Suchergebnisse

Two hundred long-term cannabis users (58% male) were interviewed on their characteristics and experience of use. Respondents had been regularly using cannabis for an average of 11 years and more than half used daily (56%). The most common route of administration was in a waterpipe, and nearly all (93%) smoked the flowering heads ot the plant. One in 5 (21%) had a cannabis-related conviction. The benefits of use were perceived to be its relaxing, mood-enhancing effects, and its ability to alter consciousness. The most commonly cited negative aspects of use were cost, negative psychological effects and legal status. Polydrug use was common, with alcohol and tobacco almost universally used on a regular basis. More than half the drinkers in the sample were consuming alcohol at hazardous or harmful levels.

This paper for the first time addresses trade-offs between long-term energy efficiency investments in two major areas: housing and transport, e.g., retrofitting the house versus purchasing a more efficient car. The main question is whether homeowners treat their energy consumption and related expenses as one single budget or as two separate ones. A survey of homeowners (owner-occupiers) was conducted to study this issue. It comprised questions about their households, houses and car fleets as well as a relevant series of nine Stated Preference experiments with various listed energy prices. The resulting (personalized) energy costs were shown to the respondents along with the following optional ways to lower them: insulate the house (1), install a heat pump (2), buy a more efficient car (3), and switch to public transport (4). The alternatives differed with regard to the investment sum, the expected savings, the expected CO2 reduction and the expected annual mileage. The data were used to estimate a Multinomial Logit to predict the homeowners investment decisions regarding energy efficiency and private transport mobility tools. The model included socioeconomic variables, variables pertaining to the condition of the houses, the composition of the private transport fleets and energy prices.

Emergency financial management is a relatively recent and unique form of municipal governance that is designed to address local fiscal crises by concentrating the decision making power in the hands of a temporarily appointed chief executive. In this paper, we examine practices of emergency financial management in three Michigan cities in the Detroit metropolitan area to understand the role of emergency financial managers in helping the cities to address chronic fiscal distress. Through the analysis of data from comprehensive annual financial reports, we show that emergency financial management tends to produce budgetary-level improvements in fiscal condition. We also discuss policies that can assist emergency financial managers in bringing longer-term fiscal health to struggling cities.

Introduction: Increased voluntary work in long-term care (LTC) is encouraged in white papers in Norway as well as in many other western states. This is due to the growth in the number of service recipients and a subsequent economic burden for the state. Voluntary work in nursing homes and home care services take place in different spatial contexts, but little attention has been paid to how the different contexts may potentially influence the possibilities for voluntary work. The aim of this study is to obtain new knowledge of the significance of context in recruitment of volunteers in LTC. Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted among leaders in nursing homes and home services in 50 municipalities across all regions of Norway. Descriptive analysis was used. Results: According to the leaders, home care services had less voluntary work than nursing homes. Respondents from home care scored "poor flow of information" and "low interest in the municipality" as major hinderances, more so than respondents from nursing homes did. Discussion: Nursing homes typically have many residents under one roof following a similar schedule. Thus, volunteer-run activities are held more easily at set times and incorporated into the daily life of the institutions. On the other hand, home dwellers in home care stay in a more individualised setting with more autonomy and can opt out of activities that nursing home residents would normally join. Skill acquisition, networking and socializing are common motivations for volunteering, and a nursing home setting may be an easier context to obtain this. The governmental endeavour for increased voluntary work in LTC can be seen as an effort to meet expected rises in public expenditure. However, the realism can be debated due to substantial challenges on the future potential of volunteerism in LTC, especially in the home care context. ; publishedVersion

Abstract
This paper explores the existence of a link between the long-term exposure to malaria and the frequency of civil conflicts in Africa. Using geographically disaggregated data at the level of grid cells the analysis provides empirical evidence for a hump-shaped relationship between the long-run stability and force of malaria transmission and the incidence of civil violence. In line with epidemiological predictions about the acquired immunity to malaria, cells that are characterized by intermediate malaria exposure exhibit higher conflict incidence than cells with very low or very high malaria exposure. We explore the role of the expansion of anti-malaria policies after 2005 in the context of the Roll Back Malaria programme. The results provide suggestive evidence that anti-malaria interventions reduced the incidence of civil violence, but only in areas where adults lack acquired immunity to malaria.

Master in the Electric Power Industry ; Nowadays, energy utilities are becoming more and more international, expanding their business to other countries. Before doing so, they must assess the risks that they may face, for example at investing in new generation units, since they affect profitability of new projects. Among others, risks may include future electricity prices, uptake of renewables, governmental supports, demand growth, etc. This Thesis evaluates, from a utility's perspective, how might electricity fundamentals evolve in the future, such as: electricity prices, installed capacity mix and generation mix in Australia's National Electricity Market. For achieving this objective, a long-term capacity expansion planning model which minimises system's costs has been used. Two scenarios are simulated: the first one, called high renewables scenario, is based on a neutral scenario published by the system operator. The second scenario, which is called very high renewables scenario, is based on economical rationales: it considers that the minimum uptake of renewables is the one presented in the former scenario and more and more renewables are iteratively added in those states of Australia in which the profitability of renewable projects is positive. As renewables are installed into the system, their expected margins erode. Hence, the iterative process is stopped whenever the internal rate of return of a photovoltaics or wind project is lower than 7% in that state, which is considered the threshold under which utilities would not continue investing. The results show that coal generation will tend to disappear after plant decommissioning: it will be replaced by more modern and cheaper gas-fired power plants and renewable generators. Under the high renewables scenario, additional renewable capacity is not profitable until the year 2030. After 2030, new additional projects might be built in some states where their profitability is higher, thus increasing the uptake in the second scenario of very high renewables. In this scenario, cannibalisation is visible not only in the states where more renewables are installed (to reduce the internal rate of return until a value slightly lower than 7%), but also in the other states, meaning that the installation of more renewables in one state affects the whole market. As a conclusion, revenues received by renewable generators only from the energy market seem, in most of the cases, to not be enough to cover their investment, operation and maintenance costs. Therefore, they need other kind of supports so that utilities consider investing in more projects if Australia's governmental institutions desire to have more renewable generators in the system.

Foreword -- Introduction -- The Tragedy of the Commons: A Theoretical Update -- Who is in the Commons? Defining Community and Management Practices in Long Term Natural Resource Management -- Managing risk through cooperation: Need-based transfers and risk pooling among the societies of the Human Generosity Project -- Trolls, Water, Time, and Community: Resource Management in the Mývatn District of Northeast Iceland -- Organization of high-altitude summer pastures: the dialectics of conflict and cooperation -- Large-Scale Land Acquisition as Commons Grabbing: A comparative analysis of six African case studies -- Open Access, Open Systems: Pastoral Resource Management in the Chad Basin -- Mollusk Harvesting in the Pre-European Contact Pacific Islands: investigating Resilience and Sustainability -- Environment and Landscapes of Latin America's Past -- Collaborative and Competitive Strategies in the Variability and Resiliency of Early Complex Societies in Mesoamerica -- The Native California Commons: Ethnographic and Archaeological Perspectives on Land Control, Resource Use, and Management -- Identifying Common Pool Resources in the Archaeological Record: A Case Study of Water Commons from the North American Southwest

Abstract
What motivates consumers to avoid unhealthy behaviors (e.g., consuming sugar, energy drinks, and fast food)? Traditional interventions and lay intuition suggest that to motivate themselves, consumers can consider the negative long-term health consequences of their decisions. Yet, consumers still struggle to avoid unhealthy behaviors. Seven experiments (N = 4,021) offer a different approach. We find that considering short-term costs of unhealthy behaviors (e.g., irritability or indigestion after eating sugar) better curbs these behaviors than considering long-term costs or no costs. We theorize that short-term costs are more effective at reducing unhealthy behavior because they are more strongly associated with the act of consumption, both in terms of immediate timing and perceived likelihood of costs occurring. As such, short-term costs are better at undermining the reason for consuming unhealthily: anticipated enjoyment of the consumption experience. We test this process by (a) demonstrating mediation via increased association strength and subsequent decreased anticipated enjoyment, (b) manipulating the association strength between consumption and costs (i.e., same cost realized sooner vs. later), and (c) demonstrating moderation via consumers' goal for eating unhealthily. These results identify a powerful but underutilized self-regulation strategy—emphasizing short-term costs of unhealthy consumption—with implications for consumers and marketers.

Goals The opinion of the National Board of Fisheries is that the following goals should apply for salmon conservation in the Baltic Sea: a) The short-term goal is to eradicate the acute threat to genetic impoverishment or in certain cases actual elimination, which the majority of wild salmon stocks face today. b) The long-term goal is to utilize the entire natural reproduction potential in every salmon carrying river or part of river. An interim goal set by the Baltic Sea Fisheries Commission is that a level of 50 % of the reproduction capacity in each salmon carrying river should be achieved before the year2010. c) The growth potential in the sea should be made better use of than at present. The state of stocks Most of the wild salmon stocks in the Gulf of Bothnia are in a precarious situation. The outbreak of the so-called M74 syndrome in the early nineties has aggravated the position. The syndrome has now caused extensive mortality over a period of five years and shows no signs of abating. The presumption here must therefore be that the level of mortality will continue to be much the same ashitherto. Strict protection measures are therefore required. The EU's so-called Lassen Report recommends on its part a ban on salmon fishery in the Baltic Sea for the year 1997. The advice of ICES (the ACFM report) concerning recommendations for salmon fishery in 1997 is not available until later this year. In the current report the National Board of Fisheries has among other things acted on biological source material similar to what the ICES Baltic salmon working group has had access to. Measures during 1997 a) Total allowable catch (TAC) On account of the critical situation for the majority of stocks of naturally reproducing salmon in the Baltic Sea, where the M74 syndrome will as far as can be judged remain for a number of years to come, a substantial reduction in catches of such salmon is of vital importance. In view of this and bearing in mind the predetermined interim goal that a level of 50 % of the natural reproduction capacity in each salmon carrying river should be achieved before the year 2010, and also observing established Finnish regulations and proposed Swedish measures in the Bothnian Bay, the Nationa lBoard of Fisheries has worked out alternative TAC levels; 206 000, 262 000 and 314 000 salmons respectively, depending on the efficacy of the coastal fishery regulations decided on by Finland and those now proposed by the National Board of Fisheries. With regard to the uncertainty in these calculations, it would seem appropriate to make to choose a TAC for 1997 at the lower end of the stated interval. This assessment assumes that the coastal fishery regulations mentioned are implemented to the full. The National Board of Fisheries also shows what effects an increased share of catches in the Gulf of Bothnia - within an unchanged total Swedish quota - would have on the exploitation of wild salmon stocks. Any such change would entail reduced exploitation of wild salmon, at all events withthe implementation of the new coastal fishery regulations, i.e. the Finnish ones decided on and the Swedish ones here proposed. Changes in the distribution of quotas between the northern and southern Baltic would also have political allocation consequences, for which reason the Board refrains from submitting a proposal on this matter b) Terminal fishing areas and closed areas In certain areas along the coast of the Bothnian Bay, outside rivers with reared stocks, it is intended to set up so-called terminal fishing areas. In these areas, where the proportion of reared salmon is considerably greater, and of wild salmon considerably smaller than average, extensive fishing canbe conducted on reared salmon over along season. In the terminal fishing areas substantial catches can be made of reared salmon which, with the reduced TAC level now proposed, will in futurere turn to spawn to a greater extent than at present. The proposal entails maintaining, or alternatively extending, existing closed areas outside rivers with wild stocks with a continued ban on salmon fishery for 1997. The intention is to ease the restrictionsas soon as the stock situation allows.The precise extent and limits of the closed areas and terminal fishing areas will be more closely defined in the autumn of 1996. c) Closed seasons etc. The National Board of Fisheries proposes differentiated closed seasons during the early summer for the coastal areas of the Gulf of Bothnia, which in this respect would be divided into three areas. The proposal has taken into consideration the recently approved Finnish regulations. Coastal fishery with a fixed open season, as in the Finnish regulations, has very varying effects in years with early and late spawning migration. For the closed seasons to have the greatest possible effect it is therefore intended to lay down an opening date every year which vairies within ± 10 days. This will be based on the close relationship between the winter-spring water temperature in the southern Baltic and the point in time when the salmon spawning migration starts along the coast of northern Sweden. A forecast of the spawning migration period can be made 1-2 months before the fishery starts in the Gulf of Bothnia. d) The National Board of Fisheries intends to reintroduce a ban on fishing with salmon nets and salmon lines north of 59°30'N in the Baltic Sea, starting from the salmon fishing season in 1996. Such a ban prevailed up to the admission of Sweden to the EU. e) Adipose fin clipping The National Board of Fisheries proposes that all reared salmon released in the Baltic Sea area should be fin clipped for a period of preferably 4 years, or alternatively permanently, if the operationturns out well, as an aid to the management of wild and reared salmon. Adipose fin clipping should be formulated as an international project so as best to be able to synchronise the time-limited project and maximise the outcome for future management. f) Delayed release The National Board of Fisheries proposes that the trials with delayed release should now be intensified throughout the actual Baltic Sea. Danish trials off Bornholm have shown very favourable results. Sweden should be able to contribute know-how in the implementation of the trials. The Board is of the opinion that funds should be available from the EU for this matter. Measures from 1998 and onwards a) Implementation of the "salmon package" The National Board of Fisheries proposes that the so-called salmon package, with a central closed area in the actual Baltic Sea and fishing for reared salmon in accordance with the delayed release method, be implemented under joint international action. By this means it is possible both to preserve naturally reproducing salmon stocks and to maintain and in the long run to increase profitable professional fishing for salmon in the Baltic Sea. Moreover, the increased return migration of salmon to the natural salmon rivers will have a considerable effect on employment by facilitating the development of extensive fishing by tourists. b) Greater mesh size If the so-called salmon package is not implemented, a considerable increase in the mesh size of salmon nets is proposed (to a magnitude of 225 mm, similar to what has been proposed in Finland). Research and investigation needs It is proposed that the following projects be implemented: - To be able to minimise catches of wild salmon in the proposed terminal fishing areas, it is important that they are demarcated in the best possible manner. For this to be possible all available information should be utilized to the full. This means that tagging data, information on wild salmon migration etc must be compiled before the final formulation of these areas can take place in the autumn of 1996. - Plans should be drawn up for the implementation of enhancement releases to a greater extent than today if the proposed fishery regulations do not come into force or the measures do not have the desired effect on the size of stocks. The plans should be drawn up in 1996 -1997 and they should be implemented before the year 2000 if the size of stocks does not increase in the way intended. One fundamental objective is that the releases should be temporary. - It should be investigated whether the establishment of goals for the quantity of spawning fish (escapement) for individual wild salmon stocks is a suitable management instrument. It is partly a question of the theoretical background, but also the practical formulation, e.g. measuring how the goal is achieved and consequences for management dependent on whether the goal is achieved or not. - One or two Swedish salmon rivers in the Baltic Sea area should be established as so-called indexrivers, where the salmon stocks are followed particularly closely over a long period. This means among other things that return migration, parr production and smolt migration are monitored annually over a long succession of years. In these rivers survival during various phases of life can be studied closely.

The aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2007-08 underlined the importance of maintaining fiscal space and fiscal sustainability. Even though many Asian economies implemented fiscal stimulus policies during the crisis period, their fiscal conditions generally improved rapidly thereafter, and their overall government debt positions, aside from that of Japan, appear strong. This reflects a number of supportive factors, including strong underlying growth, conservative fiscal management, and financial repression that keep interest rates low. Nonetheless, there are a number of reasons to believe that conditions in emerging Asian economies will not always be so supportive. First, economic growth will tend to slow as countries reach higher income levels. Second, many economies will face rapid aging, which will raise old-age-related spending dramatically, while tending to reduce economic dynamism. Third, financial repression is likely to diminish as financial markets develop, making debt management more challenging. The first objective of this paper is to identify long-term issues of fiscal sustainability risk for emerging Asian economies - such as large-scale subsidies, infrastructure investment requirements, aging and social protection spending, contingent liabilities, financial repression, and the exposure of the domestic banking sector to sovereign debt. The second objective is to recommend policies to reduce these risks to sustainability, including improving the balance of revenues and expenditures, implementing more explicit fiscal rules and frameworks, and establishing stronger fiscal surveillance at the national and regional levels.

This thesis aims at better understanding long-term care insurance puzzle. Three determinants of the long-term care insurance market low development are studied here: individual preferences, self-insurance and myopia. To do so, we use two surveys that have introduced dependency-specific modules: "Preferences and patrimony against time and risk" and "Health Care and Insurance". The results highlight the role of these three determinants of long-term care insurance demand in the low development of the market. If myopia advocate for a government intervention in French citizens long-term care planning, the impact of individual preference and self-insurance behaviors suggest that the nonpurchase of long-term care policies is economically rational. ; Cette thèse se propose d'étudier l'existence de freins au développement du marché privé de l'assurance dépendance en France. Nous étudions ici tour à tour trois candidats dans l'explication de ce faible développement : les préférences individuelles, les comportements d'auto-assurance et la myopie des agents. Pour cela, nous exploitons les enquêtes « Préférences et Patrimoine vis-à-vis du risque et du temps » et « Santé et protection sociale » qui ont toutes deux introduit des modules spécifiques dépendance dans les vagues d'enquêtes mobilisées dans cette thèse. Nos analyses économétriques confirment le rôle d'obstacle de ces trois déterminants de la demande d'assurance dépendance. Si l'existence d'une mauvaise perception du risque dépendance plaide pour l'intervention de l'Etat dans la relation des français à la planification de leurs pertes d'autonomie, le rôle des préférences individuelles et les comportements d'auto-assurance mis en évidence dans cette thèse révèle un choix économiquement rationnel de ne pas recourir à une assurance dépendance.