Private Sector Responses Research Articles

Creating Australia's best planning system? Private sector responses to NSW planning changes

Since 2005, the NSW government has introduced a series of planning reforms designed to increase the efficiency of development assessment. The reforms have included the introduction of a standard local environment plan (LEP) template, a series of independent assessment structures under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment Bill 2008 and a new Housing Code that promotes exempt and complying development. This paper explores the experiences and opinions of private sector development actors over the changes to the NSW planning framework.

Accepting the invisible hand: market-based approaches to social-economic problems

Markets and Dignity: The Essential Link M.D.White Asserting the Morality of the Market: A Stoic Perspective J.A.Baker Life in the Market Is Good for You D.N.McCloskey Philanthropy and the Invisible Hand: Hayek, Boulding, and Beyond R.Garnett Ethics in the Mayan Marketplace B.Blevins, G.Ramirez & J.Wight Doing the Right Things: The Private Sector Response to Hurricane Katrina as a Case Study in the Bourgeois Virtues S.Horwitz Markets, Discovery, and Social Problems: From Political Elitism to Economic Empowerment J.Meadowcroft Economic Freedom and Global Poverty J.Gwartney & J.Connors

Private Sector Response to HIV/AIDS in Tanzania

This study assessed HIV/AIDS prevention practices used by employers in Tanzania. The study also aimed to provide a feasibility analysis of the readiness for HIV/AIDS prevention and other employee health promotion, disease prevention and management interventions within the private sector in Tanzania and to inform emerging scientific literature on the prevalence and composition of employee health education programs in developing countries. Responses to a questionnaire were obtained via structured, face-to-face interviews during visits with company leaders at their workplaces in Tanzania. The survey was conducted from January to March of 2008. It was found that most companies (82%) offer some form of assistance for employees living with HIV/AIDS and other chronic health conditions, and most (73%) also offered HIV/AIDS prevention programs. Use of peer educators was a common feature of HIV prevention efforts. Companies commonly provided free condoms for men (64%); somewhat fewer (55%) provide female condoms. The majority of companies (72%) had a written HIV/AIDS policy. The high rates of program offerings for employees suggest that employers have adopted HIV/AIDS prevention programs, though the wide variability in program offerings indicates employers' beliefs vary concerning the impact of programs, health benefits, and policies.

Regional trade, government policy and food security: Recent evidence from Zambia

Given heavy dependence on rainfed maize production, countries in East and Southern Africa must routinely cope with pronounced production and consumption volatility in their primary food staple. Typical policy responses include increased food aid flows, government commercial imports and stock releases, and tight controls on private sector trade. This paper examines recent evidence from Zambia, using a simple economic model to assess the likely impact of maize production shocks on the domestic maize price and on staple food consumption under alternative policy regimes. In addition to an array of public policy instruments, the analysis evaluates the impact of two key private sector responses in moderating food consumption volatility – private cross-border maize trade and consumer substitution of an alternate food staple (cassava) for maize. The analysis suggests that, given a favorable policy environment, private imports and increased cassava consumption together could fill roughly two-thirds of the maize consumption shortfall facing vulnerable households during drought years.

Practitioner Briefs: Private Sector Management Cooperation and HIV/AIDS Challenges in Nigeria

This report takes a cursory look at the attitude of the business sector to the institutionalization of HIV & AIDS Workplace Policies and Program development in Nigeria. It describes the roles of leadership in creating a tolerance for zero discrimination and non-stigmatization of employees living with HIV & AIDS, what is currently in place, and what the future holds for the private sector response. As shown here, Board Room decisions have, and will continue to have, a very strong influence on the business sector's attitude to issues around HIV & AIDS in Nigeria.

Climate change and Africa

Abstract The impact of climate change on Africa is likely to be severe because of adverse direct effects, high agricultural dependence, and limited capacity to adapt. Direct effects vary widely across the continent, with some areas (e.g. eastern Africa) predicted to get wetter, but much of southern Africa getting drier and hotter. Crop yields will be adversely affected and the frequency of extreme weather events will increase. Adaptation to climate change is primarily a private-sector response and should involve relocation of people, changes in the sectoral structure of production, and changes in crop patterns. The role of government is primarily to provide the information, incentives, and economic environment to facilitate such changes. Adaptation will be impeded by Africa's fragmentation into small countries and ethnic groups, and by poor business environments. On the mitigation side, there is a need to design emissions-trading frameworks that support greater African participation than at present, and that include land-use change. Mitigation undertaken elsewhere will have a major impact on Africa, both positive (e.g. new technologies) and negative (e.g. commodity price changes arising from biofuel policies).

Institutions, incentives, and disaster relief

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of property rights institutions to disaster relief efforts, with a focus on the US Federal Emergency Management Agency in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana.Design/methodology/approachThe paper utilizes public choice, Austrian, and new institutional analyses of bureaucracy. It discusses private and public sector responses to the situation in New Orleans following Katrina and to disasters in general, and compares the institutional frameworks that develop over time in both sectors.FindingsThe paper finds that a large and bureaucratized response to disasters hinders economic calculation, incentive structure, and property rights institutions, all of which are crucial for rapid disaster response, the relief of human suffering, the minimization of knowledge problems, and the promotion of an efficient allocation of resources.Practical implicationsThis research suggests that the role of the price system in allocating resources is especially important following disasters and that in order to ensure relief efforts are as efficient as possible, public‐sector actors should do nothing to impede them. It also suggests that the incentives to prepare an efficient emergency preparedness program are greater when those most affected by potential disasters are held responsible for their implementation.Originality/valueThe paper provides a critical evaluation of the role of highly centralized approaches to disaster relief.

Climate change: what it means for us, our children, and our grandchildren

This title explains what science knows about climate change, how it will affect us, its impact on different areas, and what we can do about it.Most of us are familiar with the terms climate change and global warming, but not too many of us understand the science behind them. We don't really understand how climate change will affect us, and for that reason we might not consider it as pressing a concern as, say, housing prices or the quality of local education. This book explains the scientific knowledge about global climate change clearly and concisely in engaging, nontechnical language, describes how it will affect all of us, and suggests how government, business, and citizens can take action against it.If people don't quite understand the seriousness of climate change, it is partly because politicians and the media have misrepresented the scientific community's strong consensus on it - politicians by selectively parsing the words of mainstream scientists, and the media by presenting balanced accounts that give the views of a small number of contrarians equal weight with empirically supported scientific findings. The science is complex, couched in the technical language of sinks, forcing, and albedo, and invokes probabilities, risks, ranges, and uncertainties. Policy discussions use such unfamiliar terms as no regrets policy, clean development mechanism, and greenhouse-gas intensity.Climate Change explains the nuts and bolts of climate and the greenhouse effect and describes their interaction. It discusses the nature of consensus in science, and the consensus on climate change in particular. It describes both public- and private-sector responses, considers how to improve the way scientific findings are communicated, and evaluates the real risks both to vulnerable developing countries and to particular areas of the United States. We can better tackle climate change, this book shows us, if we understand it. We can use this knowledge to guide our own behavior and pressure governments and businesses to take action.

Climate Change: Legal Developments on Many Fronts

A dynamic set of diplomatic, political, and cultural forces is driving action on global climate change in many legal arenas. These include novel multi-state compacts to regulate certain emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs), vigorous legislative initiatives by the new Congressional leadership, judicial actions seeking damages and injunctive relief, and private sector responses to the potential new liabilities and obligations associated with climate change. In this environment, pressure is mounting on the federal government to abandon its policy of encouraging voluntary reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and to adopt programs that will impose mandatory and uniform national emission requirements.

THE PRIVATE SECTOR IMPACT OF STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT: HAS MORE BECOME BAD?

Early research suggests some increases in state and local government spending more than offset the negative effects of the tax increases needed to fund them. More recent research finds the growth of state and local government generally discourages private sector growth. Using panel data on private employment, capital and output for the 48 contiguous states, the authors find that government size influences whether additional government helps or hinders private sector growth. The rapid growth of state and local government in the late 1980s likely outstripped the willingness to pay. With government growth moderating in the 1990s, however, the private sector response has become more favorable. (JEL H3, H4, R5)

Three psychological principles of resilience in natural disasters

PurposeThe purpose of this conceptual paper is to present a discussion of some of the core components of human resilience occurring in the face of natural or human‐made disasters. Resilience is often observed, but optimum responding is more than biological survival. Resilience implies the ability to bounce back and even to grow in the face of threats to survival. It is important to incorporate these key psychological principles into disaster planning.Design/methodology/approachResearch from the social sciences suggests three core principles of resilience, the “3 Cs:” control, coherence, and connectedness. Research evidence supporting the importance of the three Cs to resilient responding is presented, followed by some elementary prescriptions for how they might be implemented.FindingsAn approach to disaster planning and management can meld these principles into already‐existing intervention techniques, creating a more comprehensive and a more integrated response, potentially resulting in improved intervention effectiveness.Originality/valueProvides a psychological perspective on natural and human‐created disasters. Governmental and private sector responses to these tragedies have received a great deal of media attention, but there has been little systematic attention paid to the basic nature of human responding in such situations. Although it has been noted that humans are often resilient in such conditions, there has been virtually nothing written about what “resilience” is. This paper communicates the basic principles of resilience and how they would play out in future disaster planning and responding.

Private Sector Planning, Preparedness, and Response Activities to Reduce the Impact of Pandemic Influenza

Private Sector Planning, Preparedness, and Response Activities to Reduce the Impact of Pandemic Influenza

Not All Deficits Are Created Equal

Recent academic and popular discussions of budget deficits rely on a simplistic, and largely false, conception of the effects of deficits. The effects depend on the source of the deficit and on private-sector responses to it. Also important are whether budget changes arise passively through the workings of the business cycle and whether deficit-inducing policy actions are permanent or transitory. The key expectations arising from the simple theories connecting interest rates and deficits are precisely opposite to what modern theory and evidence indicate.

Market Structures and Shipping Security

The events of September 11th, 2001, in the US have brought a greater focus to the ways in which national security is viewed. International agencies such as the International Maritime Organisation and most national governments have been active in developing new security policies. Security, however, poses particular problems because, unlike safety where there is no conscious effort to cause harm, there is an inevitable gaming problem with potential perpetrators continually vying to circumvent security regimes. Added to this, security involves uncertainty that, unlike risk, has no real probability associated with it. These features necessitate a public as well as a private sector response. To develop public policy in these circumstances there is a need to tailor actions to the nature of the maritime market. A difficulty in doing this is that there is no single market; rather there are a number of overlapping markets. An added problem is that there is no consensus on the underlying structure of most of these markets. This paper fills some of the resultant voids by examining the extent to which actors in various market situations have internal incentives to ensure security and how they would react to external incentives such as regulations.

Deficits and the Economy: All Deficits are not Created Equal

Recent academic and popular discussions of budget deficits rely upon a simplistic and, in large part, false conception of their effects. The recent literature ignores the fact that deficit effects depend on their source and on private sector responses to them. It also matters whether budget changes arise passively through the workings of the business cycle and whether deficit-inducing policy actions are permanent or transitory. More often than not, deficits are associated with lower interest rates. One reason is that large movements in budget deficits are principally due to the business cycle. Recessions lower investment and interest rates and also lower capital inflows. The widely popular idea that current account deficits arise from budget deficits is also not correct. Current account movements are related to international capital flows that respond more to incentives for domestic investment than to budgetary developments. Not surprisingly, the key expectations of the simple theory now circulating, especially about interest rates, the current account deficit and the dollar, are precisely opposite to what modern theory and evidence indicate. Investment and asset allocation decisions that rely on the popular misrepresentations of why and how deficits matter do material damage to investor interest. About the Author: John A. Tatom is the Director of Research at Networks Financial Institute, part of Indiana State University, and Associate Professor of Finance at Indiana State University. He has published widely on international and domestic monetary and fiscal policy issues, especially inflation, capital formation, productivity and growth; the macroeconomics of supply, especially oil and energy price shocks; the relationship of exchange rate movements to international competitiveness, capital flows, trade, and international economic policy; and on financial innovations and their effects on monetary policy and the economy, among other areas.

ECONOMICS OF CORPORATE GOVERNANCE REFORM

This paper develops three basic economic principles for effective corporate governance: (1) information accuracy and timeliness, (2) management accountability, and (3) auditor independence. Accuracy and timeliness of information is critical to providing market participants with the data necessary to monitor and evaluate managers. Management accountability focuses on strengthening the incentives of managers to act in shareholders' interests and on increasing the likelihood and magnitude of punishment for wrongdoing. Auditor independence reduces the incentives and likelihood that auditors would give managers more leeway to undertake fraudulent or questionable acts.The author provides a preliminary assessment of how well legislative reforms, such as the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act, regulatory changes at the SEC, and private sector responses such as those from self‐regulatory organizations like the NYSE and NASDAQ, conform to these economic principles. The paper concludes by commenting on current proposals from the SEC on “shareholder democracy” and emphasizing the importance of balancing private and public regulatory responses.

The Labor Market Effects of the 1960s Riots

Although the united states has experienced race-related civil disturbances throughout its history, those that occurred in the 1960s were unprecedented in frequency and scope. Between 1964 and 1971, hundreds of riots erupted in American cities, resulting in large numbers of injuries, deaths, and arrests, as well as considerable property damage concentrated in predominantly black neighborhoods. Law enforcement authorities took extraordinary measures to end the riots, sometimes including the mobilization of National Guard units. In retrospect, the riots marked a turning point in American racial politics, as the carefully orchestrated demonstrations of the early civil rights movementgave way to violent, chaotic civil disturbances. At the time of their occurrence, the riots prompted congressional investigations into their proximate and underlying causes and into their immediate consequences in the form of looting, property damage, injuries, and deaths.1 Subsequently, a large sociology literature developed that attempted to identify city-level correlates of the occurrence and [End Page 1] severity of riots.2 But there have been comparatively few studies of a systematic, econometric nature that examine the impact of the riots on the relative economic status of African Americans or on the cities and neighborhoods in which the riots took place.3 In this paper we study the impact of the 1960s riots in the context of long-term racial disparities in labor market outcomes. Among full-time male workers, the racial gap in average earnings narrowed up to 1975, with periods of sharp convergence (for example, the 1940s) alternating with periods of relative stasis (for example, the 1950s and early 1960s). Since 1970, racial convergence in earnings has slowed markedly, and a substantial part of the observed convergence has been driven by the selection of low-income black males out of the full-time labor force.4 Over the same period, the proportion of blacks living in "high poverty" urban neighborhoods increased sharply, and black ghettos turned increasingly "bad" in the sense that residential segregation led to increasingly poor socioeconomic outcomes among young blacks.5 The post-1970 rise in concentrated poverty in black central-city neighborhoods has received a great deal of scholarly attention. One prominent view, associated with the work of William Julius Wilson, is that the underlying causes of this adverse trend are essentially macroeconomic in nature.6 Technological change and the relative decline of manufacturing employment may have reduced relatively high-wage job openings for urban, unskilled workers. The geographic concentration of poverty was then reinforced by the movement of relatively well-off blacks from central-city neighborhoods to suburbs and the proliferation of single-parent [End Page 2] households. Another prominent view, associated primarily with the work of Massey and Denton, emphasizes that preexisting residential segregation and ongoing racial discrimination in housing allowed for the potent endogenous magnification of adverse economic shocks. Feedback among macroeconomic forces, residential segregation, and social norms may have pushed entire neighborhoods into a downward socioeconomic spiral.7 The hypothesis we are pursuing is that the riots may be examples of such negative shocks. Like any shock, some of a riot's impact will be felt directly—in this case, by individuals who were immediately affected by the event. To some extent, these effects may be offset by private sector responses (for example, insurance payments) or changes in government policies (subsidies or loans to riot-afflicted businesses or infrastructure investment in riot areas). But other, and potentially much larger, effects may be indirect. A riot might alter the course of a city's economy by influencing the economic decisions of individuals who were not directly affected by the event. In essence, the hypothesis under investigation has two parts: that a riot's effect on African Americans' labor market outcomes was, on net, negative; and that the magnitude of the local effect increased with the severity of the local riot. We present two complementary...

Monetary Magic? How the Fed Improved the Flexibility of the U.S. Economy

Extending recent theoretical contributions on sources of inflation inertia, we argue that monetary uncertainty accounts for sluggish expectations adjustment to nominal disturbances. Estimating a model in which rational individuals learn over time about shifts in U.S. monetary policy and the Phillips curve, we find strong evidence that this link exists. These results bring into question the standard approach for evaluating monetary rules by assuming unchanged private sector responses, help clarify the role of monetary stability in reducing output variability in the United States and elsewhere, and tell a subtle and dynamic story of the interaction between monetary policy and the supply side of the economy.

The Impact of Terrorism on Cycle Times in International Supply Chains

Supply chains in East Asia are being redesigned following the reassessment of the risk of disruption through terrorist attacks. The nature of these risks and of the costs of the private sector responses is reviewed. The research available suggests the costs incurred are substantial. Government regulation applied to security matters also applies within supply chains. It too has been redesigned in response to the change in the risk of terrorist attacks. Examples of its impacts, and its costs and benefits, are presented. Relevant empirical work remains scarce, but principles for government's role can be identified.

The Global Threat of New and Reemerging Infectious Diseases: Reconciling U.S. National Security and Public Health Policy

Brower and Chalk, authors of The Global Threat of New and Reemerging Infectious Diseases: Reconciling U.S. National Security and Public Health Policy, describe their book’s purpose as examining “the changing nature of security” and focusing on “the threat of infectious diseases.” There are many examples in today’s world where the intersection of threats to public health and national security should direct the attention of policymakers, security and public health strategists, and the systems that support each toward an organized response. The authors use two case studies: HIV/AIDS in South Africa and the U.S. public health response system. The first case, in South Africa, illustrates how a single microbial agent can undermine the economic, social, and medical underpinnings of a developed country. The second study shows the negative effect of newly emerging diseases such as HIV/AIDS, Hantavirus infection, West Nile virus infection, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and intentionally released agents (Bacillus anthracis). This study demonstrates how events can overload the public health response system and weaken public confidence in its government. The reader can easily conclude that the intersection of disease and national security can be dangerously destabilizing and seriously undermine a nation’s social, economic, and political order. The current outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome reinterates the global nature and warp speed of emerging infections. In their summary and conclusions, the authors provide recommendations for policymakers addressing both public health and security issues. The thrust of the authors’ conclusions is to push policymakers and strategists to actions that strengthen the infrastructure of a public health response system and broaden the traditional definition of national security to include the impact of naturally occurring and intentionally released microbial agents. The authors present a compelling case study for HIV/AIDS in South Africa, where an emerging disease has gone unchecked and is having a devastating effect on a developed country. The case study of the U.S. public health response system is interesting and thoughtfully presented but lacks sufficient and carefully documented detail to aid the reader in drawing conclusions and formulating solutions. Unsubstantiated or incorrect examples also detract from the overall presentation of this case study. For instance, the contention that lack of good communications with area physicians and hospitals resulted in the deaths of postal workers in the fall 2001 anthrax crisis is not supported by the author’s reference or by any other authoritative materials known to this reviewer. In the public health response case study, the authors provide broad recommendations aimed at strengthening the public health infrastructure. Also included is an excellent summary of the current status of efforts begun in the mid-1990s in the United States to address the infrastructure of public health. The recommendations are presented in such a way that the shortcomings of the system can be addressed in critical areas, including a well-trained public health workforce; interagency coordination; private sector, hospital, and emergency response integration in public health; technical and educational interventions; and domestic and global investment in public health. Brower and Chalk’s book is a powerful and useful argument for the urgent need to integrate and streamline public health and national security strategies.