Terms Of Concessions Research Articles

Toll roads in Ukraine: current realities and international management experience

The paper is devoted to the analysis of the current situation with toll roads, which are built on the basis of concession agreements in Ukraine, as well as prospects for increasing the number of quality roads with toll roads, which, in turn, attract investors. The paper examines the main conditions for the construction of new roads (reasonable establishment of time parameters of construction, financial support, in particular with the involvement of national and foreign investments, monitoring compliance with quality standards of construction, etc.); features of formation of payment for use of public roads on the terms of concession. It is also traced what are the problematic aspects of the construction of toll roads in Ukraine in modern economic realities. To find ways to solve the identified problems, an analysis of the construction of toll roads on the basis of concessions in some foreign countries. Two systems for payment of toll plots used by leading European countries are analyzed, thus providing themselves with the highest rating indicators on road quality. As a result, the advantages of using European methods of financing road construction were assessed and conclusions were made on the prospects for the implementation of toll plots in Ukraine. Special attention is also paid to the condition of roads and possible ways of financing. In the course of the research it was clear that one of the most effective methods of raising funds is to improve the legal framework for the construction of roads under concession conditions and to improve and enhance the financial attractiveness of toll road projects in Ukraine. Some of the legislation has been significantly improved since 2018, the paper refers to many regulations governing the construction of public roads. The paper shows some excerpts from the legislation on the maximum fee for the use of toll public roads on the basis of concession agreements. It is also indicated which areas on the territory of Ukraine may be paid and some list of vehicles that can move freely on the territory without paying for travel. Also, based on all the data of the paper, a general conclusion is made about the feasibility and effectiveness of the concession for financing.

Private Capital in the Railway Construction Process in Turkestan (70s of the 19th -Early 20th Centuries)

The state and private capital, mainly foreign, were the main actors of Russian railway network creating process in the post-reform period. At the same time, in Turkestan, the Russian Government consciously discouraged private initiatives in the field of railway construction for a long time, preventing private capital from acquiring the quality of an actor along with the state. Although the government maintained a policy of building railways in the region at the Treasury expense, since the 1870s it has regularly received applications for the right to build Railways on the terms of private concessions. The article examines the content of private railway projects and the nature of concession rights that entrepreneurs requested from the government. The author comes to the conclusion that most of them preceded the state's decisions on the railway line construction in Turkestan, as in the case of the Trans-Caspian railway line extension from Samarkand to Tashkent and Andijan. In this regard, private initiative played a role as a factor in the state's decision - making process on the further development of the region's railway network.

PECULIARITIES OF SOCIAL RISK MANAGEMENT IN THE CONDITIONS OF ROAD CONCESSION DEVELOPMENT

The road network is one of the most important branches of the economy, which performs the function of a kind of circulatory system in the complex organism of the country. It not only helps to meet the needs of the economy and the population in transportation, but together with the cities forms a "framework" of the territory, has a significant impact on the dynamism and efficiency of socio-economic development of individual regions and the country as a whole. World experience shows that without a developed transport, automotive network can not create an efficient market economy. Ensuring the development of the road network and improvement their transport and operational condition is a necessary condition for further socio-economic development of the state and society. Unsatisfactory condition of the road network has a negative impact on the social and economic situation of the country, international image and key indicators such as gross domestic product, development of productive forces, state budget revenues, employment, performance of road and other modes of transport and more. The level of financing the road networks for the last 10 years makes 14-34 percent of the minimum necessary need for repair and maintenance of a network of highways defined by scientists. Due to insufficient funding, the pace of implementation of new technologies, machines, mechanisms, modern materials and structures is slow and does not meet current needs. The process of business investment in the road industry in Ukraine in modern conditions is risky due to imperfect legislation, low development of technology, which can be eliminated through the introduction of concession approaches in the development of the industry. The impact of public-private partnership on social risks is considered and ways to minimize them are suggested. Solving the problems of financial support for the repair, reconstruction and maintenance of roads requires the integration of State efforts, regional and local authorities, research and practice of their application, legal framework, as well as financial and material resources in international and Euroregional cooperation . It should be noted that the most problematic in terms of effective provision of transportation by state roads are sections of roads on international transport corridors. On the one hand, the financial and economic capabilities of the state and the region are still insufficient for their reconstruction, and on the other - the postponement of these problems has a negative impact on the national economy and contradicts international trends, prospects for the transport network. The object of the article is the process of applying the concession to improve the financing of costs for repair, reconstruction and maintenance of roads in terms of social risks. The subject of the article is the socio-economic relations between the subjects of the concession and the public. The main purpose of the article is to substantiate the need for the introduction of a road concession, taking into account developed recommendations for social risk management. In accordance with the purpose of the article, the authors set the following goals: - definition and analysis of the conditions of public-private partnership in Ukraine; - identification of the causes and consequences of the development of social risks in terms of road concessions based on the analysis of international experience in the application of tolls on highways; - substantiation of the main directions of social risk management in the conditions of the road concession and formation of the corresponding conclusions. The result of research is the authors' proposed ways to minimize social risks in terms of road concessions.

Generic Structure and Rhetorical Relations of Online Book Reviews in English, Japanese and Chinese

Abstract We examine the generic structure and rhetorical relations that characterise online book reviews in English, Japanese and Chinese to describe the pragmatic features of this emerging genre in a contrastive light. The corpus we analyse contains online book reviews written by consumers for consumers. The purpose of the study is two-fold. First, we seek to identify the generic structure of online book reviews. Second, we investigate the cross-cultural variation in the rhetorical organisation of opinions and evaluations in written reviews across language communities. The reviews are analysed in terms of the generic stages of book reviews, which are determined by their overall communicative goals (Motta-Roth, 1995; Taboada, 2011). The stages are then mapped against rhetorical relations that capture the coherence and meaningful organisation of the text (Mann and Thompson, 1988). Results show that online book reviews in all three languages share a common generic structure comprising three broad stages: Metapragmatic Comment, Evaluation (Book Overall, Author, Plot, Character) and Recommendation. While Evaluation is the only obligatory stage, Metapragmatic Comment serves to prepare the reader for the Evaluation that follows. The recommendation stage is common in both English and Chinese reviews but is conspicuously absent in their Japanese counterpart. In terms of rhetorical patterns, Contrast, Concession and Antithesis relations are preferred in Metapragmatic Comment and Evaluation, while Motivation is typically present in the recommendation stage. This paper proposes a methodology for the contrastive analyses of pragmatic phenomena, illustrating this methodology through the study of an emerging online genre.

Menachem Begin and the Israel-Egypt Peace Process: Between Ideology and Political Realism

Menachem Begin and the Israel-Egypt Peace Process: Between Ideology and Political Realism

Birinci Dünya Savaşı öncesi Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda Yapılan Yabancı Yatırımlar ve Alınan Borçlarda Fransa’nın Rolü

Before the First World War, there was a serious competition among the industrialized countries in the territory of the Ottoman Empire in terms of railway construction and lending. In the pre-war, Britain lost its power to build railways on Ottoman territories, while competition between Germany and France increased. However, France has not lost its leadership in investments. Likewise, the country that the Ottoman Empire borrowed the most from was France. In this study, the role of France in terms of railway concessions, investments and foreign debts in the Ottoman territories was examined by using the archive documents of the French Ministry of Economy and Finance.

Win-win pricing method for BOT projects using a simulation-based evolutionary optimization

Several failures have been reported in maintaining the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) projects viability through their life cycle. BOT contracts are one of the popular tools to respond to fund deficiencies in infrastructure projects, thus it is crucial to determine optimum concession terms for them. In previous research, the value of social benefits has mostly been neglected in the decision-making process, which results in unfair distribution of benefits between the government and the concessionaire. Therefore, a pricing framework based on a Simulation Multi-Objective Optimization (SMOO) method is developed in this research which includes the value of social benefits as well as the effects of uncertainties in BOT projects. The application of the model to a real-world project confirms that it presents a win-win solution in which the benefits of the two contracting parties are simultaneously maximized compared to the results obtained by using conventional methods. The results confirm the contribution of this research to reach a consensus on concession price and to keep the project viability as a result of its ability to cope with the high volatilities through simulation techniques. Furthermore, it can help the decision-makers to either seek a balance between both sides’ interests or determine the concession price based on their preferential strategies.

Environmental efficiency of small-scale tea processors in Kenya: an inverse data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach

Vision 2030, Kenya’s development blueprint for the period 2008–2030, envisions transforming the country into middle-income status where citizens enjoy a high quality of life. The blueprint has three pillars: economic, political and social. The thread that binds the three pillars is the natural environment, which supplies both renewable and non-renewable resources. Unfortunately, development in the other sectors may easily compromise the conditions of the natural environment and put the supply of clean water, food and fiber in jeopardy. For example, processing of agricultural products may increase gains from agriculture and lead to rapid expansion of the sector. If this is not carefully done, it may be characterized by wastage of resources, cutting down of forests to provide fuel and more land for cultivation, disposal of raw wastes into water bodies and over-exploitation of the soils. Using the example of small-scale tea processors in the country, this study sought to understand the environmental efficiency of the small-scale agro-processors. Small-scale tea processors were chosen because they have been implementing environmental efficiency-enhancing techniques in their production, yet no study had endeavored to test whether their initiatives were yielding positive results. The study adopted the innovative inverse data envelopment analysis approach on panel data to generate environmental efficiency scores, in the first step. In the second step, it analyzed the predictors of environmental efficiency using Tobit regression. Overall, the results showed that small-scale tea processors in Kenya were still environmentally inefficient, recording a mean efficiency index of only 49%, despite previous initiatives to improve efficiency. Thus, the processors could reduce 51% of the environmentally detrimental inputs without compromising output. Environmental inefficiency could be attributed to pursuit for higher profits and higher cost of investible funds. This shows that investment in environmental conservation is expensive and eats into the profits of the processors. Therefore, the small-scale processors may lack the incentives, in the short term, to invest in environment-friendly technologies. This may be compounded by the high cost of finance to be invested in such initiatives. Policy implication is that government should intervene in terms of tax concessions for firms that invest in environmental conservation, subsidies on technologies that guarantee environmental efficiency and access to cheaper funds for purchase and maintenance of environment-friendly technologies.

POSSIBLE LEGAL COURSE OF ACTION UPON THE TERM EXPIRATION OF THE MACAU SAR CASINO CONCESSIONS AND CASINO SUB‐CONCESSION CONTRACTS VIS‐À‐VIS THE MACAU GAMING LAW

POSSIBLE LEGAL COURSE OF ACTION UPON THE TERM EXPIRATION OF THE MACAU SAR CASINO CONCESSIONS AND CASINO SUB‐CONCESSION CONTRACTS VIS‐À‐VIS THE MACAU GAMING LAW

TECHNOPOLITICS OF A CONCESSIONARY CONTRACT: HOW INTERNATIONAL LAW WAS TRANSFORMED BY ITS ENCOUNTER WITH ANGLO-IRANIAN OIL

AbstractThe Iranian government's decision to nationalize its British-controlled oil industry in 1951 was a landmark case in international law. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and the Iranian government clashed over whether international authorities had the right to arbitrate for them in disputes over the terms of the oil concession. Scholarship in Middle East studies has overlooked the role of concession terms in shaping political disputes in the 20th century. Rather than seeing legal studies of the oil industry on one side and power struggles and resources on the other, this article examines international court proceedings at The Hague to argue that Anglo-Iranian oil transformed international law. Novel mechanisms of economic and legal governance, set up to deal with an expanded community of nation-states, worked as techniques of political power that equipped the oil corporation with the power to associate Iran's oil with foreign control while generating new forms of law and contract that undermined resource nationalism.

Sustainable tourism certification in the African hotel sector

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to review the current status of certification and certified hotels on the African continent, and to discuss the implications for mainstreaming sustainable tourism on the continent.Design/methodology/approachThe research design focused on a literature review and an online survey. The survey was used to consult stakeholders on options for incentives, and future interventions, which was distributed to 80 stakeholders from the government, certification bodies, intergovernmental agencies and NGOs. The survey resulted in 41 complete responses from 18 countries.FindingsThe study identified nine African certification programs, and nine international certification programs operating in Africa. Collectively, the African and international certification programs have certified at least 715 accommodation facilities in 19 African countries, against their environmental, social and economic criteria. So only a very small proportion of all hotels in Africa have been certified (certainly less than 3.4 per cent) and that these are patchily distributed across the continent. A number of incentives have been used in Africa, including marketing and promotion; interest free loans for new technologies; preferential inclusion in tour itineraries; free or discounted application processes; and technical support. Consultees suggested that hotels were generally motivated to seek certification to: promote their achievements to environmentally conscious clients and avoid negative criticism, and save money by conserving resources. However, hotels do not understand the financial benefits of sustainable practices.Research limitations/implicationsResearch limitations include the modest sample size. For the purposes of this research, there was a greater emphasis in targeting a modest number of key respondents who could provide expert opinions on the topic, rather than a more extensive sample size of lower quality.Practical implicationsPractical implications include recommendations of incentives and approaches to mainstream tourism certification in Africa. These include promoting programmes and their returns on investment more broadly, promoting market advantage for certified accommodation (i.e. preferential marketing or concession terms) and the value of integrating sustainability criteria into national and regional quality-rating standards.Originality/valueThis is the first study of its kind to analyse certification on the African continent, which was presented at the Climate Change Summit (COP22) in Morocco in 2016 and the BEST EN Think Tank XVII in June 2017.

Government Cost of Extending Concession Term Rights

AbstractA widespread practice used in concession-based public private–partnerships (PPPs) arrangements consists of granting the concessionaire the right, under certain circumstances, to extend the ...

Developing the system of municipal property management of the city of Irkutsk: using the mechanisms of municipal-private partnership

The authors have performed economic and statistical analysis of dynamics of income from the use and sale of municipal property in the city of Irkutsk in the structure of non-tax revenue of local budget, and identified key problems impeding effective management and disposal of municipal property in Irkutsk. They proposed perspective directions of solution of the identified issues, including expanding of sphere and practice of use of mechanisms of municipal-private partnerships in the management of municipal property. The major issues impeding implementation and development of mechanisms of municipal-private partnership on the concession terms on the territory of Irkutsk have been identified, and prospective directions of their development suggested. Necessity of work to be carried out by local bodies on development of methodological materials containing basic requirements and practical tools on preparation and implementation of projects of municipal-private partnership on the concession terms is justified in the paper, including a legal model, a technical model, and a financial and economic (financial) model. The authors proposed using indicators of socio-economic effectiveness of implementation in the framework of financial and economic model of concession projects.

Dynamics of Political Protests

AbstractThe links between protests and state responses have taken on increased visibility in light of the Arab Spring movements. But we still have unanswered questions about the relationship between protest behaviors and responses by the state. We frame this in terms of concession and disruption costs. Costs are typically defined as government behaviors that impede dissidents’ capacity for collective action. We change this causal arrow and hypothesize how dissidents can generate costs that structure the government's response to a protest. By disaggregating costs along dimensions of concession and disruption we extend our understanding of protest behaviors and the conditions under which they are more (or less) effective. Utilizing a new cross-national protest-event data set, we test our theoretical expectations against protests from 1990 to 2014 and find that when protesters generate high concession costs, the state responds in a coercive manner. Conversely, high disruption costs encourage the state to accommodate demands. Our research provides substantial insights and inferences about the dynamics of government response to protest.

Mechanisms for accelerating the process of the infrastructure renewal

Critical deterioration of infrastructure increasingly becomes an obstacle for the development of modern Russia. Large projects in virtually all sectors of the national economy cannot be implemented without accelerating the resource turnover and reducing the delivery time of finished products to the consumer. Meanwhile, infrastructure projects are not only capital-intensive, but also pay back slowly due to objective economic and natural-climatic reasons. In addition, the current stage of the country development is characterized by the inability to achieve growth in budget expenditures for these purposes, which requires the creation of special mechanisms for investing in infrastructure projects. The practice has developed a number of approaches to solving infrastructure issues, such as the public-private partnership in the terms of concession, syndicated lending, etc. Meanwhile, the investment activity of these mechanisms is insufficient for the scale of implementation of demanded projects. The infrastructure mortgage mechanism proposed by the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation may be a solution of this problem. Debatable character of the model of implementation of infrastructure projects using mortgage instruments, the analysis of approaches and points of view of the problem and the ways of its solution allowed the authors suggesting the key measures that make it possible to give the infrastructure mortgage mechanisms a justified character in the operational mode of time.

Risks, Challenges and Value for Money of Public–Private Partnerships

AbstractThis study examines the unique issues, challenges and risks emerging at the end of a public‐private partnership (PPP) concession. The M4 motorway is the first Australian PPP that has reached the end of its concession. The absence of formal guidance on contractual closure created challenges for the partners in interpreting contract ambiguities, and in reaching agreement on the processes needed to close the contract. These challenges had posed several relational risks, the mitigations of which were supported by the relational contract partners developed over the concession term, and their reciprocity and ethical motivations. The reintegration risk emerged in the handback exemplifies the limits of controls designed for legitimacy concerns to resolve coordination problems. The political settlement for value for money was gestured by lifting the toll after the concession ended. In providing unparalleled empirical evidence against the long‐term ‘myths’ of PPPs, the study counters the criticism over PPPs’ impossibilities to handle uncertainties and to transfer risk.

Risk analysis of BOT contracts using soft computing

Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) contracts have been widely implemented in developing countries facing budget constraints. Analysing the expected variability in project viability requires extensive risk analysis. An objective analysis of various risk variables and their influence on a BOT project evaluation requires study and integration of many sce­narios into the concession terms, which is complicated and time-consuming. If the process of negotiating the financial parameters and uncertainties of a BOT project could be automated, this would be a milestone in objective decision-mak­ing from various stakeholders’ points of view. A soft computing model would let the user incorporate as many scenarios as could be provided. Extensive risk analysis could then be easily performed, leading to more accurate and dependable results. In this research, an artificial neural network model with correlation coefficient of 0.9064 has been used to model the relationship between important project parameters and risk variables. This information was extracted from sensitiv­ity analysis and Monte Carlo simulation results obtained from conventional spreadsheet data. The resulting consensus would yield to fair contractual agreements for both the government and the concession company.

Sander, Gordon F. The Hundred Day Winter War: Finland's Gallant Stand against the Soviet Army (review)

SEER, 93, 2, APRIL 2015 386 with these fascist movements, and at times were downright hostile. Whereas the Legion cultivated ties with parish priests and Orthodox laypeople, however, the Ustaša largely ignored nationalist Catholic lay movements and courted the Church hierarchy. Both were effectively secular movements, according to Dinu, but both cultivated strong cults of the dead, which he argues are a key element of fascist political religion. As with his treatment of violence, Dinu’s discussion of religion covers a lot of ground very quickly. He introduces the reader to the essential elements of the story and then dives straight into analysis, illustrating his arguments as he goes. The result is a much-needed comparison on two fascinating movements that emphasizes the importance of context and cautions against stereotyping the fascisms of southeastern Europe as ‘Balkan’ aberrations. History Department Roland Clark Eastern Connecticut State University Sander, Gordon F. The Hundred Day Winter War: Finland’s Gallant Stand against the Soviet Army. Modern War Studies. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, 2013. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $39.95. In filial piety, the author of this version of the Finnish Winter War lays his own love of history at the feet of his father. He was a military man of distinction and his son has chosen a desperate conflict to illustrate what war means in modern history. Gordon F. Sander does actually give what he calls a ‘cat’s cradle of interwoven political, diplomatic, military, and intellectual strands’ that were entangled in the realities and illusions of the Winter War. But this was ultimately the fabric under which the good-guys — the Finns — lost the war, a hefty piece of their country and 26,000 men at least. Was there no alternative to the carnage, 150,000 Russian and Finnish together in one hundred days, Sander records? Some Finns like Väinö Voionmaa, J. P. Salmenoja, Väinö Tanner, Urho Kekkonen and J. K. Paasikivi tried to think in terms of concessions to the Russians that would not upset the rest of the country. Well before the war broke out, Mannerheim had urged the cession of certain islands to Russia that would have eased their expressed concern about the defence of Leningrad. Mannerheim was even prepared to support, in the Russians’ favour, an adjustment of the land-frontier. Someofthis—andthese—arementionedinSander’stext.Butwhatislacking is the force of the power of the great con: how Germany encouraged Stalin to go for the Baltic States and as much of Finland as he wanted (or could get), while two years later Germany tried to knock the unsuspecting Soviet Union out. (Hitler was saving Britain for later in spite of a warning from Raeder.) In REVIEWS 387 any case, Finland was a side-feature of a wider bluff. After two more wars to try in vain to get its lost lands back, Finland had to settle for a recognition of its independence. This was more than the Baltic States were accorded. Sander’s work on the Winter War is to a significant degree a compendium both of Russian and Finnish material. In his treatment of the sleeplessness of both armies, the key is the lack of reserves. The utter weariness of the Finnish troops defending the last days in the Mannerheim Line as it began to break down makes Sander write in anger that the Finnish High Command would simply have done better had it taken the men out of the trenches. And while in general Sander is on the side of the Finns, there is plenty he finds critical in the behaviour of some of the Finnish brass. In particular, he notes that, in contrast to the situation in Moscow, the censorship authorities were antagonistic to foreign newsmen. As to newsmen, there were also newswomen. One was Martha Gellhorn, Hemingway’s girlfriend. Another was her friend, Virginia Cowles. Undoubtedly, theformerlady’sstatement,‘Ilikethosewhofight’,appliedtoherfriend’soutlook, too. In their reportage, they did not flinch. Gellhorn’s reporting had already been noted by Eleanor Roosevelt, but the President himself was not to be drawn into the battle, though his financial help for Finland raised a US loan (sic) from four million dollars to ten million...

Complex governance system issues for transportation renewal projects

The use of public–private partnerships (PPPs) is growing in the United States in response to reductions in funding combined with an aging highway transportation infrastructure. Many other countries have longer experience with PPP and a greater understanding of the issues surrounding their use. The main governance issues to be addressed in PPPs deal with risk-sharing, relationships, contracts, and legal framework, and standard processes within dedicated organizational units. These governance issues are examined in the context of a case study for the US 36 Phase II PPP in Colorado. Findings suggest that for the US Phase II project, governance issues are resolved through more relational forms than prescriptive contractual language. Colorado has established a dedicated organizational unit to facilitate the use of PPPs, but there exist no standards or best practices in the United States for procurement, concession terms, or risk-sharing.

Sartorial symbols of social class elicit class-consistent behavioral and physiological responses: a dyadic approach.

Social rank in human and nonhuman animals is signaled by a variety of behaviors and phenotypes. In this research, we examined whether a sartorial manipulation of social class would engender class-consistent behavior and physiology during dyadic interactions. Male participants donned clothing that signaled either upper-class (business-suit) or lower-class (sweatpants) rank prior to engaging in a modified negotiation task with another participant unaware of the clothing manipulation. Wearing upper-class, compared to lower-class, clothing induced dominance--measured in terms of negotiation profits and concessions, and testosterone levels--in participants. Upper-class clothing also elicited increased vigilance in perceivers of these symbols: Relative to perceiving lower-class symbols, perceiving upper-class symbols increased vagal withdrawal, reduced perceptions of social power, and catalyzed physiological contagion such that perceivers' sympathetic nervous system activation followed that of the upper-class target. Discussion focuses on the dyadic process of social class signaling within social interactions.