Climbing the Great Wall: Linking Teacher Beliefs and Learning Styles in Cross-Cultural Teaching - Observations from cross-cultural teaching in Mainland China

Scholars have suggested separate relationships between culture and learning styles, and between culture and teaching beliefs. In this essay I suggest that interrelated relationships between culture, learning styles and teacher beliefs may exist. Drawing on personal observations from cross-cultural teaching experiences in Mainland China, the essay illustrates how culture, learning styles and teacher beliefs inform each other and how they might be combined into an inclusive framework. Such a framework could aid in identifying and overcoming challenges from cross-cultural teaching and cross-cultural learning. The observations shed further light onto the on-going debate of how Chinese learn. The essay concludes with directions for future research for further development of the framework and our understanding of cross-cultural differences in the classroom

Towards gender-responsive banana research for development in the East-African Highlands

Banana production is an important livelihood for farming households in the East-African highlands as food and as a source of income. Banana is a crop with a long history in this region. Although not originating from Africa, it is believed bananas have been cultivated in this region since 2000 BC. It is not surprising that the technical aspects of banana production are intertwined with rituals, habits, and social norms. In this guide, we highlight and discuss social norms surrounding banana production, zooming in specifically on gender norms. Understanding these norms coupled with the ability to address them is essential for the development and design of high-quality banana-focused research for development (R4D) projects which benefit men as well as women

Urban industrial relocation: The theory of edge cities

In recent years urban economists have focused their attention upon a 'newly recognized' phenomenon: edge cities. Such an urban growth pattern, although having its primary roots in the United States, can be an appropriate framework for examining European trends of urban industrial location. The objective of this study is to examine the relocation of firms from dominant industrial areas, for example, urban CBDs, to new locations at the urban outer boundaries. In this context, we develop in this paper a model based upon the theory of monopolistic competition ("Dixit and Stiglitz, 1977") that examines the economic relationships among firms at different locations. Such intra/inter relationships are examined from the point of view of complementarity. Complementarity in our case combines the two notions of firms' interaction with cumulative and reinforcing effects, and of coordination among firms in the local industrial organizations. Our interest in such a notion springs from the necessity to explain the spatial distribution of firms, particularly why firms in their location often choose to cluster. One of the explanations within the literature is that concentration in clusters is due to the need to share common infrastructures. However, this is just one of many possible explanations for this phenomenon. In our model, we will tackle this aspect of firm locations in clusters from the point of view of the elasticity of substitution. On the basis of the model we will formulate a policy framework regarding industrial suburbanization.

Deregulation and Schedule Competition in Simple Airline Networks

The present paper investigates the choice of route network, frequencies and ticket prices in air transport networks served by oligopolists. The paper describes these choices in a simple airline network by means of a simulation model. Airline competition is modeled as a 2 stage game: airlines first choose a particular flight schedule in a network, and in the second stage, airlines choose ticket prices. This simulation model thus describes airline profit maximizing behaviour in a given network environment. The model may now serve as a basis to address particular policy related questions. One such question is the welfare effect of airline deregulation. The welfare consequences resulting from the deregulation of airline markets have been investigated quite amply, both theoretically and empirically. In most cases, deregulation has been demonstrated to confer substantial benefits to consumers, and in some cases also to producers. At the same time, however, the external costs associated with aviation have become a major public policy concern in many countries. External effects - which in this case include noise, emissions and congestion - arise when markets lack: resources like peace and quiet, clean air and space are often unpriced. As a result, these resources are used in quantities beyond a social optimum. In the context of airline deregulation, it is now interesting to analyze the welfare effects caused the process of airline deregulation, taking the external costs of aviation into account. The present paper addresses this question while the network character of air transportation is taken into account.

Impact of railway station on Dutch residential housing market

In an efficient market, the levels of house prices reflect the values of value of physical, accessibility and environmental features corresponding to the house. The Dutch residential house market though could not be claimed to work under a perfectly efficient market; the prices can be diagnosed to reflect the value of these features. This paper focuses on the value of railway accessibility feature to the residential houses prices. Stations are treated as transport access points with distance and frequency of train services components and potential places for negative externalities. Applying a cross sectional hedonic price model, we found railway stations as identified by frequency of train service has elasticity of close to 0.3 for house up to a distance of 3 kms. Due to the spatial nature of the data we controlled the spatial effects by regional dummies. Proximity to railway line as differing from proximity to station, explaining the noise effect, has negative effect on prices. At the same time the immediate neighbourhood of the station is affected negatively from externality of the station. Highway accessibility on the other hand shows slightly different effect on house prices, in that peak effects occur at 4-5 km from the highway entry/exit point. All other physical and neighbourhood variables as income level and population composition show expected effect on house prices.