Estimation of indirect cost and evaluation of protective measures for infrastructure vulnerability: A case study on the transalpine transport corridor

Infrastructure vulnerability is a topic of rising interest in the scientific literature for both the general increase of unexpected events and the strategic importance of certain links. Protective investments are extremely costly and risks are distributed in space and time which poses important decision problems to the public sector decision makers. In an economic prospective, the evaluation of infrastructure vulnerability is oriented on the estimation of direct and indirect costs of hazards. Although the estimation of direct costs is straightforward, the evaluation of indirect cost involves factors non-directly observable making the approximation a difficult issue. This paper provides an estimate of the indirect costs caused by a two weeks closure of the north-south Gotthard road corridor, one of the most important infrastructure links in Europe, and implements a cost-benefit analysis tool that allows the evaluation of measures ensuring a full protection along the corridor. The identification of the indirect cost relies on the generalized cost estimation, which parameters come from two stated preference experiments, the first based on actual condition whereas the second assumes a road closure. The procedure outlined in this paper proposes a methodology aimed to identify and quantify the economic vulnerability associated with a road transport infrastructure and, to evaluate the economic and social efficiency of a vulnerability reduction by the consideration of protective measures.infrastructure vulnerability, choice experiment, cost-benefit analysis, freight transport

Segmentation by skills and wage discrimination in a trans-border labor market

Global markets, free mobility and political integration among nation states should have a relevant impact on key issues in regional labor market studies, such as immigration, segmentation and delimitation. This paper presents an economic analysis of the impacts on segmentation, salary and human capital of the tight Swiss regulation imposed in past on immigrant workers. The case studied is the canton Ticino, a labor market whose gravity center is located at 20 km form the Italian border and 50 km from the center of the agglomeration of Milan. This very specific location allows to study the differentiated impacts on salaries, contract duration and allocation to industries of trans-border commuters as compared to short and long term immigrants. First evidence indicates the presence of a relevant immigration surplus (Borjas 1995) for the Ticino economy in the case of commuters and seasonal immigrants on the lower scale of qualification. Concerning more qualified labor force, empirical analysis of wage functions indicate a segmentation with respect to duration of contracts, more stable contracts being offered to resident workers. Here, the benefits are reaped by the protected labor force while industry does not seem to realize a significant surplus. The paper end with a theoretical discussion of the possible changes provoked by the imminent change in regulation implied by bilateral treaties on free mobility with the EU entering in vigor this year and draws some conclusions on the future relevance of the concept of border regions in a labor market context.

Adaptive stated preference analysis of shippers? transport and logistics choice

In this paper we propose a micro analysis of freight transport demand. Current research concentrates with few exceptions on shippers? choice of a transport mode and offers consistent evidence on the importance of characteristics. However, with globalised production and liberalisation, the market offers services which range from simple movement to integrated logistics. As a consequence, shippers? behaviour is conceived here as a complex decision which considers transport mode choice as only a part of a firm?s logistics strategy. Since there exists no data to directly estimate the marginal willingness to pay for different qualities of transport and logistics services a stated preference approach is applied. Adaptive stated preference experiments are performed and completed by background information on long term logistics strategy. Here, we present first results combining the outcome of choice analysis with evidence on the cases from which the data has been collected.

Accounting for WTP/WTA discrepancy in discrete choice models: Discussion of policy implications based on two freight transport stated choice experiments

A key input in cost-benefit analysis is represented by the marginal rate of substitution which expresses the willingness to pay, or its counterpart willingness to accept, for both market and non-market goods. The consistent discrepancy between these two measures observed in the literature suggests the need to estimate reference dependent models able to capturing loss aversion by distinguishing the value attached to a gain from the value attached to a loss according to reference dependent theory. This paper proposes a comparison of willingness to pay and willingness to accept measures estimated from models with both symmetric and reference dependent utility specifications within two different freight transport stated choice experiments. The results show that the reference dependent specification outperforms the symmetric specification and they prove the robustness of reference dependent specification over datasets designed according different attributes levels ranges. Moreover we demonstrate the policy relevance of asymmetric specifications illustrating the strong implications for cost-benefit analysis in two case studies.WTP/WTA discrepancy, freight choice, policy evaluation

Ethnic Concentration, Cultural Identity and Immigrant Self-Employment in Switzerland

Immigrant self-employment rates vary considerably across regions in Switzerland. Business ownership seems to provide an alternative to wage labour, where immigrants have to face structural barriers such as the limited knowledge of the local language, or difficulties in fruitfully making use of their own human capital. Despite the historically high unemployment rates with respect to natives, immigrants in Switzerland are less entrepreneurial. It is therefore important to uncover the determinants that may facilitate the transition from the status of immigrant to the one of economic agent. Among others factors, concentration in ethnic enclaves, as well as accumulated labour market experience and time elapsed since immigration, have been associated to higher business ownership rates. In this paper we use a cross-section of 2,490 Swiss municipalities in order to investigate the role played by the ethnic concentration of immigrants, as well as cultural factors, in determining self-employment rates.self-employment, immigrants, Switzerland, ethnic concentration, cultural identity

Understanding tourist behaviour in terms of activeness and intra-destination movement patterns for managing tourism experience

The dissertation is focusing on the demand side of tourism, in particular on tourists’ consumption of a destination and on the conceptualization of their decision process during visitation. Travel behaviour can be related to and motivated by several factors and the analysis of these factors allows a better understanding of tourists’ movements and activity participation. This information can be used for creating customized tourism products that can bring additional benefits to the tourists and the destination. In this context, destination cards are analysed in the thesis which are integrated products to facilitate tourists in their consumption by offering public transport usage and entrance to activities and attractions at the destination. The dissertation is divided into four chapters and refers to four research articles; three of them are published in refereed journals and one of them is presented in an edited book. The first article investigates the relation among motivation with variables introduced for the first time in this study, namely activeness indicators and destination card requirements. In addition, it attempts to identify the customer profile of destination cards. The second paper models the correlated choices of the spatial extent of the visited destination and the selection of transport modes, and determines the influential variables in this context applying bivariate probit models. The third article investigates the existence of spatial or product clustering in consumption with destination cards and looks for the discriminating factors among the clusters. Finally, the fourth paper reviews and elaborates theories on movement patterns and their influencing factors. The implications of the thesis are beneficial for destination marketing organizations, regional transport authorities and tourism operators

Corporate mobility: Impacts on life domains and implications for work-life balance of international business travelers and expatriates

In my dissertation I aim to explore the impacts of work-related mobility on job, family life and personal well-being of the travelling employees. To do so, three studies have been conducted with the purpose to investigate business travel behavioral patterns and impacts of work-related mobility on various life domains of the three segments, namely frequent corporate business travelers, expatriates and travelling academics, for whom the issues of travel stress and work-life balance are of great relevance. The first study focuses on the analysis of business travel impacts, both positive and negative ones, on the professional and private life of the 'road warriors', investigating the role of frequent work-related journeys in deteriorating work-life balance of the travelling employees. Having analyzed benefits and downsides of frequent business trips I address the possibility to enhance travel experience and improve employees' satisfaction and work productivity by means of providing travelers with the option to get involved into leisure life of visited destinations. The second paper examines factors that determine the degree of psychological success of expatriates and their satisfaction with international assignments overall, analyzing a wide array of variables from job, family and personal life domains. The research addresses the expatriation theme from the side of international assignees, providing implications for HRM departments directed towards improvement of expatriation experience. The last study sheds light on travel behavior of academics, investigating modes of travel and types of work-related trips undertaken by university employees, along with their attitude to travel and the influence of business trips on their work-life balance. The research demonstrates which trip features, work and non-work variables, as well as socio-demographic characteristics do matter when it comes to satisfaction with travel. The results of the afore-mentioned studies are relevant in terms of both theoretical contributions to the under-researched field of business travel, as well as practical implications. Apart from adding to the existing knowledge in the mobility field, the research outcomes demonstrate the necessity to carefully manage manifold aspects of business travel and expatriation in order to improve satisfaction of mobile employees with their trips of shorter or longer duration. In particular, the research sheds some light on work-life balance issues connected with travel, contributing to 'work-private life' conflict elimination and highlighting the crucial role of organizations in solving the existing problems

Understanding the impact of risk perception in leisure tourism-related decisions and the role of attitudes and preferences

The contemporary tourism industry is often forced to face events that represent a threat to individuals’ safety. Life- threatening events pose a challenge to travelers’ intentions to plan a leisure trip and influence in a substantive manner human decisions. Individual sensitivity towards potential hazards show a great deal of variation among consumers and several tourism scholars have spent the last years investigating the sources of heterogeneity in hazard-induced travel decisions. The present PhD dissertation collects three research articles dealing with tourist risk perception, hazard-induced travel behaviour and the role of individual traits in decision-making influenced by potential hazards. The specific aim of the study is to investigate the relationship between travel attitudes and hazard-induced risk perception, and between risk perception and travel choices. Furthermore, the work intends to assess the differences between distinct life-threatening hazards and the way in which these determine travel decisions. For the purpose of empirical analysis, a structured survey was administered to a sample of university students. Part of the questionnaire was dedicated to a stated preference experiment in which individuals had to choose between hypothetical alternatives of travels characterized by hazards. In this thesis, advanced econometric techniques – namely, Integrated Choice and Latent Variable modelling – are implemented in order to allow unobservable individual traits to be tested as significant determinants of travellers’ decisions. The main results highlight that travel attitudes bear a significant role in shaping risk perception only for certain types of hazards. The analysis of stated preferences data show that an increasing level of risk perception negatively influences the likelihood to travel to dangerous destinations, but important and significant differences are present in the sample of respondents

The role of attitudes in determining individual behavior in transportation: From psychology to discrete choice modeling

This dissertation focuses on the role of psychological factors, particularly attitudes, in determining individual behavior in transportation and proposes procedures and methods to improve the measurement of psychological variables to be used in choice modeling. The thesis is divided into three chapters containing a methodological section, showing the innovation of the econometrics steps, and an empirical work, based on datasets collected in the context of transportation. The first chapter describes the drawbacks of using common instruments for attitude measurement, such as Likert scale or semantic differentia scale, and proposes to analyze attitudinal data using the Evaluative Space Grid in order to distinguish individuals having indifferent and ambivalent attitudes, as well as positive and negative inclinations. The second chapter endeavors to integrate the Evaluative Space Grid in the framework of discrete choice modelling in order to avoid the aggregation of the individuals lying on the neutral part of the latent continuum of the attitude object of the study. In addition, it empirically tests the hypothesis that individuals revealing indifferent and ambivalent attitudes behave differently in the context of transport mode choice for commuting purposes. Finally, the last chapter proves that both long-term stable constructs which are “memory-based”, namely generalized attitudes, and short-term situational specific constructs which are built at the time a specific situation occurs, namely localized attitudes, contribute in shaping individual preferences

Regional labour market analysis and policy evaluation: Job insecurity, flexibility and complexity. Evidence from Switzerland

The thesis focuses on labour market flexibility, security and complexity. The research is divided into three chapters: two of the chapters specifically relate to perceived security, flexibility and job satisfaction, using data from the longitudinal Swiss Household Panel (SHP), while the last investigates labour market programs and their impact on a regional labour market. The first essay analyses perceptions of economic insecurity in Switzerland, during the business cycle between 2008 and 2011. The analysis contributes to depict perceptions of Swiss workers; results show that perceptions of job security tend to be higher among workers with supervisory responsibilities, among permanent workers and among workers who live in regions that are not adversely affected by economic conditions. The second essay focuses on the determinants of perceived job satisfaction, a summary measure reflecting how workers value various job characteristics, paying specific attention to the role of perceived security and temporary contracts. Results indicate that the duration of the contract may be less important if the worker perceives that he is not at risk of unemployment: job stability and perceived security are nonetheless valued in different ways and the lack of job security is a primary source of job dissatisfaction. No significant differences emerge on the estimated effect by gender, while some heterogeneity is evident by age and education. Finally, the third paper, that follows (ACE) models approach, highlights a mechanism of the job search in a regional labour market characterized by a complex environment where firms, worker agents and policies interact in a systemic way. The model allows to approximate quite a number of stylized features of the southern Swiss regional labour market