financial sector in 1999 led to an increase in bank foreign debt, which resulted in a strong increase in foreign currency reserves and appreciation of the national currency. The growth of the financial sector and credit expansion have been allocated in favour of private and public consumption, but not in industry investments. GDP growth didn't have the same momentum as financial aggregates. Economic growth, after a contraction in 1999 was within the average of global economic growth. Relying on neoclassical growth model, government and central bank didn't put in place the needed set of pro-active policies. Factor allocation was solely through private bank channels financing private consumption. If the sustainable economic growth and new employment are to be major macroeconomic goals, a new macroeconomic paradigm as combination of neclassical and neokeynesians approach will be needed

Evidence and Ideology in Macroeconomics: The Case of Investment Cycles

The paper reports the principal findings of a long term research project on the description and explanation of business cycles. The research strongly confirmed the older view that business cycles have large systematic components that take the form of investment cycles. These quasi-periodic movements can be represented as low order, stochastic, dynamic processes with complex eigenvalues. Specifically, there is a fixed investment cycle of about 8 years and an inventory cycle of about 4 years. Maximum entropy spectral analysis was employed for the description of the cycles and continuous time econometrics for the explanatory models. The central explanatory mechanism is the second order accelerator, which incorporates adjustment costs both in relation to the capital stock and the rate of investment. By means of parametric resonance it was possible to show, both theoretically and empirically how cycles aggregate from the micro to the macro level. The same mathematical tool was also used to explain the international convergence of cycles. I argue that the theory of investment cycles was abandoned for ideological, not for evidential reasons. Methodological issues are also discussed

Science and Ideology in Economic, Political, and Social Thought

This paper has two sources: One is my own research in three broad areas: business cycles, economic measurement and social choice. In all of these fields I attempted to apply the basic precepts of the scientific method as it is understood in the natural sciences. I found that my effort at using natural science methods in economics was met with little understanding and often considerable hostility. I found economics to be driven less by common sense and empirical evidence, then by various ideologies that exhibited either a political or a methodological bias, or both. This brings me to the second source: Several books have appeared recently that describe in historical terms the ideological forces that have shaped either the direct areas in which I worked, or a broader background. These books taught me that the ideological forces in the social sciences are even stronger than I imagined on the basis of my own experiences. The scientific method is the antipode to ideology. I feel that the scientific work that I have done on specific, long standing and fundamental problems in economics and political science have given me additional insights into the destructive role of ideology beyond the history of thought orientation of the works I will be discussing

The Non-existence of the Labor Demand/Supply Diagram, and Other Theorems of Institutional Economics

The most famous and influential diagram in modern (neoclassical) labor economics is the model of wage determination by supply and demand. Using concepts and ideas from institutional economics, I argue that the theory of a perfectly competitive labor market is logically contradictory and, hence, the demand/supply diagram cannot exist on the plane of pure theory. Four other fundamental theorems concerning labor markets are also derived, as are implications about the theoretical foundation of the field of industrial relations and the economic evaluation of labor and employment policy. In this article I accomplish four things of significance. The first is to demonstrate that the core diagram of neoclassical labor economics - the diagram of wage determination by demand and supply (D/S) - does not have logical coherence and thus has no existence on the plane of pure theory. The second is to deduce this conclusion using a core concept of institutional economics (i.e., transaction cost), thus demonstrating that the institutional approach to labor economics has theoretical explanatory power. The third is to use the transaction cost idea to also deduce four fundamental theorems concerning labor markets and wage determination. The fourth is to identify the core theoretical foundation of the field of industrial relations. This discussion also yields important implications for the economic evaluation of labor and employment policy, as well as interesting insights on the history of thought in labor economics. Working Paper 07-2