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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
1

The fostering of competence through an authentic integrated assessment strategy for wound care in nursing

De Villiers, J.C., Botma, Y, Seale, I January 2009 (has links)
Published Article / In 2005 the third-year facilitators of the generic degree in nursing embarked on an action research initiative within a service learning pedagogy to revitalise the nursing process related to wound care.As a result of the action research a unique wound care project unfolded. This project embraced an integrated assessment approach in order to assess the competence related to wound care and to develop health care practitioners with generic- and field-specific competencies. Action research as mode of delivery for this project created an opportunity for producing Mode 2 knowledge where all participants contributed to the production of knowledge relevant to the wound care context.
2

Bringing Public Perceptions in the Integrated Assessment of Coastal Systems. Case studies on beach tourism and coastal erosion in the Western Mediterranean

Roca Bosch, Elisabet 04 April 2008 (has links)
La tesis aplica el pensamiento sistémico y la Evaluación Integrada (IA) al campo de la gestión costera. En particular, se analiza la contribución que el estudio de las percepciones aporta a los procesos de evaluación ambiental de los sistemas costeros, para mejorar las deficiencias de los métodos más convencionales caracterizados por su unidimensionalidad y dependencia del conocimiento disciplinar. Se han realizado tres estudios de caso relativos a la calidad de las playas en ambientes turísticos y a la erosión costera. El primer caso se ha desarrollado en la zona de la Costa Brava, al Nordeste España. El caso afronta la necesidad de incorporar la perspectiva del usuario a los métodos de evaluación de la calidad de la Playa. Se realizaron 600 cuestionarios a los usuarios de las playas y un conjunto de entrevistas en profundidad a actores locales. Los resultados muestran que los estudios de percepción pueden ser instrumentos muy útiles para los gestores costeros, aportando información sobre el perfil del usuario, sus preferencias y sus valoraciones sobre la calidad de las playas. En estos contextos los sistemas costeros deberían ser gestionados adaptándose a las particularidades ambientales de cada playa y a la diversidad de sus usuarios, evitando prácticas de homogeneización. El segundo caso trata el problema de la erosión costera. El estudio se localiza en Sitges (Cataluña, España) donde se analiza un conflicto social surgido a principios del 2000 como reacción a una propuesta de intervención para frenar la erosión existente. La investigación explora los elementos que dificultan dar respuestas integradas a la erosión costera a partir de un estudio de percepción basado en entrevistas en profundidad. La complejidad e incertidumbre ligadas a los propios procesos erosivos, las características de los marcos de evaluación existentes y el contexto institucional en el campo de la protección costera en España son algunos de las cuestiones analizadas. El estudio muestra como el conocimiento técnico no es suficiente para encontrar soluciones coherentes i sólidas con el contexto local y las necesidades sociales y constata la necesidad de incorporar enfoques más participativos. Finalmente, el tercer caso se desarrolló en el Lido de Séte (Francia) y explora los beneficios de aplicar un Análisis Multicriterio Participativo (AMP) para evaluar estrategias de gestión de la erosión costera. Los resultados muestran que las alternativas más adaptativas como el retroceso controlado de la línea de costa y la recuperación de la dinámica natural son socialmente más aceptados, en el caso de estudio, que alternativas más rígidas basadas en enfoques ingenieriles. El enfoque utilizado contribuye a representar la multidimensionalidad de la costa, integra diferentes perspectivas, facilita el intercambio de conocimiento y permite el tratamiento de la incertidumbre. La disertación concluye ofreciendo una propuesta metodológica para incorporar la dimensión social en la evaluación integrada de sistemas costeros. / The present dissertation applies complex system thinking and Integrated Assessment (IA) to the field of coastal management. It emphasises the social perspective and analyses the added value of integrating public perceptions into the processes of assessing coastal socio-ecological systems. It argues that the Integrated Assessment of coastal systems requires moving away from one-dimensional evaluation methods and to develop innovative assessment approaches capable to understand coasts in as highly complex, multidimensional dynamic systems and explicitly acknowledge their inherent degree of uncertainty. Three case studies have been carried out regarding the assessment of beach quality and coastal erosion. The first one was developed in the area of "Costa Brava", North-East Spain, a tourist hotspot. The case study addressed the lack of bottom-up approaches to assess beach quality. The methods, which were applied on six beaches, involved a survey of 600 beach-users and a set of in-depth interviews to local stakeholders. The results showed that public perception surveys can be useful tools for coastal managers. Coastal systems should be specifically managed in an adaptive fashion considering the particularities of each beach and avoiding homogenising practices. In this way, conservation strategies could be prioritised in natural environments with recognised natural values or with higher potential for ecological recovery. While in the other hand, 'hard' interventionist approaches oriented to enhance recreational beach uses could be pursued in those intensively used beaches, normally located along urban water fronts. The second case deals with coastal erosion. It was carried out in Sitges (Catalonia, Spain) and analyzed a conflict that arose at the beginning of the year 2000 as a reaction to a proposal for intervention to cope with coastal erosion. The research explored the elements that make it difficult to give integrated responses to coastal erosion. In this case, the research of public perception was based on in-depth interviews. Issues related to the very nature of the coastal systems - complexity and uncertainty of coastal erosion- were addressed. Furthermore, the work explored the drawbacks of the existing assessment approaches and the policy framework on coastal protection in Spain. The case study showed that the technical knowledge does not fit enough to find robust solutions that satisfy both social needs and technical requirements. The complexity of coastal erosion risks demands to move beyond the existing assessment frameworks where the role of the experts need to be reformulated. This process should open up the debate to other disciplines and knowledge which may bring more adaptive alternatives more in coherence with natural dynamics of coastal systems. The third case was carried out in the Lido of Séte (France) and explored the suitability of applying participatory MultiCriteria Analysis (MCA) to assess different strategies to cope with coastal erosion risks. The methods used involved the Social Multicriteria Evaluation tool of Naiade combined with in-depths interviews and focus groups. Results showed that more adaptive alternatives such as "retreating the shoreline" were preferred by selected stakeholders to those corresponding to "protecting the shoreline" and the Business as Usual proposals traditionally put forward by experts and policy makers on these matters. Participative MCA contributed to represent coastal multidimensionality, elicit and integrate different views and preferences, facilitated knowledge exchange, and allowed highlighting existing uncertainties. The dissertation concludes by drawing a methodological proposal on how to bring social perspective into the assessment of coastal systems. A 3-step procedure is put forward which includes the following: i) a baseline analysis of the values and perceptions of the society under study; ii) institutional analysis and maping out the stakeholders' relationships in order to identify barriers and opportunities to implementing integrated strategies and, iii) a public participation within the assessment process. We argue that all this in-depth knowledge on the functioning of the social system needs to be combined with an in-depth understanding of the dynamics of the ecological system under consideration.
3

Integrated assessment of coastal zone management¡Ðthe case study of the coastal zone near Chang Hua Coastal Industrial Park

Lee, Meng-tsung 19 July 2007 (has links)
The overuse of the coastal resources and overdevelopment on coastal areas led to the result of serious destruction of nature landscape and coastal resources due to the abundance of coastal resources. To avoid the improper development on the coastal areas, it is necessary to have an integrated consideration over the engineering, ecosystem, economics, environmental protection and sustainable development based on the character of coastal land. Therefore, the main conception of this study is to apply the concept of Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) to take all aspects which might affect the coastal management into integrated consideration, and to accomplish the concept of ICZM by Integrated Assessment (IA). Furthermore, the study constructed a indicator structure of assess coastal management by Driving forces¡VPressures¡VStates¡VImpacts¡VResponses (DPSIR), which takes the production, ecosystem and living environment as three core assessment indicators. Finally, the conceptual model of integrated coastal management is constructed with the help of System Dynamic (SD) and Cellular Automata (CA). This study simulates the influence of the existence of Chang Hua Coastal Industrial Park on the nearby areas such as Hsienhsi county, Hemei town and Lukang town from 1991 to 2021. The main consideration is on the time-series variation of three core indicators and some critical variables as well as the mid-term to long-term tendency on the land use. Three kinds of actions are set for the scenario analysis, including single strategy, multi strategies and progressively varying strategies. According to the simulation results, the action of multi strategies results in the best performance on three core indicators, and the action of single strategy is the worst on the contrary. On seeing the blooming problems over simulation period, the progressively varying strategies are applied in specific time points, and result in better or worse performances depending on different restrictions and resources. The conceptual model constructed in this research is adaptive to simulate the varying tendency on the nearby areas due to the existence of coastal industrial park, and is an efficient and effective assessing measure for the decision persons or the paper worker to understand the influences on different scenarios or strategies applied. Thus better formulations or suggestions over destination areas will be made to help fulfill the concept of ICZM.
4

Strategy analysis for ecological restoration and water pollution control of Love River aquatic environment in Kaohsiung region

Lee, Meng-Tsung 26 July 2002 (has links)
Following the economy growth and commercial and industrial development, the rivers in Taiwan have suffered the environmental degradation due to the overwhelming pollution from domestic and industrial sewage. Recent environmental awareness from the citizen has turned the once ignored issues of pollution mitigation and ecological restoration into the public attention. Traditionally, resort to engineering efforts is always the first priority in dealing with river pollution problem. Nevertheless, treated as the integrated system, the nature of the problem should involve many aspects including social, economic, ecological, environmental, and engineering factors. Meanwhile, the special feature of time-dependent state has also made such system a dynamic and complex problem. It is therefore the current research employs the approach from integrated assessment trying to aggregate related studies and tackling the problem as a complete system. System dynamic, which is capable of dealing with dynamic and complex problems, has been utilized as the simulation tool in this research. The result from computer simulation can be promptly generated, and various scenario analyses can be easily achieved by modifying the model parameters to support better decision-making. Love River wandering through the Kaohsiung metropolitan area is the research target. The system dynamic software STELLA has been used to construct the simulation model, which incorporates water quality model, population growth in the upstream of the watershed, land use variation due to the assumed regional development, diverse rainfall types, ecological assessment of the domestic fishes in the river, and cost-benefit of various pollution control strategies. The system dynamic models are thus able to evaluate the overall impact on the aquatic environment between various management scenarios. Two types of system dynamic models are constructed and verified accordingly to evaluate the impact of the designate gate operations and the sewage treatment strategies on aquatic environment. The simulation based on the gate operation model shows that keeping upper stream gates shut during the initial time span of a rainfall event would have the better effect to prolong the concentration of dissolved oxygen (DO) downs to the lethal concentration (LC50) for the local fish species. In the sewage treatment strategies model, the treatment cost and effect is the primary concern. The results identify the better extending strategy on the treatment plant, which is to use fortified primary treatment by adding disinfectant facilities. The other scenario of building constructed wetland system on the public park can improve water quality with good cost/effect ratio given the land acquisition is not an issue. Keyword¡GIntegrated Assessment, System Dynamic, Sustainable River Aquatic Environment
5

Learning in integrated optimization models of climate change and economy

Shayegh, Soheil 21 September 2015 (has links)
Integrated assessment models are powerful tools for providing insight into the interaction between the economy and climate change over a long time horizon. However, knowledge of climate parameters and their behavior under extreme circumstances of global warming is still an active area of research. In this thesis we incorporated the uncertainty in one of the key parameters of climate change, climate sensitivity, into an integrated assessment model and showed how this affects the choice of optimal policies and actions. We constructed a new, multi-step-ahead approximate dynamic programing (ADP) algorithm to study the effects of the stochastic nature of climate parameters. We considered the effect of stochastic extreme events in climate change (tipping points) with large economic loss. The risk of an extreme event drives tougher GHG reduction actions in the near term. On the other hand, the optimal policies in post-tipping point stages are similar to or below the deterministic optimal policies. Once the tipping point occurs, the ensuing optimal actions tend toward more moderate policies. Previous studies have shown the impacts of economic and climate shocks on the optimal abatement policies but did not address the correlation among uncertain parameters. With uncertain climate sensitivity, the risk of extreme events is linked to the variations in climate sensitivity distribution. We developed a novel Bayesian framework to endogenously interrelate the two stochastic parameters. The results in this case are clustered around the pre-tipping point optimal policies of the deterministic climate sensitivity model. Tougher actions are more frequent as there is more uncertainty in likelihood of extreme events in the near future. This affects the optimal policies in post-tipping point states as well, as they tend to utilize more conservative actions. As we proceed in time toward the future, the (binary) status of the climate will be observed and the prior distribution of the climate sensitivity parameter will be updated. The cost and climate tradeoffs of new technologies are key to decisions in climate policy. Here we focus on electricity generation industry and contrast the extremes in electricity generation choices: making choices on new generation facilities based on cost only and in the absence of any climate policy, versus making choices based on climate impacts only regardless of the generation costs. Taking the expected drop in cost as experience grows into account when selecting the portfolio of generation, on a pure cost-minimization basis, renewable technologies displace coal and natural gas within two decades even when climate damage is not considered in the choice of technologies. This is the natural gas as a bridge fuel scenario, and technology advancement to bring down the cost of renewables requires some commitment to renewables generation in the near term. Adopting the objective of minimizing climate damage, essentially moving immediately to low greenhouse gas generation technologies, results in faster cost reduction of new technologies and may result in different technologies becoming dominant in global electricity generation. Thus today’s choices for new electricity generation by individual countries and utilities have implications not only for their direct costs and the global climate, but also for the future costs and availability of emerging electricity generation options.
6

Modeling large-scale singular climate events for integrated assessment

Zickfeld, Kirsten January 2003 (has links)
Erkenntnisse aus paläoklimatologischen Studien, theoretischen Betrachtungen und Modellsimulationen deuten darauf hin, dass anthropogene Emissionen von Treibhausgasen und Aerosolen zu großskaligen, singulären Klimaereignissen führen könnten. Diese bezeichnen stark nichtlineare, abrupte Klimaänderungen, mit regionalen bis hin zu globalen Auswirkungen. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist die Entwicklung von Modellen zweier maßgeblicher Komponenten des Klimasystems, die singuläres Verhalten aufweisen könnten: die atlantische thermohaline Zirkulation (THC) und der indische Monsun. Diese Modelle sind so konzipiert, dass sie den Anforderungen der "Integrated Assessment"-Modellierung genügen, d.h., sie sind realistisch, recheneffizient, transparent und flexibel. <br /> <br /> Das THC-Modell ist ein einfaches, interhemisphärisches Boxmodell, das anhand von Daten kalibriert wird, die mit einem gekoppelten Klimamodell mittlerer Komplexität erzeugt wurden. Das Modell wird durch die globale Mitteltemperatur angetrieben, die mit Hilfe eines linearen Downscaling-Verfahrens in regionale Wärme- und Süßwasserflüsse übersetzt wird. Die Ergebnisse einer Vielzahl von zeitabhängigen Simulationen zeigen, dass das Modell in der Lage ist, maßgebliche Eigenschaften des Verhaltens komplexer Klimamodelle wiederzugeben, wie die Sensitivität bezüglich des Ausmaßes, der regionalen Verteilung und der Rate der Klimaänderung. <br /> <br /> Der indische Monsun wird anhand eines neuartigen eindimensionalen Boxmodells der tropischen Atmosphäre beschrieben. Dieses enthält Parmetrisierungen der Oberflächen- und Strahlungsflüsse, des hydrologischen Kreislaufs und derHydrologie der Landoberfläche. Trotz des hohen Idealisierungsgrades ist das Modell in der Lage, relevante Aspekte der beobachteten Monsundynamik, wie z.B. den Jahresgang des Niederschlags und das Eintritts- sowie Rückzugsdatum des Sommermonsuns, zufrieden stellend zu simulieren. Außerdem erfasst das Modell die Sensitivitätdes Monsuns bezüglich Änderungen der Treibhausgas- und Aerosolkonzentrationen, die aus komplexeren Modellen bekannt sind. <br /> <br /> Eine vereinfachte Version des Monsunmodells wird für die Untersuchung des qualitativen Systemverhaltens in Abhängigkeit von Änderungen der Randbedingungen eingesetzt. Das bemerkenswerteste Ergebnis ist das Auftreten einer Sattelknotenbifurkation des Sommermonsuns für kritische Werte der Albedo oder der Sonneneinstrahlung. Darüber hinaus weist das Modell zwei stabile Zustände auf: neben dem niederschlagsreichen Sommermonsun besteht ein Zustand, der sich durch einen schwachen hydrologischen Kreislauf auszeichnet. Das Beachtliche an diesen Ergebnissen ist, dass anthropogene Störungen der plantetaren Albedo, wie Schwefelemissionen und/oder Landnutzungsänderungen, zu einer Destabilisierung des indischen Monsuns führen könnten. <br /> <br /> Das THC-Boxmodell findet exemplarische Anwendung in einem "Integrated Assessment" von Klimaschutzstrategien. Basierend auf dem konzeptionellen und methodischen Gerüst des Leitplankenansatzes werden Emissionskorridore (d.h. zulässige Spannen an CO2-Emissionen) berechnet, die das Risiko eines THC-Zusammenbruchs begrenzen sowie sozioökonomische Randbedingungen berücksichtigen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen u.a. eine starke Abhängigkeit der Breite der Emissionskorridore von der Klima- und hydrologischen Sensitivität. Für kleine Werte einer oder beider Sensitivitäten liegt der obere Korridorrand bei weit höheren Emissionswerten als jene, die von plausiblen Emissionsszenarien für das 21. Jahrhundert erreicht werden. Für große Werte der Sensitivitäten hingegen, verlassen schon niedrige Emissionsszenarien den Korridor in den frühen Jahrzehnten des 21. Jahrhunderts. Dies impliziert eine Abkehr von den gegenwärtigen Emissionstrends innherhalb der kommenden Jahrzehnte, wenn das Risko eines THC Zusammenbruchs gering gehalten werden soll. <br /> <br /> Anhand einer Vielzahl von Anwendungen - von Sensitivitäts- über Bifurkationsanalysen hin zu integrierter Modellierung - zeigt diese Arbeit den Wert reduzierter Modelle auf. Die Ergebnisse und die daraus zu ziehenden Schlussfolgerungen liefern einen wertvollen Beitrag zu der wissenschaftlichen und politischen Diskussion bezüglich der Folgen des anthropogenen Klimawandels und der langfristigen Klimaschutzziele. / Concerns have been raised that anthropogenic climate change could lead to large-scale singular climate events, i.e., abrupt nonlinear climate changes with repercussions on regional to global scales. One central goal of this thesis is the development of models of two representative components of the climate system that could exhibit singular behavior: the Atlantic thermohaline circulation (THC) and the Indian monsoon. These models are conceived so as to fulfill the main requirements of integrated assessment modeling, i.e., reliability, computational efficiency, transparency and flexibility. <br /> <br /> The model of the THC is an interhemispheric four-box model calibrated against data generated with a coupled climate model of intermediate complexity. It is designed to be driven by global mean temperature change which is translated into regional fluxes of heat and freshwater through a linear down-scaling procedure. Results of a large number of transient climate change simulations indicate that the reduced-form THC model is able to emulate key features of the behavior of comprehensive climate models such as the sensitivity of the THC to the amount, regional distribution and rate of change in the heat and freshwater fluxes. <br /> <br /> The Indian monsoon is described by a novel one-dimensional box model of the tropical atmosphere. It includes representations of the radiative and surface fluxes, the hydrological cycle and surface hydrology. Despite its high degree of idealization, the model satisfactorily captures relevant aspects of the observed monsoon dynamics, such as the annual course of precipitation and the onset and withdrawal of the summer monsoon. Also, the model exhibits the sensitivity to changes in greenhouse gas and sulfate aerosol concentrations that are known from comprehensive models. <br /> <br /> A simplified version of the monsoon model is employed for the identification of changes in the qualitative system behavior against changes in boundary conditions. The most notable result is that under summer conditions a saddle-node bifurcation occurs at critical values of the planetary albedo or insolation. Furthermore, the system exhibits two stable equilibria: besides the wet summer monsoon, a stable state exists which is characterized by a weak hydrological cycle. These results are remarkable insofar, as they indicate that anthropogenic perturbations of the planetary albedo such as sulfur emissions and/or land-use changes could destabilize the Indian summer monsoon. <br /> <br /> The reduced-form THC model is employed in an exemplary integrated assessment application. Drawing on the conceptual and methodological framework of the tolerable windows approach, emissions corridors (i.e., admissible ranges of CO2- emissions) are derived that limit the risk of a THC collapse while considering expectations about the socio-economically acceptable pace of emissions reductions. Results indicate, for example, a large dependency of the width of the emissions corridor on climate and hydrological sensitivity: for low values of climate and/or hydrological sensitivity, the corridor boundaries are far from being transgressed by any plausible emissions scenario for the 21st century. In contrast, for high values of both quantities low non-intervention scenarios leave the corridor already in the early decades of the 21st century. This implies that if the risk of a THC collapse is to be kept low, business-as-usual paths would need to be abandoned within the next two decades. <br /> <br /> All in all, this thesis highlights the value of reduced-form modeling by presenting a number of applications of this class of models, ranging from sensitivity and bifurcation analysis to integrated assessment. The results achieved and conclusions drawn provide a useful contribution to the scientific and policy debate about the consequences of anthropogenic climate change and the long-term goals of climate protection. <br><br>--- <br> Anmerkung:<br> Die Autorin ist Trägerin des von der Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Universität Potsdam vergebenen Michelson-Preises für die beste Promotion des Jahres 2003/2004.
7

Adaptation of energy systems to climate change and water resource constraints

Parkinson, Simon Christopher 09 December 2016 (has links)
This dissertation assesses the long-term technological and policy implications of adapting to water constraints and climate change impacts in the energy sector. Energy systems are increasingly vulnerable to climate change and water resource variability. Yet, the majority of long-term energy infrastructure plans ignore adaptation strategy. New analytical approaches are needed to address the spatial and temporal scales relevant to both climate change and water resources. The research in this dissertation overcomes these challenges with improved engineering-economic modeling. Specifically, the conventional systems-engineering energy technology planning framework is extended to incorporate: (1) robust capacity decisions in the electricity sector in light of impacts from hydro-climatic change and uncertain environmental performance of technology options; (2) an endogenous, spatially-distributed representation of water systems and feedbacks with energy demand; and (3) multi-objective decision-making. The computational modeling framework is applied to four regional case study analyses to quantify previously unaccounted for policy-relevant interactions between water, energy and climate systems. Application of the robust adaptation planning framework to the power system in British Columbia, Canada, reveals technology configurations offering long-term operational flexibility will be needed to ensure reliability under projected climate change impacts to provincial hydropower resources and electricity demand. The imposed flexibility requirements affect the suitability of technology options, and increases the cost of long-term electricity system operation. The case study analysis then focuses on the interaction between groundwater conservation and concurrent policy aimed at reducing electricity sector carbon emissions in the water-stressed country of Saudi Arabia. Application of the novel water-energy infrastructure planning framework reveals that transitioning away from non-renewable groundwater use by the year 2050 could increase national electricity demand by more than 40 % relative to 2010 conditions, and require investments similar to strategies aimed at transitioning away from fossil fuels in the electricity sector. The research in this dissertation demonstrates the crucial need for regional planners to account for adaptation to climate change and water resource constraints when developing long-term energy strategy. / Graduate
8

An integrated assessment of the effect of environmental regulation, land use changes and market forces on the Mexican leather and footwear industries’ restructuring

Pacheco-Vega, Hector Raul 05 1900 (has links)
Traditional theories of industrial restructuring assign the most explanatory weight of the structural change phenomenon to increasing pressures via globalization and falling trade barriers. This thesis offers a new model of thinking about industrial restructuring that includes multiple stressors. The thesis focuses on three main drivers of structural change: market pressures, environmental regulation and changes in land use and land pricing, using two case studies of leather and footwear industrial clusters in Mexico, located in the cities of León and Guadalajara. Evidence of multiple drivers of structural change is found in the dissertation. Furthermore, responses to restructuring drivers in León and Guadalajara are found to be substantially different. Firms in the leather and footwear cluster in León have implemented countervailing strategies such as price competition, government lobbying, and more recently, investment in socio-economic research (competitiveness) projects. However, firms in the leather and footwear cluster in Guadalajara focused on a specific, high-end target market. At the larger, urban scale, footwear and its allied industries in the city of León resisted change and have tried to remain in operation while the city of Guadalajara has focused on a diversification strategy, attracting new (arguably more technically advanced) industries. This thesis offers empirical and theoretical advances. Empirically, it applies a firm demographics approach to the study of industrial clusters under multiple stressors. This approach has not been previously used on Mexican data. Theoretically, it demonstrates that future analyses of industrial complexes’ structural change can be strengthened through the use of an integrated assessment framework investigating the effect of multiple stressors (market forces, land pricing, technical change, environmental regulations, and consumer preferences) on industrial restructuring.
9

An integrated assessment of the effect of environmental regulation, land use changes and market forces on the Mexican leather and footwear industries’ restructuring

Pacheco-Vega, Hector Raul 05 1900 (has links)
Traditional theories of industrial restructuring assign the most explanatory weight of the structural change phenomenon to increasing pressures via globalization and falling trade barriers. This thesis offers a new model of thinking about industrial restructuring that includes multiple stressors. The thesis focuses on three main drivers of structural change: market pressures, environmental regulation and changes in land use and land pricing, using two case studies of leather and footwear industrial clusters in Mexico, located in the cities of León and Guadalajara. Evidence of multiple drivers of structural change is found in the dissertation. Furthermore, responses to restructuring drivers in León and Guadalajara are found to be substantially different. Firms in the leather and footwear cluster in León have implemented countervailing strategies such as price competition, government lobbying, and more recently, investment in socio-economic research (competitiveness) projects. However, firms in the leather and footwear cluster in Guadalajara focused on a specific, high-end target market. At the larger, urban scale, footwear and its allied industries in the city of León resisted change and have tried to remain in operation while the city of Guadalajara has focused on a diversification strategy, attracting new (arguably more technically advanced) industries. This thesis offers empirical and theoretical advances. Empirically, it applies a firm demographics approach to the study of industrial clusters under multiple stressors. This approach has not been previously used on Mexican data. Theoretically, it demonstrates that future analyses of industrial complexes’ structural change can be strengthened through the use of an integrated assessment framework investigating the effect of multiple stressors (market forces, land pricing, technical change, environmental regulations, and consumer preferences) on industrial restructuring.
10

Economic Growth, Income Distribution, and Climate Change

Rezai, Armon, Taylor, Lance, Foley, Duncan K. January 2017 (has links) (PDF)
We present a model based on Keynesian aggregate demand and labor productivity growth to study how climate damage affects the long-run evolution of the economy. Climate change induced by greenhouse gas lowers profitability, reducing investment and cutting output in the short and long runs. Short-run employment falls due to deficient demand. In the long run productivity growth is slower, lowering potential income levels. Climate policy can increase incomes and employment in the short and long runs while a continuation of business-as-usual leads to a dystopian income distribution with affluence for few and high levels of unemployment for the rest. / Series: Ecological Economic Papers

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