published_or_final_version / abstract / Transport Policy and Planning / Master / Master of Arts in Transport Policy and Planning

The research appropriates a theoretical-methodological framework of institutionalization analysis, which helps us to delineate how a collective belief, as in the case of railway building in Japan, was formulated. This framework helps us to delineate how a legitimate social order was established through discoursing, ritualizing, and imagining. Myths, rituals and imaginations attached to the notion of railway were indeed ideological concepts and packages to represent the changing society, even though these efforts might not be well recognized by different social players who participated in the making of this railway belief. The research argues that railway building became one of the most powerful manifestations of nation building. It is a part of the long-evolving process of Japan through which the emerging collectivity came to define and redefine itself in the growing world society. Through railway building, different social players tried to articulate myths, form rituals and share imaginations, and at the same time negotiate what rational economic policies, a legitimate democratic polity and an imagined community meant. / The research delineates the process of the building of the railway system in modem Japan (1868--1937). While the railways are commonly considered to be an economic and political infrastructure that is functional to the secular governments to integrate the invented nation-state, however, this does not adequately explain why there are many distinctive cultural imaginaries related to the railway in Japan and why the Japanese seems to be faithful enough to continue to lay tracks for years. I argue that trains are more than mere economic infrastructure through which collective sentiments are expressed. Instead, I argue that the belief that is formed towards the railway had been collectively crafted by different social players for a variety of reasons in the due course of modem Japanese history. Emerging social players, including capitalists, politicians, and commoners, tried to justify their varied practices by making claims to define the great use of railway. Railway building gradually became a shared platform on which different power and interests could be defined and practices legitimized. Those rationales, however, might have nothing to do with the instrumental "use" of railway, but were intimately related to the making of capitalism, democracy and nation-building in modem Japan. / Cheung, Yuk Man. / Adviser: Suk-Ying Wong. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 72-04, Section: A, page: . / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 294-323). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese.

published_or_final_version / Urban Design / Master / Master of Urban Design

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning; and, (B.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mathematics, 1977. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Bibliography : p. 86-90. / M.C.P. / B.S.

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

published_or_final_version / Geography / Master / Master of Philosophy

The object of this thesis is to examine the contribution of Spanish railways to accelerated economic growth in the period. 1855-1913. Although it has not been estimated, there is reason to believe that there was some growth in the period before the 20th century but, from all accounts, it was constrained by an inefficient, highly seasonal and costly road transportation system. The contribution of railways will be assessed in three ways, First, by estimating the cost of the non-construction of the railway network through an estimate of the social savings. This estimate suggested that the contribution cf railways accounted for 12 per cent of Spain's national income in 1878 and 23 per cent in 1912. I/hen the full employment assumption embodied in these calculations is released, social savings diminished to the 'plausible' level of 7.5 per cent in 1878. Second, as consumers of iron and steel, railways had little linkage effects on the iron industry because they imported the bulk of the iron required to lay down the network. The implications of an alternative policy which protected the local iron industry from the begiiining of railway expansion are treated at length. Railways had, on the other hand, important feedback effects upon the domestic coal production and one fifth of the coal mined in Spain was consumed by railways. Thirdly, connections between railways and the spread of the market reveal that they were a fundamental factor in the integration of the home market. Railways carried increasing volumes of grain, flour, wine and coal consumed in Spain.

Doctor of Philosophy / During the 1990s, governments, managements and unions have been focused upon improving the cost efficiency of firms. This focus has been strongest for firms in the public sector where improved outcomes can be expected to significantly improve the Gross Domestic Products of whole economies. This case study looks at the cost efficiency of NSW rail passenger services over a 41 year period to 1991/92, long suspected (but hitherto only tentatively demonstrated) as a paradigm of cost inefficiency. The case study focuses upon the use of the total factor productivity (TFP) index, as a datum point for measuring change in productivity in four markets: suburban, internrban, country and interstate passenger services since 1951/52. From this datum, changes over the years in management, technology and other external factors can be identified and assessed. The thesis identifies management quality (the organising element in the firm) as the preeminent factor in determining productivity change, and the role that new technology plays in its impact on failures in management. We establish the linkages between management and innovation, with TFP, pricing efficiency and economic resource use efficiency, to present a rich paradigm for assessing the economic performance of any business firm. Borrowing from systems theory and other management practices such as total quality management, we disaggregated the case firm into its component systems, sub-systems and processes, for separate study in relation to impact on TFP. The database for 41 years of rail behaviour is the richest ever compiled for any railway in Australia, and with enhanced modelling, enables a systematic treatment of the performance through time of State Rail's passenger services.

Doctor of Philosophy / During the 1990s, governments, managements and unions have been focused upon improving the cost efficiency of firms. This focus has been strongest for firms in the public sector where improved outcomes can be expected to significantly improve the Gross Domestic Products of whole economies. This case study looks at the cost efficiency of NSW rail passenger services over a 41 year period to 1991/92, long suspected (but hitherto only tentatively demonstrated) as a paradigm of cost inefficiency. The case study focuses upon the use of the total factor productivity (TFP) index, as a datum point for measuring change in productivity in four markets: suburban, internrban, country and interstate passenger services since 1951/52. From this datum, changes over the years in management, technology and other external factors can be identified and assessed. The thesis identifies management quality (the organising element in the firm) as the preeminent factor in determining productivity change, and the role that new technology plays in its impact on failures in management. We establish the linkages between management and innovation, with TFP, pricing efficiency and economic resource use efficiency, to present a rich paradigm for assessing the economic performance of any business firm. Borrowing from systems theory and other management practices such as total quality management, we disaggregated the case firm into its component systems, sub-systems and processes, for separate study in relation to impact on TFP. The database for 41 years of rail behaviour is the richest ever compiled for any railway in Australia, and with enhanced modelling, enables a systematic treatment of the performance through time of State Rail's passenger services.