Suchergebnisse

This report discusses the National Water Research and Development initiative Act of 2009, that would formally establish a federal inter agency committee to coordinate federal water research. It also discusses water research coordination and strategy.

This paper separates macroeconomic shocks into external and domestic aggregate demand and supply shocks in European Union's post-transition countries. Small open economies are typically very responsive to external shocks. The standard decomposition into aggregate demand and supply shocks covers up important information on the sources of business cycle fluctuations. Using a Bayesian SVAR model with combined sign and block exogeneity restrictions, we separately estimate external and domestic aggregate supply and demand shocks for GDP growth and inflation. We find that domestic shocks were a dominant source of fluctuations during the transition period in Croatia from 1992 to 2000. However, external shocks increased their importance with the trade and financial sector liberalization after 2000, becoming the dominant source of fluctuations with the Global financial crisis in 2008. In the short run, fluctuations are best explained by domestic shocks in 9 out of 11 analyzed countries, especially domestic supply shocks. However, in the medium run, fluctuations are dominantly explained by external aggregate demand shocks in 8 out of 11 countries. We argue that common sources of fluctuations in the medium run are beneficial for common monetary policy in the Eurozone.

Current U.S. law prohibits compensation for cadaveric organ donation. The resulting organ shortage causes thousands of deaths per year. The primary tool currently relied on by the organ procurement industry to increase organ supply is educational spending aimed at both industry professionals and the general public. This article evaluates the effectiveness of such spending across a fairly comprehensive and unique sample of free‐standing U.S. organ procurement organizations, controlling for the size of the organization, population demographics, and geographic region. The authors find no evidence that such spending is effective on the margin and conclude that the organ shortage is unlikely to be resolved by increased educational expenditures. (JEL I18, I11)

"Religion, Law, and the Present Water Crisis documents current and impending global water shortages and opposes policies of commodification and privatization of water ownership by multinational water corporations. On the basis of the religions of the world, Richard A. Hughes appeals to pure, running water as a symbol of the sacred. Furthermore, he argues that all bodies of freshwater are commons and that they should be protected by the public trust doctrine. In addition, he contends that there is a right to water and that this right is independent, free-standing, and the prerequisite of other human rights, applying to all states and occupied territories. The increasing acidification of the oceans makes it mandatory to protect them under the reserved water right doctrine and to designate them as "national parks" of the seas. More generally, this book presents a synthesis of water studies and encompasses the religions of the world, theologies of baptism, American water law doctrines, public trust doctrine with special attention to Islamic water law, and international water law treaties. Clean water is a necessity of life. Therefore, it is compelling to recognize the urgency of water scarcity and the need to guarantee the purity of and accessibility to water for all people"--P.4 of cover

This volume explores the role of water in the Middle East's current economic, political and environmental transformations, which are set to continue in the near future. In addition to examining water conflict from within the domestic contexts of Iraq, Yemen and Syria - all experiencing high levels of instability today - the contributors shed further light on how conflict over water resources has influenced political relations in the region. They interrogate how competition over water resources may precipitate or affect war in the Middle East, and assess whether or how resource vulnerability impacts fragile states and societies in the region and beyond.

This paper studies the effects of property-titling on labor supply. The role of legal ownership security is isolated by comparing the effect that being part of, or excluded from, a land title program in a unique quasi-experiment in two similar communities in the Brazilian city of Osasco. Our main innovation is the estimation of the distributive impact of land title on hours worked via the quantile regression methodology and the weighting estimator of Firpo (2007). The estimates suggest that the impact of land-titling on labor supply is heterogeneous and greater for those households with fewer

Includes bibliographical references. ; South Africa is still feeling the effects of the forced inequalities the apartheid system introduced and the resulting wide-spread poverty. Inequalities are particularly evident in the quality of services provided to different areas, which are in the majority still defined by race. The majority of White households have very good service provision, with water piped directly into the home. A great number of Black and Coloured households, by contrast, have very low levels of service where family members have to walk to collect water from communal taps. To this day, there are households in South Africa that do not have access to water infrastructure at all relying on rivers, streams or boreholes, with an increased risk of experiencing water borne diseases. With the end of apartheid and the beginning of democracy in 1994, the new government prioritised the redress of inequalities and sought to better the lives of the poor by providing them with improved services. This meant building or upgrading infrastructure as well as ongoing maintenance; whilst the initial costs were high, it became very quickly apparent that revenue needed to be collected in order to cover costs. Between 2008 and 2009, 26.3% of South Africans were living below the food poverty line of R305 per person, and 52.3% were living below the upper bound poverty line, and this meant that many households were not able to afford the upgraded services. In recognising this challenge the Free Basic Water Policy (FBWP) was established in 2001, which provided a limited "lifeline" supply of water to every household for free, while any additional water usage would have to be paid for. When the FBWP was conceptualised, it was designed to meet certain implementation and supply quality goals and standards. However, over time criticism rose that these goals had not been achieved and that in some cases the policy proved counterproductive. The objective of this dissertation is to examine the implementation of FBWP thus far, and to assess whether or not it is achieving the originally intended goals and standards. Quantitative data was gathered and used to compare the progress of the implementation of the FBWP to the implementation goals in order to assess whether or not the goals are being met. Overall there were six major goals for the implementation of the FBWP, with specific targets and standards pertaining to each goal. For the purpose of this study, the data for each goal was analysed and discussed so that the progress in achieving each goal could be assessed. The findings show that significant progress and improvement has been made in supplying Free Basic Water (FBW]. Although access to water supply and FBW, the level of service provided and the quality of the water have improved, there are still households who are not receiving FBW at the required standards. From the rate of progress made it can be seen that the original intention of providing FBW for all by 2014 was over-optimistic. A second finding was that the FBWP is not financially sustainable at present and that there is currently a lack of asset management and maintenance planning in many municipalities in South Africa, which has resulted in substantial revenue losses. It was also found that the monitoring of the FBWP is currently not sufficient. Aspects such as appropriateness of the allocated amount can only be resolved with improved monitoring mechanisms. The effectiveness of education programmes on water usage requires assessment in order to understand how increased awareness can impact on households' ability to safe water.

Purpose
Although studies have demonstrated the importance of supply chain integration (SCI) strategies in improving firm performance, very little is understood about how the organizational structure (OS) of focal firms affects the successful implementation of SCI initiatives across supply chains (SCs). Taking into consideration the importance of the oil and gas (O&G) industry, as well as the impact of uncertainties on OS and strategy choices, it is important to understand how OS and SCI affect the operational performance of O&G SCs. The paper aims to discuss this issue.


Design/methodology/approach
Taking a contingency approach and using a global sample of 181 O&G firms, this study examines the mediating role of internal, customer, and supplier integration on the relationship between three main dimensions of OS – the degree of centralization, formalization, and hierarchical relationships and operational performance, using structural equation modeling.


Findings
Findings reveal that OS dimensions negatively impact operational performance. Further testing for the mediation found that by increasing SCI, O&G SCs can mitigate the negative effect of high centralization, formalization, and hierarchical relationship on operational performance.


Research limitations/implications
Classifying OS into "structuring" and "structural," this research provides evidence on which of the two has a stronger negative impact on operational performance. This is significant since it may be difficult for O&G companies to restructure and reform their OS.


Originality/value
This study examines the impact of OS and SCI on improving the operational performance of the O&G SCs. Theoretical and practical contributions to the field of operations management and organizational studies are also discussed.

In this paper, an optimization model using fuzzy game theory for three players is developed, which is affected by customer demands in a green supply chain. The proposed model includes a practical solution to increase the confidence level of players to choose plausible green strategy. Initially, the strategies are formulated using the game theory as manufacturer, costumer and government, to be able to optimize the pay-off uncertainty conditions of demands, by combining computational fuzzy set with ability of sensitive analysis of related fuzzy parameters to enhance the calculations and problem solving, with presenting Nash equilibrium the problem solving part.

Submitted to Office of Water Research and Technology, U.S. Dept. of Interior. ; Bibliography: pages 199-205. ; September 1977. ; Employing a Q-Sort Factor Analytical Design, this study sought to develop a system for parametric representation of non-linear data structures using data acquired from representative samples of entire communities. The representations are specified in terms of a spatial metric "social space," an analog of psychological space. The defined social space is then characterized and used to define the community action zone which is hypothesized to a zone of community acceptance for those policies falling within its bounds. Such a zone for the communities of Lafayette and Louisville, Colorado was used to define socially and politically feasible water conservation policies for the communities. Policies with the highest feasibility for acceptance were legal restrictions on water use and restrictions on growth and development. The next most feasible were horticultural techniques and economic solutions. Reuse for agricultural purposes also appeared to have some political feasibility. This study demonstrated the usefulness of survey research in delineating viable water conservation programs. ; OWRT Project no. A-030-COLO; supported by U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Office of Water Research and Technology, under Grant Agreement nos. 14-34-0001-6006, 14-34-0001-7011, 14-34-0001-7012.

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to identify and develop the structural relationship among the key drivers to control and enhance the supply management (SM) performance in Indian manufacturing environment.


Design/methodology/approach
– The drivers (i.e. sourcing alternatives and supplier selection, supplier development (SD), contract management (CM) and risk management (RM)) of SM were identified and SM integration model was proposed through literature review and in consultation with industry experts. The proposed model was validated by capturing experts' view in Indian manufacturing environment. The strength of relationships between these drivers and on SM performance was also established using structural equation modeling.


Findings
– CM has positive direct effect on SM performance and two drivers (i.e. sourcing alternatives and supplier selection, and SD) have positive indirect effect mediated by CM. Whereas, RM has direct and indirect (mediated by CM) positive effect on SM performance in Indian manufacturing environment.


Research limitations/implications
– This model can be validated for manufacturing industries in other countries.


Practical implications
– This model provides a comprehensive relationship among four drivers of SM and shows the direction for designing and implementing appropriate policies in order to enhance the SM performance in Indian manufacturing environment.


Originality/value
– Although many issues related to SM have been widely researched, but no literature has been reported related to SM integration model consisting of its drivers in general and in Indian manufacturing environment in specific. The key drivers of SM were identified and their relative importance was analyzed in Indian manufacturing environment.

This paper examines the financial rewards received by the directors of the listed Water companies in the five years following privatisation. It considers the salaries, the bonus payments, the gains from executive share options, and the increase in pension entitlements. The increase in the level of the financial rewards of directors of Water companies was greater over this period than of directors in other companies. This was partly the result of the comparatively lower levels of salaries prior to privatisation and partly the result of high gains from executive share options. One of the reasons for the high level of gain on options was the underpricing of the initial public offer of shares. From a corporate governance point of view the period following privatisation was unique in terms of the conditions in which the companies were operating. The annual levels of reward for those directors in post five years after privatisation was in line with directors of similar size companies.