Search results

For the case of Sweden, this paper aims to determine how a range of different infrastructure fees and taxes influences modal split, port throughputs, air emissions, societal costs of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and air pollution, as well as logistics costs.

The Swedish national freight model is used to simulate a range of different proposed infrastructure fees, one by one and in combination. The volume of emissions of CO₂-equivalents, NOx, SOx and PM under the different scenarios is calculated in both volume and monetary terms, by applying national emission factors and EU values for external costs.

Road user fees are calculated to have the largest impact on the modal split, GHG emissions and air pollution. The impact increases slightly when road user fees are combined with higher fees for sea and rail and/or gate fees in all Swedish ports. The imposition of gate fees over €30 per truck in all ports leads to shifts in cargo to land-based modes and to ports outside Sweden. The logistics costs in Sweden are found to be three to ten times higher than the benefits of reduced GHG emissions and air pollution, although other benefits to society need to be considered as well.

Methods which attempt to evaluate alternative approaches to the internalisation of the external costs caused by transport need to be further developed. In particular, they need to encompass a more holistic perspective on “benefits to society”, other than merely reductions in GHG emissions and air pollution. To facilitate international acceptance and adoption, such methods require agreements to be reached on common definitions and routines.

The results can be used as basis for policy-making. They illustrate the environmental impacts of the fees and taxes one by one and in combination and to what extent these reinforce each other and should be co-ordinated.

The outcomes are relevant to national and international policymakers and authorities, as well as port authorities, shippers and transport companies who need to determine unilateral strategies on how to reduce GHG emissions and air pollution, without undermining their wider business objectives.

The approach is original in facilitating the testing of policies which impact on the transport system and the environment across different dimensions. The work has additional value in informing policy because of its use of Sweden’s national freight transport model.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and classify the various initiatives developed and implemented across the globe for the abatement of maritime air emissions.

In this paper, an extensive survey of various sources was conducted, including the official reports of international and regional institutions, government policy documents, port authority websites, classification society pages, private firms’ sites and the academic literature. The initiatives were then categorized in accordance with the classification of the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and analyzed using the SPSS Statistics software to give some insight into their frequencies and the interrelationships between them.

This exploratory review resulted in the establishment of a comprehensive global database of initiatives encouraged by the whole range of shipping stakeholders and decision-makers for the reduction of shipping air emissions. According to the findings, economic incentives that provide motivation for the adoption of less environmentally damaging practices are the most commonly used initiative, followed by infrastructure investments and informative policies.

The results provide implications for further research that include an in-depth analysis of ports’ policies, as well as an evaluation of initiatives applied on a large scale to map their emissions reduction potential for shipping.

The main contribution of this paper is the identification and analysis of all the diverse initiatives implemented globally in a comprehensive way and its dealing with air pollution from shipping as a whole.

The purpose of this study is to compare and validate firms’ internal and external stakeholder considerations in sustainable business practices across business settings. It aims to assess the validity and reliability of a stakeholder framework appearing in previous studies.

The study uses a questionnaire survey and a cross-industry sample consisting of the largest firms in corporate Sweden. Multivariate analysis tests the stakeholder framework. Each of the 294 key informants was initially identified and contacted by telephone, generating a response rate of 36.5 per cent.

The tested stakeholder framework appears valid and reliable across countries to assess the internal stakeholders of focal firms, as well as their up- and downstream, market and societal stakeholders. This study provides additional empirical support to categorize firms’ stakeholder considerations in sustainable business practices.

This study validates previous findings in terms of Swedish firms’ considerations of internal and external stakeholders in sustainable business practices in relation to one similar country (Norway) and one different country (Spain). The study also shows how the three countries perceive the focal company and societal stakeholders differently.

The tested framework sheds light on focal firms’ stakeholder considerations in sustainable business practices and elucidates the extent to which firms’ account for their internal and external stakeholders in sustainable business practices.

This study contributes to the development of valid and reliable stakeholder theory across contexts and through time. In particular, it contributes to the development of a valid and reliable framework to categorize firms’ stakeholder considerations in sustainable business practices.

This chapter investigates the impact of different state correlation assumptions for out-of-sample performance of unobserved components (UC) models with stochastic volatility. Using several measures of US inflation the author finds that allowing for correlation between inflation’s trend and cyclical (or gap) components is a useful feature to predict inflation in the short run. In contrast, orthogonality between such components improves the out-of-sample performance as the forecasting horizon widens. Accordingly, trend inflation from orthogonal trend-gap UC models closely tracks survey-based measures of long-run inflation expectations. Trend dynamics in the correlated-component case behave similarly to survey-based nowcasts. To carry out estimation, an efficient algorithm which builds upon properties of Toeplitz matrices and recent advances in precision-based samplers is provided.

After briefly reviewing the past history of Bayesian econometrics and Alan Greenspan's (2004) recent description of his use of Bayesian methods in managing policy-making risk, some of the issues and needs that he mentions are discussed and linked to past and present Bayesian econometric research. Then a review of some recent Bayesian econometric research and needs is presented. Finally, some thoughts are presented that relate to the future of Bayesian econometrics.

The misuse of pharmaceutical opioid analgesics is identified as a global public health concern. Codeine represents an interesting quandary in terms of its regulated status, with individuals varying in their metabolism of codeine, estimation of safe dosages, risk of adverse health consequences and abuse potential. Efforts to quantify and address hidden non-compliant medical codeine use, overuse and intentional misuse is compromised by availability to the public in prescribed and over the counter forms. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

A review of literature on codeine use, misuse and dependence, and associated innovative medical and pharmacy interventions is presented, and was conducted as part of a larger scoping review on codeine.

The review highlights the complexities associated with monitoring public health awareness of codeine's abuse potential, and customer/patients trends in non-compliant codeine use for therapeutic and recreational purposes. Aberrant codeine behaviours centre on visiting multiple doctors for prescriptions, repeated lost or stolen prescriptions, forging prescriptions and use of multiple pharmacies. Innovations to monitor misuse of codeine include national prescription databases and recent developments in real-time monitoring of dispensing activity.

Further development of real-time monitoring processes with process evaluation is advised.

This viewpoint is intended to demonstrate how efforts to quantify and address codeine use are compromised by its availability. It intends to encourage further policy and practitioner dialogue on how to monitor, support and intervene with consumers misusing codeine.