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This chapter provides a taxonomy of key rolling stock types and covers the key engineering principles. This chapter concentrates on the aspects of the rolling stock that make it sustainable in terms of passenger transportation; these aspects are primarily safety and crashworthiness. These are specific items that contribute to make the rolling stock and hence rail system more sustainable; passengers need to be confident that they are travelling in safe rolling stock and the vehicle consist, manufacturing technique or materials used should not compromise the crashworthiness aspects. For this reason, all aspects of this chapter reference vehicle safety and crashworthiness.

We discuss food security within the context of welfare economics. We review models of commodity price stabilization brought about by government storage, and/or the private sector. We use data on the stocks of major commodities to discuss the implications of storage models on food security.

The impact of storage on food security is discussed within the context of welfare economics.

Storage is not necessarily a solution to solving long-term world food problems. Also, at times in history, countries such as the United States have accumulated large stocks of commodities such as wheat, which turned out to be a costly policy.

While food insecurity is a major issue worldwide, the solution does not entirely lie in governments being heavily involved in managing and owning food stocks. The private sector manages stocks as a part of commercial transactions. The government’s role is to provide food from stockholdings in times of emergency situations.

Simons (1995b) suggests that most writing on empowerment often fails to recognize that empowerment requires greater control. Accordingly, we investigate the type of control via rewards and punishment systems, which fits best in the context of empowered work teams. Specifically, we hypothesized that empowerment will lead to improvement in manufacturing performance only when rewards are based on group performance, i.e. a situation where the collective benefit of both individual team members and those of the firm are maximized. Utilizing a survey methodology, four compensation types were examined, including fixed pay, fixed+non-monetary incentives, individual-based incentives, and group-based incentives. Results show that the favorable effect of work team empowerment was not observed under fixed-pay, fixed+non-monetary incentives, or individual-based incentives. In many instances, fixed-pay or individual-based incentives interact with work team empowerment to produce a negative effect on manufacturing cost, manufacturing lead time, or non-value-added-activities. On the other hand, manufacturing plants which use group-based incentives were able to reap the benefit of work team empowerment and translate that into enhanced performance.

Purpose – To discuss, from the perspective of developing countries, recent proposals for reforming international standards for bank capital requirements.

Methodology/approach – After evaluating, from the viewpoint of developing countries, the effectiveness of capital requirements reforms and progress in implementing existing regulatory accords, the chapter discusses the procyclical effects of Basel regimes, and suggests a reform proposal.

Findings – Minimum bank capital requirements proposals in developing countries should be complemented by the adoption of an incremental, size-based leverage ratio.

Originality/value of chapter – This chapter contributes to enlarge the academic and policy debate related to bank capital regulation, with a particular focus on the situation of developing countries.