Political science provides two very different takes on how the information revolution affects the relationship between governments and global civil society. The more popular and prominent argument is that the Internet dramatically lowers the costs of networked communication; therefore, civil society groups are better able to mobilize action to influence governments. Countless numbers of article...

On behalf of the International Solid Waste and Public Cleansing Association (lSWA), it is a pleasure to open this First Annual North American Waste-to-Energy Conference. Solid waste management has moved to the forefront of the environmental agenda. The level of activity and concern by citizens and governments worldwide has reached unprecedented levels. Nations are considering restrictions on pa...

Heterogeneity influences the likelihood of collective action for forest management. Theoretical examinations, focusing largely on economic heterogeneity, suggest that heterogeneity increases the likelihood of collective action. Field research however indicates that heterogeneity, whether in economic, social, or other dimensions, presents a challenge for collective action with variations in perc...

This study focuses on the supplemented strategies of microfinance institutions (MFIs), in which the MFI offers nonfinancial services, such as entrepreneurship related knowledge, in addition to financial services to impoverished borrowers at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP). We examine two contextual factors–foreign direct investment (FDI) and loan defaults–to better understand the relationship b...

Measuring the impact of drug resistance is an important step in understanding the scope of the problem and formulating policies to limit the emergence and spread of resistant organisms. Studies have focused on measuring the increased costs, morbidity, and mortality in patients with infections due to resistant versus susceptible organisms. These have generally found that resistance worsens outco...

The evolution of cloud computing has had a significant effect on our lives and it has brought many benefits. Cloud computing is a style of computing which is formed from the aggregation and development of technologies such as grid computing distributed computing, parallel computing and service-oriented architecture and its exciting for governments and private companies, and it has eager them to...

What determines the sustainability of sovereign debt? In this paper, we develop a model where myopic governments seek electoral popularity but can nevertheless commit credibly to service external debt. They do not default when they are poor even though default costs are low because they would lose access to debt markets and be forced to reduce spending; they do not default when they become rich...

Green infrastructure approaches have attracted increased attention from local governments as a way to lower flood risk and provide an array of other environmental services. The peer-reviewed literature, however, offers few estimates of the economic impacts of such approaches at the watershed scale. We estimate the avoided flood damages and the costs of preventing development of floodplain parce...

This paper introduces the measure of instantaneous correlation to study the effects of a common currency on cyclical correlation and convergence in the euro zone. Conventional, backwardlooking measures of correlation are not appropriate for a dynamic currency union. An accurate measure of cyclical correlation must account for the change in economic structures due to a common currency and the co...

Whether city governments should intervene and provide public funds for building Municipal Wireless Networks (MWN) is a controversial and important issue. Some people support the government’s intervention because MWN services seem to fit in the “public goods” category and result in “positive externality” (Cornes and Sandler, 1986). However, others are suspicious of the efficacy of the government...