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Measuring and Accounting for Environmental Public Goods: A National Accounts Perspective (National Bureau of Economic Research Studies in Income and Wealth)
by Nicholas Z. Muller, Eli P. Fenichel, and Mary BohmanProvides strategies and approaches for integrating natural capital into environmental statistics. While the importance of natural resources and the contributions of the environment to welfare are apparent, traditional national income and wealth accounting practices do not measure or value environmental public goods. This volume examines the conceptual and empirical basis for integrating natural capital—forests, oceans, and air—into the economic and environmental statistics that inform public policy. It offers innovative approaches to valuing nonmarket environmental goods and services, including strategies for capturing heterogeneity in measurement across types of capital, geography, and individuals. The chapters focus on measuring productivity with adjustments for pollution damage, developing a microdata infrastructure to advance our understanding of the distribution of environmental amenities and hazards, and estimating long-run sustainable development indicators. Case studies consider coastal assets, forests, and marine ecosystems, and develop strategies for implementing specific environmental-economic accounts such as environmental activity accounts and natural capital accounts for forests and the marine economy. As national income accounting standards are updated to incorporate expanded guidance on issues related to natural capital, this timely book will help inform decisions on the measurement and treatment of climate, air, water, and other public goods.
Measuring and Controlling Sustainability: Spanning Theory and Practice
by Bernhard Hirsch Adam Lindgreen Christine Vallaster Dr Shumaila YousofzaiEfforts to establish the measurement and control of sustainability have produced notable tools, but those instruments lack applicability in practice. Increasing the level of standardization of such tools also seems difficult to achieve, because the contexts surrounding the focal organizations differ considerably. Therefore, what we need is a systematic, interdisciplinary assessment of how to measure and control sustainability, so that we can establish an essential definition and up-to-date picture of the field. Measuring and Controlling Sustainability attempts to provide such an assessment in 17 chapters, organized into four main topic sections: (a) organizations and social value creation: concepts, responsibilities, and barriers; (b) accounting, measurement, performance, and diffusion of social value; (c) practical and managerial insights from real-life cases; and (d) choices, incentives, guidance, and ethics. This research anthology provides a comprehensive collection of cutting-edge theories and research that will further the development and advancement of measuring and controlling sustainable efforts in theory and managerial practice.
Measuring and Evaluating Sustainability: Ethics in Sustainability Indexes (Routledge Studies in Sustainable Development)
by Sarah E. FredericksThe indexes used by local, national, and international governments to monitor progress toward sustainability do not adequately align with their ethical priorities and have a limited ability to monitor and promote sustainability. This book gives a theoretical and practical demonstration of how ethics and technical considerations can aid the development of sustainability indexes to overcome this division in the literature and aid sustainability initiatives. Measuring and Evaluating Sustainability develops and illustrates methods of linking technical and normative concerns during the development of sustainability indexes. Specifically, guidelines for index development are combined with a pragmatic theory of ethics that enables ethical collaboration among people of diverse ethical systems. Using the resulting method of index development, the book takes a unique applied turn as it ethically evaluates multiple sustainability indexes developed and used by the European Commission, researchers, and local communities and suggests ways to improve the indexes. The book emphasizes justice as it is the most prevalent ethical principle in the sustainability literature and most neglected in index development. In addition to the ethical principles common to international sustainability initiatives, the book also employs a variety of religious and philosophical traditions to ensure that the ethical evaluations performed in the text align with the ideals of the communities using the indexes and foster cross-cultural ethical dialogue. This volume is an invaluable resource for students, researchers and professionals working on sustainability indicators and sustainability policy-making as well as interdisciplinary areas including environmental ethics; environmental philosophy; environmental or social justice; ecological economics; businesses sustainability programs; international development and environmental policy-making.
Measuring and Improving Social Impacts: A Guide for Nonprofits, Companies, and Impact Investors
by Marc J. Epstein Kristi YuthasPhilanthropic NGOs, foundations, and corporations face endlessly competing needs when deciding to invest or donate for maximum social impact. This book fills an enormous gap by providing a system to measure, operationalize, and improve any organization's impact investments.
Measuring and Monitoring Absolute Poverty in the European Union
by Balint Menyhert Zsombor Cseres-Gergely Virmantas Kvedaras Benedetta Mina Filippo Pericoli Slavica ZecThis book sets out a new framework and methodology for the measuring and monitoring of absolute poverty in the European Union. A comparative needs-based analysis of poverty is presented that allows for cross-country examination. By comparing absolute poverty measurements with existing conventional measures, a new understanding of poverty within the European Union is explored, highlighting that poverty is cyclical and unevenly disturbed across Europe. Issued related to poverty, including food basket development, basket pricing, household compatibility, are also discussed. This book aims to provide a comprehensive account of methodological tools available for the measurement of poverty. It will be relevant to researchers and policymakers interested in absolute poverty measurement.This is an open access book.
Measuring the Economic Value of Research: The Case Of Food Safety
by Kaye Husbands Fealing Julia I. Lane John L. King Stanley R. JohnsonThe scientific advances that underpin economic growth and human health would not be possible without research investments. Yet demonstrating the impact of research programs is a challenge, especially in areas that span disciplines, industrial sectors, and encompass both public and private sector activity. All areas of research are under pressure to demonstrate benefits from federal funding of research. This exciting and innovative study demonstrates new methods and tools to trace the impact of federal research funding on the structure of research, and the subsequent economic activities of funded researchers. The case study is food safety research, which is critical to avoiding outbreaks of disease. The authors make use of an extraordinary new data infrastructure and apply new techniques in text analysis. Focusing on the impact of US federal food safety research, this book develops vital data-intensive methodologies that have a real world application to many other scientific fields.
Measuring the Effectiveness of Border Security Between Ports-of-Entry
by Henry H. Willis Paul K. Davis Wayne P. Brown Joel B. PreddThis report offers research and recommendations on ways to measure the overall efforts of the national border-security enterprise between ports of entry. Focusing on three missions--illegal drug control, counterterrorism, and illegal migration--this report recommends ways to measure performance of U.S. border-security efforts in terms of interdiction, deterrence, and exploiting networked intelligence.
Measuring the Effectiveness of Real Estate Regulation: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
by Ronit Levine-SchnurThis book discusses the fundamental issues regarding the effect of real estate regulation on housing, urban development, and considerations of justice and efficiency. Bringing together the contributions of prominent scholars representing diverse methodologies and academic disciplines, this book offers new perspectives on core topics such as the effectiveness of land use regulation in terms of housing availability, enhanced equality, and sustainable development; and different modes of regulation and their mutual influences. The book’s eleven chapters are divided into five parts which address different aspects of real estate regulation, combining theoretical analysis with a close observation of diverse case studies, from North America and Europe to China, the Middle East, and developing economies. Part I offers cutting-edge analysis on how to measure, model, and understand the impact of zoning and other modes of real estate regulation, from economic and normative theoretical viewpoints. Part II complements Part I by providing historical observations and empirical knowledge on the actual contribution of zoning and historical conservation regulation to cities’ shape. Part III considers the outcomes of business and industrial land development policies. Part IV studies urban land development regulation and allows to compare between two relevant case studies—one from Germany, and the other from Poland. Finally, Part V concerns standardization in the real estate market by analyzing the justification and outcomes of such attempts, particularly in the mortgages market. Providing an interface between theory and practice, the book will appeal to a broad audience, consisting of scholars, policy-makers, practitioners, and students, interested in an interdisciplinary overlook on real estate regulation.
Measuring the Effectiveness of Regional Governing Systems
by David K. HamiltonRegional governance is a topical public policy issue and is receiving increased attention from scholars, government officials and civic leaders. As countries continue to urbanize and centralize economic functions and population in metropolitan regions, the traditional governing system is not equipped to handle policy issues that spill over local government boundaries. Governments have utilized four basic approaches to address the regional governing problem: consolidating governments, adding a regional tier, creating regional special districts, and functional cooperative approaches. The first two are structural approaches that require major (radical) changes to the governing system. The latter two are governance approaches that contemplate marginal changes to the existing governance structure and rely generally on cooperation with other governments and collaboration with the nongovernmental sector. Canada and the United States have experimented with these basic forms of regional governance. This book is a systematic analysis of these basic forms as they have been experienced by North American cities. Utilizing cases from Canada and the United States, the book provides an in-depth analysis of the pros and cons of each approach to regional governance. This research provides an additional perspective on Canadian and U.S. regional governance and adds to the knowledge of Canadian and United States governing systems. This study contributes to the literature on the various approaches to regional governance as well as bringing together the most current literature on regional governance. The author develops a framework of the values that a regional governing system should provide and measures to assess how well each basic approach achieves these values. Based on this assessment, he suggests an approach to regional governance for North American metropolitan areas that best achieves these values.
Measuring the Health of the Liberal International Order
by Andrew Radin Astrid Stuth Cevallos Michael J. Mazarr Miranda Priebe Julia A. Thompson Kathleen Reedy Alexander D. Rothenberg Jordan WillcoxAs part of a larger study on the future of the post–World War II liberal international order, RAND researchers analyze the health of the existing order and offer implications for future U.S. policy. The study’s overall conclusion is that the postwar order continues to enjoy many elements of stability but is increasingly threatened by major geopolitical and domestic socioeconomic trends that call into question the order’s fundamental assumptions.
Measuring the Performance of Public Services
by Michael PiddMeasuring the performance of public agencies and programmes is essential to ensure that citizens enjoy quality services and that governments can be sure that taxpayers receive value for money. As such, good performance measurement is a crucial component of improvement and planning, monitoring and control, comparison and benchmarking and also ensures democratic accountability. This book shows how the principles, uses and practice of performance measurement for public services differ from those in for-profit organisations, being based on the need to add public value rather than profit. It describes methods and approaches for measuring performance through time, for constructing and using scorecards, composite indicators, the use of league tables and rankings and argues that data-envelopment analysis is a useful tool when thinking about performance. This demonstrates the importance of allowing for the multidimensional nature of performance, as well as the need to base measurement on a sound technical footing.
Measuring the Quality of Education
by Paul VedderThis book contains a selection of articles on measuring the quality of education from the perspective of the importance of theories on education, changing effects of education, curriculum dependent or curriculum independent measurement, product and process evaluation, and global curricula.
Measuring the Value of a Postsecondary Education
by Ken Norrie Mary Catharine LennonMeasuring the Value of a Postsecondary Education is an insightful collection of essays that respond to current and pressing questions in the field of higher education: What do we mean by "quality" of education? What do courses and programs promise to deliver, and do they succeed? What do we know about improving learning outcomes, and is reform possible? Comprised of papers presented at a conference of experts convened by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario in 2011, the book begins by evaluating pioneering initiatives in Europe, and follows this with reports on efforts to measure and evaluate learning outcomes. Drawing on over two decades of work by international agencies, governments, and foundations in identifying and evaluating learning outcomes in higher education, Measuring the Value of a Postsecondary Education encourages educational institutions to draw on this evidence in revising course and program offerings. Bringing together international leaders and innovators in the field, this book is an important analysis of progress in enhancing learning quality and directions for future reform. Contributors include Jeana Abromeit (Alverno College), Roger Benjamin (Council for Aid to Education), Ken Dryden (Canadian politician), Michael Gallagher (Group of Eight), Virginia Hatchette (Postsecondary Education Quality Assessment Board), Jillian Kinzie (Indiana University), Diane Lalancette (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), Holiday Hart McKiernan (Lumina Foundation), Robert Wagenaar (University of Groningen), and Lorne A. Whitehead (University of British Columbia).
Measuring the Value of a Postsecondary Education (Queen's Policy Studies Series #162)
by Ken Norrie Mary Catharine LennonMeasuring the Value of a Postsecondary Education is an insightful collection of essays that respond to current and pressing questions in the field of higher education: What do we mean by "quality" of education? What do courses and programs promise to deliver, and do they succeed? What do we know about improving learning outcomes, and is reform possible? Comprised of papers presented at a conference of experts convened by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario in 2011, the book begins by evaluating pioneering initiatives in Europe, and follows this with reports on efforts to measure and evaluate learning outcomes. Drawing on over two decades of work by international agencies, governments, and foundations in identifying and evaluating learning outcomes in higher education, Measuring the Value of a Postsecondary Education encourages educational institutions to draw on this evidence in revising course and program offerings. Bringing together international leaders and innovators in the field, this book is an important analysis of progress in enhancing learning quality and directions for future reform. Contributors include Jeana Abromeit (Alverno College), Roger Benjamin (Council for Aid to Education), Ken Dryden (Canadian politician), Michael Gallagher (Group of Eight), Virginia Hatchette (Postsecondary Education Quality Assessment Board), Jillian Kinzie (Indiana University), Diane Lalancette (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), Holiday Hart McKiernan (Lumina Foundation), Robert Wagenaar (University of Groningen), and Lorne A. Whitehead (University of British Columbia).
Measuring to Improve: Practical Measurement to Support Continuous Improvement in Education (Continuous Improvement in Education Series)
by Paul Cobb Paul G. LeMahieuA first-in-field compilation of best practices for the design and implementation of practical measurement for improvement in K-12 education
Measuring, Understanding and Improving Wellbeing Among Older People
by Sefa Awaworyi Churchill Lisa Farrell Samuelson AppauHow can we be happier, healthier and more satisfied in life? This edited collection examines various dimensions of wellbeing among older people, including its measurement; social, environmental and economic determinants; and how research can be translated into policy to improve quality of life for older people. With an increasingly ageing population across countries and an increasing population of older adults, there is growing interest in improving older people’s ability to live healthily and happily. With a focus on retirement and aged care, this book is important reading for those interested in Welfare Economics, Health Economics and Development.
Meat Market: Female Flesh Under Capitalism
by Laurie PennyModern culture is obsessed with controlling women's bodies. Our societies are saturated with images of unreal, idealized female beauty whilst real female bodies and the women who inhabit them are alienated from their own personal and political potential. Under modern capitalism, women are both consumers and consumed: Meat Market offers strategies for resisting this gory cycle of consumption, exposing how the trade in female flesh extends into every part of women's political selfhood. Touching on sexuality, prostitution, hunger, consumption, eating disorders, housework, transsexualism, and the global trade in the signs and signifiers of femininity, Meat Market is a thin, bloody sliver of feminist dialectic, dissecting women's bodies as the fleshy fulcrum of capitalist cannibalism.
Meatonomics: How the Rigged Economics of Meat and Dairy Make You Consume Too Much And How to Eat Better, Live Longer, and Spend Smarter
by David Robinson SimonIn this &“provocative and persuasive work,&” the health advocate reveals the dirty economics of meat—an industry that&’s eating into your wallet (Publishers Weekly). Few Americans are aware of the economic system that supports our country&’s supply of animal foods. Yet these forces affect us in a number of ways—none of them good. Though we only pay a few dollars per pound of meat at the grocery store, we pay far more in tax-fueled government subsidies—$38 billion more, to be exact. And subsidies are just one layer of meat&’s hidden cost. But in Meatonomics, lawyer and sustainability advocate David Robinson Simon offers a path toward lasting solutions. Animal food producers maintain market dominance with artificially low prices, misleading PR, and an outsized influence over legislation. But counteracting these manipulations is easy—with the economic sanity of plant-based foods. In Meatonomics, Simon demonstrates: How government-funded marketing influences what we think of as healthy eatingHow much of our money is spent to prop up the meat industryHow we can change our habits and our country for the better &“Spectacularly important.&” —John Robbins, author of The Food Revolution &“[A] well-researched, passionately written book.&” —Publishers Weekly
Meatpacking America: How Migration, Work, and Faith Unite and Divide the Heartland
by Kristy Nabhan-WarrenWhether valorized as the heartland or derided as flyover country, the Midwest became instantly notorious when COVID-19 infections skyrocketed among workers in meatpacking plants—and Americans feared for their meat supply. But the Midwest is not simply the place where animals are fed corn and then butchered. Native midwesterner Kristy Nabhan-Warren spent years interviewing Iowans who work in the meatpacking industry, both native-born residents and recent migrants from Latin America, Africa, and Asia. In Meatpacking America, she digs deep below the stereotype and reveals the grit and grace of a heartland that is a major global hub of migration and food production—and also, it turns out, of religion. Across the flatlands, Protestants, Catholics, and Muslims share space every day as worshippers, employees, and employers. On the bloody floors of meatpacking plants, in bustling places of worship, and in modest family homes, longtime and newly arrived Iowans spoke to Nabhan-Warren about their passion for religious faith and desire to work hard for their families. Their stories expose how faith-based aspirations for mutual understanding blend uneasily with rampant economic exploitation and racial biases. Still, these new and old midwesterners say that a mutual language of faith and morals brings them together more than any of them would have ever expected.
Meccanomics: The March of the New Muslim Middle Class
by Vali NasrRenowned Middle-East expert Vali Nasr combines historical narrative with contemporary on-the-ground research to introduce a Muslim World we've never seen. Meccanomics takes us behind the news, so dominated by the struggle against extremists and the Taliban, to reveal a new society, one that is being reshaped by an upwardly mobile middle class of entrepreneurs, investors, professionals, and insatiable consumers. His insights into the true situations in Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the crucial bright spots of Dubai and Turkey provide a whole new way of thinking about the troubles and prospects in the region. Nasr's groundbreaking analysis offers a powerful reassessment of a region where financial might - not fundamentalism - does the talking.
Mechanics of the Middle Class: Work and Politics Among American Engineers
by Robert ZussmanThis title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1985.
Mechanismen der Polarisierung von Parteiensystemen: Ideologische Dynamiken im Kontext von Angebot, Nachfrage und institutionellen Rahmenbedingungen
by Johannes SchmittIn der vergleichenden Politikwissenschaft ist der Indikator der Polarisierung zur Analyse von Parteiensystemen seit dem zentralen Werk von Giovanni Sartori etabliert. Sowohl eine zu niedrige als auch eine zu hohe Polarisierung charakterisieren einen dysfunktionalen Parteienwettbewerb. Allerdings sind die Ursachen, welche die Entstehung von Polarisierung erklären, nicht ausreichend erforscht. Die Arbeit widmet sich deshalb der Frage: Warum polarisieren sich demokratische Parteiensysteme und, unter welchen Bedingungen ist wiederum eine Entpolarisierung zu erwarten? Im Rahmen einer international-vergleichenden, quantitativen Analyse wird eine Antwort auf diese Frage gesucht. Zusammenfassend zeigt sich, dass insbesondere in den westeuropäischen Verhältniswahlsystemen die Polarisierung immer dann hoch ist, wenn sich der politische Wettbewerbsraum auf eine Dimension reduziert, eine Zentrumskoalition mit einer schwachen Opposition konfrontiert ist, das Parteiensystem gleichzeitig fragmentiert ist, das Elektorat in seinen Präferenzen polarisiert ist und die Wähler sowie Wählerinnen mit der Regierung unzufrieden sind.
Mechanismen des institutionellen Antiziganismus: Kommunale Praktiken und EU-Binnenmigration am Beispiel einer westdeutschen Großstadt (Bürgerbewusstsein)
by Tobias Neuburger Christian HinrichsUnter Schlagworten wie "Armutszuwanderung aus Südosteuropa" entwickelte sich verstärkt seit 2013 ein politischer Abwehrdiskurs in Bezug auf die EU-Binnenmigration aus Rumänien und Bulgarien in deutsche Großstädte. In diesem Buch gehen die Autoren anhand einer Einzelfallstudie der Frage nach, wie dieser Diskurs die kommunale Praxis in einer westdeutschen Großstadt strukturierte. Durch umfangreiche empirische Erhebungen konnten sie einen Prozess des institutionellen Antiziganismus rekonstruieren, in dessen Zuge die Diskriminierung von sogenannten "Armutszuwanderern" – ein verwaltungssprachliches Substitut für das Stigma "Roma" – sukzessive ausgeweitet wurde. Dieser Prozess besteht aus wechselseitig sich verstärkenden Grenzziehungs- und Ausschlusspraktiken, die aus Geschichte und Gegenwart des Antiziganismus bestens bekannt sind und an die Tradition kommunaler Gefahrenabwehr anknüpfen.
Mechanisms of European Integration: The Force of Reasons (Routledge/UACES Contemporary European Studies)
by Erik O. EriksenThis book posits the possibility of a reasons-based account of the European integration process.The book pursues the force of public reason in getting to agreement beyond the nation state and spells out the fundamentals of the European integration process, theorizing the mechanisms that brought the European Union (EU) into existence. The book combines insights from social and political theory, law, and political science in setting out a novel theory of European integration and reconstructing the normative foundation of the EU. It goes on to establish the problem of arbitrary rule (dominance) created by political differentiation, examines the place of democracy in the multilevel constellation that makes up the EU, and proposes a set of democratic reforms.This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of EU studies, European integration, democracy, and international political theory/philosophy.
Mechanistic Realism and US Foreign Policy: A New Framework for Analysis (Contemporary Security Studies)
by Johannes Gullestad RøThis book aims to reinvigorate realist international relations theory by developing a catalogue of micro-mechanisms able to explain security policy decision-making. Typically, realism discounts the role of individuals and uses states as the unit of analysis. By examining instead the mental operations of those who act on behalf of the state, a better understanding of security policy formation is attainable. The book demonstrates how realism can be translated from a systemic "grand theory" into a catalogue of psychologically plausible mechanisms applicable to individual decision-makers. This catalogue, here called "Mechanistic Realism", may be employed to investigate the cognitive precursors to security policy. The explanatory power of Mechanistic Realism is demonstrated through a meticulous analysis of what transpired inside the George W. Bush administration, as its members forged a response to the 2001 terrorist attacks. Through the exploration of individual-level data, Mechanistic Realism provides a more comprehensive analysis of the US response. The book concludes that international relations (IR) scholars would benefit analytically by assembling the most pertinent mechanisms into an explanatory toolbox rather than developing and applying grand theories. Mechanistic Realism is a first step in this direction. This book should be of great interest to students of IR, foreign policy, American politics, and security studies in general. .