Enemy at the Gates

2016 ◽  
Vol 61 (10) ◽  
pp. 2105-2129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shahryar Minhas ◽  
Benjamin J. Radford
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
Economic Performance ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
Gross Domestic Product Growth ◽  
Development Literature ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

There has been much disagreement about the relationship between civil wars and state economic performance. While civil war is often associated with poor economic performance, some states have managed robust growth despite periods of domestic armed conflict. We find this disagreement results from not accounting for the spatial distribution of conflict within a country. A robust literature in economics stresses the role major cities play in economic growth. We hypothesize that the economic impact of civil conflict is contingent on the conflict’s location relative to major urban centers within a state. We use subnational data on the location of conflict relative to urban areas to test the impact of domestic conflict on annual gross domestic product growth. In doing so, we bridge the economic development literature on the importance of cities with extant literature on the effect of armed conflict to provide a novel explanation for the paradox of high macroeconomic growth in conflict-ridden countries.

scholarly journals Assessing the Impact of Street-View Greenery on Fear of Neighborhood Crime in Guangzhou, China

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 311
Author(s):  
Fengrui Jing ◽  
Lin Liu ◽  
Suhong Zhou ◽  
Jiangyu Song ◽  
Linsen Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Factors ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Fear Of Crime ◽  
Green Space ◽  
Learning Approach ◽  
Perceived Safety ◽  
Street View ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Physical Incivilities

Previous literature has examined the relationship between the amount of green space and perceived safety in urban areas, but little is known about the effect of street-view neighborhood greenery on perceived neighborhood safety. Using a deep learning approach, we derived greenery from a massive set of street view images in central Guangzhou. We further tested the relationships and mechanisms between street-view greenery and fear of crime in the neighborhood. Results demonstrated that a higher level of neighborhood street-view greenery was associated with a lower fear of crime, and its relationship was mediated by perceived physical incivilities. While increasing street greenery of the micro-environment may reduce fear of crime, this paper also suggests that social factors should be considered when designing ameliorative programs.

scholarly journals An evaluation of the self-help housing scheme in Botswana, case of Gaborone city

Spatium ◽  
2007 ◽  
pp. 28-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Horatio Ikgopoleng ◽  
Branko Cavric
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Urban Families ◽  
Evaluation Study ◽  
Urban Housing ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Housing Scheme ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Impact

Botswana like other developing countries faces a problem of acute shortage of housing, particularly for low-income urban families. The current housing problems are the outcomes of the economic, demographic and social changes which the country has experienced since independence in 1966. In particular the urbanization process which surfaced in the early 1980?s. The government has sought to cope with the problem of low-income urban housing by establishing a Self-Help Housing (SHHA) program in the main urban centers. The evaluation findings reveal that, on the whole, the impact of the SHHA approach on the improvement of low-income urban housing has been unsuccessful. The major problems of the scheme are lack of serviced land and inadequate finances for plot development. This has been exacerbated by the high urban development standards which are out of the reach of low-income urban families. The evaluation study also reveals that, there are some indications of non low-income urban households living in SHHA areas. The available evidence reveals that the number of those people in SHHA areas is not as big as has been speculated by most people in the country. However this paper calls for more investigation in this issue and a need for more tight measures to control this illicit practice. The major conclusions are that housing policies in Botswana are not supportive of the general housing conditions in low-income urban areas. Therefore there is a need for urban planners and policy makers of Botswana to take more positive action towards the improvement of low-income urban areas. This would require pragmatic policies geared towards the improvement of those areas. .

The Political Economy of Land and Urban Development

2018 ◽  
pp. 343-359
Author(s):  
Kudzanai Bvochora ◽  
Bernard Kusena
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Natural Increase ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Infrastructure ◽  
The World ◽  
Urban Settlements ◽  
Development Processes ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

Many urban areas which have sprouted around the world owe their economic and social origins in growth points and market centers. Situated about 15 kilometers south-east of Harare, Epworth became one of Zimbabwe's largest peri-urban settlements due to the combined effect of demographic, political, and socioeconomic factors, among others. This chapter interrogates the various forces behind this unprecedented population growth. It demonstrates the relationship between Epworth's ballooning population and the various pull and push factors of urbanization. For example, immigration contributed immensely to this rise, although natural increase in births also contributed fairly significantly. This chapter examines the impact of population dynamics and other variables that were linked to the rapid expansion of Epworth on the overall development processes, arguing that economic and social infrastructure became conditioned by such dynamics.

scholarly journals Climate Adaptation Plans in the Context of Coastal Settlements: The Case of Portugal

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (20) ◽  
pp. 8559
Author(s):  
Francesca Dal Cin ◽  
Martin Fleischmann ◽  
Ombretta Romice ◽  
João Pedro Costa
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Essential Role ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Coastal Planning ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
Response Plan ◽  
Rising Sea Levels ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

The impact of sea-level rise on coastal towns is expected to be a major challenge, with millions of people exposed. The climate-induced risk assessment of coastal areas subject to flooding plays an essential role in planning effective measures for adaptation plans. However, in European legislation, as well as in the regional plans adopted by the member states, there is no clear reference to urban settlement, as this concept is variable and difficult to categorise from the policy perspective. This lack of knowledge makes it complicated to implement efficient adaptation plans. This research examines the presence of the issue in Portugal’s coastal settlements, the European coastal area most vulnerable to rising sea levels, using the case of seashore streets as the most exposed waterfront public urban areas. Using the morphometric classification of the urban fabric, we analyse the relationship between urban typology and legislative macro-areas aimed at providing integrated adaptation plans. The study suggests that there is only a minimal relationship between the proposed classification and the geographical zones currently identified in coastal planning policies. Such incongruence suggests the need for change, as the policy should be able to provide a response plan tailored to the specificities of urban areas.

scholarly journals The Imperative to Explore the Impact of Disarmament on Peacemaking Efforts and Conflict Recurrence

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 347-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamie Levin ◽  
Dan Miodownik
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Internal Armed Conflict ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
Conflict Termination ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Durable Peace

AbstractThere is today a well-established consensus that belligerents must be disarmed in order to reconstruct shattered states and establish a robust and durable peace in the wake of internal armed conflict. Indeed, nearly every UN peacekeeping intervention since the end of the Cold War has included disarmament provisions in its mandate. Disarmament is guided by the arrestingly simple premise that weapons cause conflict and, therefore, must be eradicated for a civil conflict to end. If the means by which combatants fight are eliminated, it is thought, actors will have little choice but to commit to peace. Disarmament is, therefore, considered a necessary condition for establishing the lasting conditions for peace. To date, however, no systematic quantitative analysis has been undertaken of the practice of disarmament and the causal mechanisms remain underspecified. This paper is a preliminary attempt to fill that gap. In it we outline a series of hypotheses with which to run future statistical analyses on the effects of disarmament programs. The success of negotiations and the durability of peace are, perhaps, the single most salient issues concerning those engaged in conflict termination efforts. We therefore focus the bulk of this paper on a review of the supposed effects of disarmament on negotiating outcomes and war recurrence.

An Economic IslamicityIndex (EI2)

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 1850207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scheherazade S. Rehman ◽  
Hossein Askari
Keyword(s):  
Social Behavior ◽  
Economic Performance ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Islamic Countries ◽  
Islamic Economic ◽  
Global Uncertainty ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

Given the post-9/11 climate of global uncertainty, suspicion, hostility, and fear, interest in the relationship between religion and economics, politics, and social behavior has been rekindled. In particular, there has been considerable attention afforded to the impact of religion on economic, social, and political development and vice versa. However, before the impact of religion on economic performance or the impact of economic performance on religion can be examined, one should first ascertain the religiosity of a country. In this case, “how Islamic are Islamic countries?” or “what is their degree of ‘Islamicity?’” In this paper, we assess, on a very preliminary basis, the adherence of Islamic countries to Islamic economic teachings and develop an Economic IslamicityIndex (EI2) to assess the extent that self-declared Islamic countries adhere to Islamic doctrines and teachings. We do this by measuring 208 countries’ adherence to Islamic Economic principles using as proxies 113 measurable variables.

scholarly journals THE IMPACT OF ESG FACTORS ON MARKET VALUE OF COMPANIES FROM TRAVEL AND TOURISM INDUSTRY

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 820-849 ◽  
Author(s):  
George H. Ionescu ◽  
Daniela Firoiu ◽  
Ramona Pirvu ◽  
Ruxandra Dana Vilag
Keyword(s):  
Economic Impact ◽  
Economic Performance ◽  
Market Value ◽  
Listed Companies ◽  
Geographic Region ◽  
Tourism Industry ◽  
Important Influence ◽  
Travel And Tourism ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors and firm market value for the companies from travel and tourism industry and, in the same time, to investigates the question if the association between good ESG scores for travel and tourism companies and their market value can be used as a performance predictor. The impact of extra-financial ESG performance on market value of the companies was estimated using the modified version of the Ohlson (1995) model, based on a sample of 73 listed companies, worldwide distributed, during the 2010–2015 period. The overall results of this research are consistent with the value enhancing theory (as opposed with the shareholder expense theory). From the ESG factors, the governance factor seems to have the most important influence on the market value of the selected companies, regardless of the geographic region where they are located. Thus, our findings provide new insights into the influence of each ESG factor on the market value of the companies, providing a useful tool for stakeholders to measure economic impact but also for use as a predictor of economic performance.

scholarly journals Trade unions and the economic performance of brazilian establishments

2008 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naércio Aquino Menezes-Filho ◽  
José Paulo Chahad ◽  
Hélio Zylberstajn ◽  
Elaine Toldo Pazello
Keyword(s):  
Economic Performance ◽  
Performance Indicators ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Manufacturing Sector ◽  
Profit Sharing ◽  
Pooled Data ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
The Impact ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Relationship

This paper examines, for the first time in the literature, the impact of trade unions on various performance indicators of Brazilian establishments. A unionism retrospective survey was carried out among 1,000 establishments in the manufacturing sector and its results were matched to performance indicators available from the Brazilian Industrial Surveys between 1990 and 2000. The results using the pooled data indicate that the relationship between unionism and some performance indicators, such as average wages, employment and productivity is non-linear (concave), so that a rise in unionism from low levels is associated with higher performance, but at a decreasing rate. Unions also reduce profitability. Establishments that introduced profit-sharing schemes increased their productivity and profitability overall and paid higher wages in more unionized plants.

scholarly journals Evaluating the Influence of Urban Morphology on Urban Wind Environment Based on Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 399
Author(s):  
Chia-An Ku ◽  
Hung-Kai Tsai
Keyword(s):  
Fluid Dynamics ◽  
Computational Fluid Dynamics ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Urban Morphology ◽  
Dynamics Simulation ◽  
Wind Environment ◽  
Study Region ◽  
Wind Speeds ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

Due to urbanization around the world, people living in urban areas have been suffering from a series of negative effects caused by changes in urban microclimate, especially when it comes to urban heat islands (UHIs). To mitigate UHIs, management of urban wind environments is increasingly considered as a crucial part of the process. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation of wind fields has become a prevailing method to explore the relationship between morphological factors and wind environment. However, most studies are focused on building scale and fail to reflect the effects of comprehensive planning. In addition, the combined influence of different morphological factors on wind environment is rarely discussed. Therefore, this study tries to explore the relationship between urban morphology and wind environment in a new-town area. CFD method was applied to simulate the wind field, and 11 scenarios based on criteria according to existing literature, planning regulations and local characteristics were developed. The simulation results from different scenarios show that the impact of the five selected factors on wind speeds was non-linear, and the impact varied significantly among different areas of the study region. Simulation of the differences in regional wind speeds among different planning scenarios can provide strong decision-making support.

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