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The central motivation for this study was to examine alternatives against the apartment area reduction as a safe way to reduce construction costs, adopted by many construction companies. From the building economic compactness index concept, it was studied the cost and environmental impacts (material consumption, embodied energy – EE and CO₂ emission).

The research strategy takes advantage of a case study aiming to investigate the relation between design characteristics related to area (m²) and building economic compactness index (%) with cost (Research Stage 1) and with environmental impacts: (Research Stage 2). The study involved real data from social housing projects, chosen in terms in terms of very similar features like size, area and constructive method (constants), however, with dissimilar compactness (variable).

The lack of direct relation between area and cost signs the importance of including the cost of vertical plans considered in the economic compactness building. The higher the economic compactness index, the lower the cost, the lower the amount of material, EE and CO₂ emission parameters. However, due to the wide range of EE and CO₂ values available, the reduction in the amount of materials achieved by increasing building economic compactness index may not be reflected in EE and CO₂ gains.

As the limitation of this study, it must be taken into account a limited number of case buildings and the fact that the analysis is dependent on the reliability and accuracy of the data provided by constructors and the available information of EE and CO₂ emission. As well discussed in the literature, the consistent database is a great challenge for the construction sector.

There might be alternatives to higher areas with relatively low-cost increments since results from buildings with the same area present different cost estimative and suggest a strong relationship with the economic compactness index. The large variation of EE and CO₂ emission data indicates that reductions obtained by compactness increase may be impaired if the construction materials are produced with high levels of EE and CO₂ emission. Thus, there must be an integrated effort on the part of designers (design and material specification) and manufacturers (material production), since isolated solutions may not be enough.

This paper aims to analyze the question of how household indebtedness impacts households’ incentives to search for and accept work after displacement.

To analyze the relationship between household indebtedness and unemployment duration, this paper applies standard proportional hazard models. For data, this paper relies on the longitudinal US National Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), covering the period between 2008 and 2012.

The findings show that a 10% increase in household debt increases the likelihood (hazard) of leaving unemployment by 0.2%–0.4% points. Independent of measuring a household's indebtedness and in light of a series of robustness tests, the results indicate that the pressure of servicing an existing debt burden forces individuals to return to work.

From a policy perspective, the research findings support the notion that household indebtedness plays an important mediating role for labor market outcomes through influencing households’ incentives to return to work after displacement. This finding has important implications for the design of effective policy responses to mass layoffs during the current pandemic.

A key innovation of the research is that we can show that household indebtedness impacts the labor supply side. From a macroeconomic perspective, this insight is important in better understanding the role of increased indebtedness (and financialization) in amplifying aggregate macroeconomic dynamics.

Facility management (FM) is regarded as an emerging issue in civil engineering and is responsible for ensuring the building's expected performance. The purpose of this study is to analyze buildings' current FM processes for educational and high residential segments and propose an FM-building information modeling (BIM) (BIM6D) to understand the information flow and leading players with and without FM-BIM integration.

The research strategy was a case study with data from the FM process of two buildings. This study was carried out in three stages: diagnosis of FM of the two buildings, FM-BIM integration and information flow and leading players analysis. Maintenance activities were categorized according to periodicity and status criteria for each project element for FM-BIM integration and were visualized in the Revit design using Dynamo software.

The results of this study show differences in how FM is conducted, especially in formalization and preventive character, and similarities regarding the difficulty of foreseen and lack of control because of scattered, disconnected and incomplete information on both. The visual appeal of the FM-BIM integration facilitates information access. It optimizes the use of the digital model through the most prolonged phase of the life cycle of a building (post-occupation phase). However, FM-BIM challenges buildings that do not have digital model expertise as residential segments. This study suggests a more significant role for construction companies in these cases.

This study investigates BIM-FM integration of buildings in two different contexts and reveals the importance of a construction company's role in buildings in the residential segment. This study contributes with real-life cases on BIM in existing buildings, discussing the value and challenges of BIM in FM applications.

Traditional cost management systems adopted by construction firms have many problems, which are widely discussed in the literature: the information provided by them is usually too late, and tends to be too aggregated and too distorted to be relevant for production management. The main objective of this research work is to propose a project cost planning and control model for construction firms. This model aims to support the development of production management systems, in which cost management and production planning and control can be gradually integrated, in order to overcome the existing limitations of cost accounting systems. The scope of the model was limited to building projects carried out by small and medium sized companies, involved in both product development and production. The development of the model was based on the literature review and also on the results of nine empirical studies conducted in four different Brazilian construction firms. The model suggests the integrated application of three fairly well known cost management techniques: operational cost estimating, S‐curves and target costing. By using this set of tools, it is expected that cost management will become more proactive, and able to deal with the dynamic, uncertain and complex construction environment that exists in most projects. The model was partially tested in two case studies, in which it provided key information for supporting decision making related to design, production planning and contracts with suppliers.

In recent years, Mediterranean Partner countries (MPCs) have been ambitious about reforming their banking and financial systems. Former state‐owned banks have been privatised, and restrictions for international capital flows have been lowered to accelerate investment activities and spur regional economic growth. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate these latest developments against the backdrop of the state‐of‐the‐art literature and derive implications for a reformed institutional setting for sound financial market governance in the Mediterranean region.

Building on recent empirical literature on the relationship between financial development, financial governance, and economic growth, this paper empirically assesses the validity of the so‐called finance‐growth nexus for Mediterranean Partner countries.

The findings indicate that the current institutional set‐up renders an efficient allocation of savings impossible, and thus represents a strong binding constraint on economic growth. In this regard, it is found that adverse financial governance practices have substantially contributed to this outcome.

This paper argues for upgrading domestic regulatory frameworks before continuing a sequential integration and liberalisation process.

It is thought that this attempt is unique in explicitly formulating a comprehensive role for the Euro‐Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) in assisting MPCs on financial governance issues. In this respect, it identifies prevailing incentive schemes for regional actors and opportunities for the EU to actively support the implementation of a reform agenda for financial institutions in the EMP framework.

This paper inquires into the root causes of global imbalances from an international trade perspective. The purpose of the paper is to establish a conceptual framework that links financial market governance, international trade and financial market integration, and to derive implications for the global financial crisis.

In order to analyze global imbalances, the paper draws on a theoretical Heckscher‐Ohlin‐Samuelson international trade model, in which it compares two open economies, solely differing in their financial market governance structures. Building on these findings, the paper extends the analysis to the role of financial market frictions in propagating global imbalances into excessive lending in high‐income economies.

To that extent, it argues that global imbalances are due to impasses in international production. This paper argues that countries seeking to suppress real appreciation have engaged in financial repression, which has, via financial globalization, translated into excessive expansion of financial service sectors in flexible market economies.

In order to derive a tractable framework, the abstract from inter‐temporal aspects and from an in‐depth analysis of financial modelling issues. Owing to the static nature of the set‐up, the analytic link between global imbalances and the global financial crisis is intuitive.

Given that differences in national financial market governance influence the direction of international capital and trade flows, it argues for more international policy coordination in preventing future crisis.

The unique feature of the contribution is that it links financial market governance and international trade to international financial market integration in a tractable theoretical framework.

While evidence-based parenting interventions (EBPIs) are proven effective at addressing numerous emotional and behavioral health challenges for children and youth, and reduce rates of child maltreatment, they are often not well implemented in the real-world settings. Even with the state-of-the art training, many practitioners do not deliver the intervention, or do so at a reduced capacity. The purpose of this paper is to examine system-contextual implementation factors that predict timely initiation of use of an EBPI (i.e. within the first six months following training). A secondary purpose is to document additional impacts of training.

Repeated measures were used to collect predictors and the dependent variable. The relationship between participant characteristics and use of the Triple P program was estimated using exact logistic regression.

The results from 37 practitioners across three communities indicated approximately 54 percent delivered the intervention with at least one family within the first six months following training. Practitioner self-efficacy immediately following training and general attitudes toward evidence-based practices were the most significant predictors of timely use of the model. The vast majority of practitioners, regardless of implementation status, generalized learning from the training to other aspects of their work.

Prospective examination of the predictive value of implementation factors helps to refine targeted approaches to support implementation.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light to the concept of solar electricity transfer from North Africa to Europe in the frame of Article 9 of the European Renewable Energy Sources (EU-RES) Directive 28/2009/EC, to explain why efforts have not been successful up to now and to provide recommendations on how to proceed.

The authors have compared the “Supergrid” concept that was pursued by some institutions in the past years with the original “TRANS-CSP” concept developed by the German Aerospace Centre in 2006. From this analysis, the authors could identify not only major barriers but also possible ways towards successful implementation.

The authors found that in contrast to the Supergrid approach, the original concept of exporting dispatchable solar power from concentrating solar thermal power stations with thermal energy storage (CSP-TES) via point-to-point high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission directly to European centres of demand could be a resilient business case for Europe–North Africa cooperation, as it provides added value in both regions.

The analysis has been made in the frame of the BETTER project commissioned by the Executive Agency for Competitiveness & Innovation in the frame of the program Intelligent Energy Europe.

One of the major implications found is that due to the time lost in the past years by following a distracted concept, the option of flexible solar power imports from North Africa to Europe is not any more feasible to become part of the 2020 supply scheme.

To make them a viable option for post-2020 renewable energy systems for electricity development in Europe, a key recommendation of the project is to elaborate a detailed feasibility study about concrete CSP-HVDC links urgently.

The analysis presented here is the first to give concrete recommendations for the implementation of such infrastructure.