A comparison of employment growth and stability before and after the Fort Worth tornado

This study examined the time series pattern of employment growth and stability in Fort Worth, Texas taking into account the March 28, 2000 tornado. The tornado is treated econometrically as an intervention and both the mean and conditional variance of employment growth were estimated. Overall, this regional labor market experienced a decline in the employment growth rate following the tornado. Among the sectors that exhibited differences in employment dynamics between the pre- and post-tornado periods, the mining sector experienced a significant increase in employment growth following the tornado while the service andwholesale, retail trade sectors experienced significant declines in employment growth in the post-tornado period. The manufacturing, service, and wholesale, retail trade sectors were characterized by greater stability (i.e., a lower level of employment growth volatility) in the post-tornado period than in the pre-tornado period. Interestingly, in several sectors, no differences in the time series dynamics of employment growth were detected between the pre- and post-tornado periods. These sectors included construction, finance, insurance, real estate, government, and transportation and public utilities.     

Reducing Air Pollution from Urban Passenger Transport: A Framework for Policy Analysis

Air quality is declining in urban areas, in part because of the rapid motorization of societies world-wide. To combat the problem, various pollution control strategies have been used or proposed for urban passenger transport. This paper develops a simple framework to analyse the impact of these strategies. The paper examines the point of impact of different policy levers and categorizes different instruments in a way that should help policy makers choose between them. The framework explicitly recognizes behavioural incentives, especially the fact that offsetting changes in consumer behaviour can often undermine the original intent of particular policies. The paper concludes that policies aimed at improving transport efficiency often improve air quality at the same time. However, supply side policies to relieve traffic congestion can conflict with the objective of controlling air pollution. It is hence vital that policy makers are aware of the incentives created by different interventions and weigh the impact of these incentives on subsidiary objectives before adoption of particular policies.     

Forest and agroecosystem fire management in Ghana

The threat of wildfires to the economic potential of forestry and agriculture is one of the persistent national and international concerns. Improving and applying indigenous wildfire management (IWM) approaches is seen as one of the main hopes for mitigating and adapting to this threat to rural forest communities. Identifying the contextual causes and adaptation measures practiced by local people is essential for planning an appropriate mechanism for IWM. Yet only limited studies are available on IWM practices and most of those studies were conducted outside of this study region. To fill this gap, this study examined the wildfire mitigation and adaptation methods of forest communities in Ghana using interviews with 266 farming households. Their perceptions of the causes, cost and risk factors were also examined. The result suggests that wildfires are annual events. More than half of the wildfires reported were caused by slash-and-burn land preparation, with hunting-related fires in second place. Forest households loose about 208 Ghana cedi (US$ 231 in 2006) in value due to damaged crops and tree seedlings annually (i.e. about 50% of annual income of a Ghanaian farmer). The respondents had the operational skill and coping abilities to deal with small-scale wildfires and were supported by well-established local arrangements, community rules and silvicutural techniques. In addition, they were well informed about the basic risk factors (e.g. fuel load, climate, and presence of ignition triggers) and how these can interact to cause devastating wildfire. Therefore it is critical that policies and institutions that promote IWM initiatives build on the strong underlying community knowledge and local networks to enhance their effectiveness.