Robust transport planning: conceptualising the citp and iptn plan under deep uncertainty

The transport planning profession is becoming increasingly aware of how uncertain the future is. The level of uncertainty in transport planning and decision-making has intensified ‒ as it has in a number of spheres of policy ‒ in the face of climate change, political and economic instability, technological innovation, and changing consumer preferences (Lyons, 2016). COVID-19 has accelerated many innovative and disruptive transitions, expanding the set of plausible futures and compounding the ‘deep’ uncertainty that we have about planning for a future that is decades, and many crises, away from the present (UN-Habitat, 2020). Conventional transport planning practices conceal uncertainty by relying heavily on historic cause-effect relationships, and result in misplaced confidence in our predictive abilities (Marsden & McDonald, 2019). This presentation outlines the development of the Comprehensive Integrated Transport Plan (CITP) and Integrated Public Transport Network (IPTN) plan in the City of Cape Town using new transport planning practices that try to grapple with the deep uncertainty we’re facing in long-term transport planning in South Africa. The new approach brings together new techniques from the climate adaptation, Decision-Making under Deep Uncertainty (DMDU), and sustainability transitions research fields into transport planning. This development process has resulted from a unique knowledge co-production arrangement between academia and local government that was started in 2017. The lessons from developing this new transport planning approach together, which still meets the established CITP and IPTN plan requirements, will be relevant to those cities across South Africa, and many others in the Global South, who are looking to embed more resilience in their transport planning system in the post-covid era.Papers presented at the 40th International Southern African Transport Conference on 04 -08 July 202

An examination of the relationship of governance structure and performance: Evidence from banking companies in Bangladesh

Corporate governance has become increasingly important in developed and developing countries just after a series of corporate scandals and failures in a number of countries. Corporate governance structure is often viewed as a means of corporate success despite prior studies reveal mixed, somewhere conflicting and ambiguous, and somewhere no relationship between governance structure and performance. This study empirically investigates the relationship between corporate governance mechanisms and financial performance of listed banking companies in Bangladesh by using two multiple regression models. The study reveals that a good number of companies do not comply with the regulatory requirements indicating remarkable shortfall in corporate governance practice. The companies are run by the professional managers having no duality and no ownership interest for which they are compensated by high remuneration to curb agency conflict. Apart from some inconsistent relationship between some corporate variables, the corporate governance mechanisms do not appear to have significant relationship with financial performances. The findings reveal an insignificant negative impact or somewhere no impact of independent directors and non-independent non-executive directors on the level of performance that strongly support the concept that the managers are essentially worthy of trust and earn returns for the owners as claimed by stewardship theory. The study provides support for the view that while much emphasis on corporate governance mechanisms is necessary to safeguard the interest of stakeholders; corporate governance on its own, as a set of codes or standards for corporate conformance, cannot make a company successful. Companies need to balance corporate governance mechanisms with performance by adopting strategic decision and risk management with the efficient utilization of the organization’s resources

Why do large shareholders adopt a short-term versus a long-term investment horizon in different firms?

I ask why the same large shareholders have different investment horizons. Using data for 1998–2013, I examine four fundamental firm policies for their potential influence on blockholders’ investments with different time horizons. The panel ordinary least squares, difference‐in‐difference (using the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act), logistic, and dynamic generalized method of moments regression analyses reveal that blockholders adopt a short‐term horizon in smaller firms with a less independent board, high leverage, and high dividends while the same blockholders keep their investments longer in firms with a more independent board and low dividends. Under various economic conditions, different firm characteristics gain importance in blockholders’ decision on short‐term versus long‐term investments

Multiple agency perspective, family control, and private information abuse in an emerging economy

Using a comprehensive sample of listed companies in Hong Kong this paper investigates how family control affects private information abuses and firm performance in emerging economies. We combine research on stock market microstructure with more recent studies of multiple agency perspectives and argue that family ownership and control over the board increases the risk of private information abuse. This, in turn, has a negative impact on stock market performance. Family control is associated with an incentive to distort information disclosure to minority shareholders and obtain private benefits of control. However, the multiple agency roles of controlling families may have different governance properties in terms of investors’ perceptions of private information abuse. These findings contribute to our understanding of the conflicting evidence on the governance role of family control within a multiple agency perspectiv

A Low-Mass Planet with a Possible Sub-Stellar-Mass Host in Microlensing Event MOA-2007-BLG-192

We report the detection of an extrasolar planet of mass ratio q ~ 2 x 10^(-4) in microlensing event MOA-2007-BLG-192. The best fit microlensing model shows both the microlensing parallax and finite source effects, and these can be combined to obtain the lens masses of M = 0.060 (+0.028 -0.021) M_sun for the primary and m = 3.3 (+4.9 -1.6) M_earth for the planet. However, the observational coverage of the planetary deviation is sparse and incomplete, and the radius of the source was estimated without the benefit of a source star color measurement. As a result, the 2-sigma limits on the mass ratio and finite source measurements are weak. Nevertheless, the microlensing parallax signal clearly favors a sub-stellar mass planetary host, and the measurement of finite source effects in the light curve supports this conclusion. Adaptive optics images taken with the Very Large Telescope (VLT) NACO instrument are consistent with a lens star that is either a brown dwarf or a star at the bottom of the main sequence. Follow-up VLT and/or Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations will either confirm that the primary is a brown dwarf or detect the low-mass lens star and enable a precise determination of its mass. In either case, the lens star, MOA-2007-BLG-192L, is the lowest mass primary known to have a companion with a planetary mass ratio, and the planet, MOA-2007-BLG-192Lb, is probably the lowest mass exoplanet found to date, aside from the lowest mass pulsar planet.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. Scheduled for the Sept. 1, 2008 issu

Risk-shifting Through Issuer Liability and Corporate Monitoring

This article explores how issuer liability re-allocates fraud risk and how risk allocation may reduce the incidence of fraud. In the US, the apparent absence of individual liability of officeholders and insufficient monitoring by insurers under-mine the potential deterrent effect of securities litigation. The underlying reasons why both mechanisms remain ineffective are collective action problems under the prevailing dispersed ownership structure, which eliminates the incentives to moni-tor set by issuer liability. This article suggests that issuer liability could potentially have a stronger deterrent effect when it shifts risk to individuals or entities holding a larger financial stake. Thus, it would enlist large shareholders in monitoring in much of Europe. The same risk-shifting effect also has implications for the debate about the relationship between securities litigation and creditor interests. Credi-tors’ claims should not be given precedence over claims of defrauded investors (e.g., because of the capital maintenance principle), since bearing some of the fraud risk will more strongly incentivise large creditors, such as banks, to monitor the firm in jurisdictions where corporate debt is relatively concentrated

Hamlet and the fall of the Berlin wall : the myth of interventionist Shakespeare performance

The critical reception of Heiner Müller’s 1990 Hamlet/Maschine at the Deutsches Theater in East Berlin epitomizes a trend of crediting GDR Shakespeare performance with political influence. Drawing on rehearsal notes and reviews, Oliver challenges the interventionist Shakespeare myth, contrasting the Deutsches Theater’s political involvement with the impact of its Hamlet production on events surrounding the fall of the Berlin Wall. Shakespeare’s capacity for political intervention at this point was limited by theater practitioners’ reliance on public funding, their close relationships with governmental authority, and an underlying distrust of the masses. Ultimately, GDR artists proved useful to the 1989 protest movement because they occupied a unique position at the interface of dissidence and power

Agricultural R&D, technology and productivity.

Published versio

The interaction of adverse childhood experiences and gender as risk factors for depression and anxiety disorders in US adults: a cross-sectional study

Background Exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and being female are distinct risk factors for having a major depressive episode (MDE) or an anxiety disorder (AD) in adulthood, but it is unclear whether these two risk factors are synergistic. The purpose of this study was to determine whether exposure to ACEs and being female are more than additive (synergistic) in their association with MDE and AD in US adults. Methods We pooled cross-sectional survey data in the Midlife in the United States study from two nationally-representative cohorts of English-speaking US adults. Data from the first cohort were collected in 2004–2006 and from the second in 2011–2014. Data from both cohorts included the 12-month prevalence of MDE and AD (generalized anxiety disorder or panic disorder) assessed with the Composite International Diagnostic Interview Short Form, gender (here termed female and male), and the count of five categories of exposure to ACEs: physical, sexual, or emotional abuse; household alcohol or substance abuse; and parental separation or divorce. Results Of the 5834 survey respondents, 4344 (74.5%) with complete data on ACEs were included in the analysis. Mean (SD) age was 54.1 (13.8) years and 53.9% were female. The prevalences of MDE, AD, and exposure to 3–5 categories of ACEs were 13.7, 10.0, and 12.5%, respectively. After adjusting for covariates (age, race, and current and childhood socioeconomic disadvantage), for those with both risk factors (female and 3–5 ACEs) the prevalence of MDE was 26.9%. This was 10.2% (95% CI: 1.8, 18.5%) higher than the expected prevalence based on the additive associations of the two risk factors. The adjusted prevalence of AD among females with 3–5 ACEs was 21.9%, which was 11.4% (95% CI: 4.0, 18.9%) higher than the expected prevalence. Conclusions For both MDE and AD, there was synergy between the two risk factors of exposure to ACEs and being female. Identification and treatment of MDE and AD may benefit from understanding the mechanisms involved in the synergistic interaction of gender with ACEs

Did Corporate Governance Compliance Have an Impact on Auditor Selection and Quality? Evidence From FTSE 350

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.This paper examines the possible effects of corporate governance (GC) on audit quality (AQ) among the FTSE 350 companies. Using a sample of 180 companies from 2012 to 2017 (i.e., 1080 firm-year observations) a binary logistic model has been employed to investigate the CG-AQ nexus. This analysis was supported by conducting a probit logistic model as a sensitivity analysis. Our findings are associative of a heterogeneous impact of CG on AQ post the implementation of the 2012 CG reforms in the UK. For example, although institutional ownership and management ownership are positively associated with auditor selection and AQ, board independence, non-executive directors and audit committee are not attributed to AQ in the UK. This implies that corporate compliance with good CG practices has a limited impact on the decision to select a Big4 auditor in the UK. Despite the limitations of our study, we hope it can motivate further investigations in this area