Labour Market Prospects of Swiss Career Entrants after Completion of Vocational Education and Training

This study seeks to find the reasons for the rising risk of unemployment for people who have completed basic vocational education and training (VET) in Switzerland. We focus on the long-term structural shift on the demand side of the labour market and its consequences for new entrants? chances of employment in the labour force. A detailed analysis of the development of vacancies for such ?career entrants? in the time period 2001 to 2011 suggests that neither a growing occupational mismatch nor a general shift in the level of education to the disadvantage of workers with vocational education can be made responsible for the rising unemployment of labour market entrants. Instead, the available evidence indicates that a diminishing part of the vacancies suited for VET graduates remains open to entrants because of the increasing job requirements with regard to work experience and further education. Basic vocational education and training alone is increasingly less a guarantee for a smooth entry into the working world.

Capability of E-Bike Tourism in Switzerland

AIM OF PAPER AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS The primary aim of this investigation was to examine, if tourism in Switzerland can be stimulated by focusing on e-bike offers. Switzerland is an attractive and manifold country for bike tourism. However, there are plenty of hilly and steep areas, where the topography is quite demanding and cycling is predestined to ambitious sportsperson. Less performance-oriented bike tourists are possibly discouraged by the challenges of the landscape. E-bikes seem to be a reasonable alterna-tive to enable less trained person to attend bike tours in steeper regions as well as to keep heterogeneous groups together. E-bikes are already popular in Switzerland for daily routes as the journey to work, but they are not very common in the tour-istic context. The presented investigation evaluates the current standing of supply and demand for e-bike tourism and asks for opportunities and threats in the future development. LITERTURE REVIEW The existing frameworks to analyse capability in the field of sport tourism are limited, because of the broad variation of sports and tourism types. Still several conceptions are valuable to evaluate the opportunities of e-bike tourism in Switzer-land. According to Higham and Hinch (2009) the potential of touristic products and destinations always depends on the interaction among the factors place, people and activity. Standeven and de Knop (1999) support this position by identify-ing the experience of place as a key component of the sport tourism experience. Bull (2005) assumes that place not only affects experience. In his opinion, the specific spatially located resources are even crucial for the existence of nature sports. He identifies four factors determining the attraction of touristic products or destination, as physical characteristics, accessibility and infrastructural arrangements, political and economic resources as well as cultural and perceptual aspects. Concerning the demand side (people) the contemporary research is guided by an individual psychological focus delivering mainly results about motives and the decision making process (e.g. Görtz & Hürten, 2011). RESEARCH DESIGN AND DATA ANALYSIS The presented study is based on a between method triangulation, consisting of qualitative interviews with important stake-holders on the supply side and a cross sectional survey on the demand side. Qualitative interviews were conducted with the first provider of touristic e-bike routes and with the manager of the leading e-bike rental company in Switzerland. The interviews were evaluated by qualitative content analysis according to Mayring (2008). The survey covered a randomized sample of 748 adult persons and focused on interests and needs of potential consumers. The concluding potentials analy-sis combined the results of the interviews and the survey with the findings of literature research. As central outcome the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats were evaluated and presented by SWOT-analysis. RESULTS Results showed that the development of e-bike tourism in Switzerland was not initiated by tourism promoter, but by an innovative e-bike producer. However, also for the manufacturer the fit between landscape (place), product (activity) and visitors (people) was the crucial criterion. The first e-bike tours were offered in a demanding and rural region, in order that the experience of place was able to promote a positive overall experience. Due to the success of the first touristic e-bike products, several tourism regions started to extend their portfolio with e-bike offers. To date a nationwide network for signalised e-bike tours, rental stations and changing stations for rechargeable batteries is established. Despite the attractive offer, the demand is only moderate. The obtained results of the consumer survey pointed at a certain barrier to use e-bikes for tourism activities. The most substantial barrier is the missing affinity for bike tourism in general. Another notable group considering themselves as “fit enough for normal bike tourism”. Nevertheless 55% of the respondent are interested in tour-istic e-bike products. Looking only at people with e-bike tourism experience, even 92% are interested in further activities. DISCUSSION AN CONCLUSION The current study findings are encouraging because they suggest a superior suitability and an attractive level of e-bike tourism products in Switzerland. The results of the consumer survey indicate an increasing demand for e-bike tourism. The investigation also points at some risks, as the rivalry for bike tourism or the raised safety hazard because of the increased driving speed. Summing up, the results support the conclusion, that e-bike tourism will become more important in the com-ing years. However, to reach the goal relevant trends as the requirement for customised offers must be considered and marketing activities are supposed to be extended. REFERENCES Bull, C. (2005). Sport tourism resource analysis. In J. Higham (Ed.), Sport tourism destination: Issues, opportunities and analysis (pp. 25-38). Amsterdam: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann. Görtz, M., & D. Hürten (2011). Motive der Radurlauber, psychografische Merkmale und Reiseverhalten. In A. Dreyer, E. Miglbauer & R. Mühlnickel (Hrsg.), Radtourismus. Entwicklungen, Potenziale, Perspektiven (S. 36-43). München: Olden-bourg. Higham, J., & Hinch, T. (2009). Sport and Tourism. Globalization, Mobility and Identity. Amsterdam: Butterworth-Heinemann. Mayring, P. (2008). Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse. Grundlagen und Techniken (10. Aufl.). Weinheim: Beltz Verlag. Standeven, J., & De Knop, P. (1999). Sport Tourism. Campaign: Human Kinetics.

Free Riders, Holdouts, and Public Use: A Tale of Two Externalities

Free riders and holdouts are market failures that potentially impede the completion of otherwise beneficial transactions. The key difference is that the free rider problem is a demand side externality that requires taxation to compel payment for a public good, while the holdout problem is a supply side externality that requires eminent domain to force the sale of land for large scale projects. This paper highlights that distinction between these two problems and uses the resulting insights to clarify the meaning of the public use requirement of the Fifth Amendment takings clause.

Vertical specialisation indicator based on supply-driven input-output model

“Import content of exports”, based on Leontief’s demand-driven input-output model, has been widely used as an indicator to measure a country’s degree of participation in vertical specialisation trade. At a sectoral level, this indicator represents the share of inter-mediates imported by all sectors embodied in a given sector’s exported output. However, this indicator only reflects one aspect of vertical specialisation – the demand side. This paper discusses the possibility of using the input-output model developed by Ghosh to measure the vertical specialisation from the perspective of the supply side. At a sector level, the Ghosh type indicator measures the share of imported intermediates used in a sector’s production that are subsequently embodied in exports by all sectors. We estimate these two indicators of vertical specialisation for 47 selected economies for 1995, 2000, 2005 using the OECD’s harmonized input-output database. In addition, the potential biases of both indicators due to the treatment of net withdrawals in inventories, are also discussed.

Where does Philippine education go? : the "K to 12" program and reform of Philippine basic education

In 2012 the Philippines launched its "K to 12" Program, a comprehensive reform of its basic education. Through this reform, the Philippines is catching up with global standards in secondary education and is attaching a high value to kindergarten. The structure, curricula, and philosophy of the education system are undergoing reform and improvement. The key points of the new policy are "preparation" for higher education, "eligibility" for entering domestic and overseas higher educational institutions, and immediate "employability" on graduating, all leading toward a "holistically developed Filipino". This policy appears admirable and timely, but it faces some pedagogical and socioeconomic problems. The author wants to point out in particular that the policy needs to address gender problems and should be combined with demand-side approaches in order to promote poverty alleviation and human development in the Philippines.

Heterogeneous Collaborative Sensor Network for Electrical Management of an Automated House with PV Energy

In this paper we present a heterogeneous collaborative sensor network for electrical management in the residential sector. Improving demand-side management is very important in distributed energy generation applications. Sensing and control are the foundations of the “Smart Grid” which is the future of large-scale energy management. The system presented in this paper has been developed on a self-sufficient solar house called “MagicBox” equipped with grid connection, PV generation, lead-acid batteries, controllable appliances and smart metering. Therefore, there is a large number of energy variables to be monitored that allow us to precisely manage the energy performance of the house by means of collaborative sensors. The experimental results, performed on a real house, demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed collaborative system to reduce the consumption of electrical power and to increase energy efficiency.

PV self-consumption optimization with storage and Active DSM for the residential sector

With the rising prices of the retail electricity and the decreasing cost of the PV technology, grid parity with commercial electricity will soon become a reality in Europe. This fact, together with less attractive PV feed-in-tariffs in the near future and incentives to promote self-consumption suggest, that new operation modes for the PV Distributed Generation should be explored; differently from the traditional approach which is only based on maximizing the exported electricity to the grid. The smart metering is experiencing a growth in Europe and the United States but the possibilities of its use are still uncertain, in our system we propose their use to manage the storage and to allow the user to know their electrical power and energy balances. The ADSM has many benefits studied previously but also it has important challenges, in this paper we can observe and ADSM implementation example where we propose a solution to these challenges. In this paper we study the effects of the Active Demand-Side Management (ADSM) and storage systems in the amount of consumed local electrical energy. It has been developed on a prototype of a self-sufficient solar house called “MagicBox” equipped with grid connection, PV generation, lead–acid batteries, controllable appliances and smart metering. We carried out simulations for long-time experiments (yearly studies) and real measures for short and mid-time experiments (daily and weekly studies). Results show the relationship between the electricity flows and the storage capacity, which is not linear and becomes an important design criterion.

Improving photovoltaics grid integration through short time forecasting and self-consumption

The uncertainty associated to the forecast of photovoltaic generation is a major drawback for the widespread introduction of this technology into electricity grids. This uncertainty is a challenge in the design and operation of electrical systems that include photovoltaic generation. Demand-Side Management (DSM) techniques are widely used to modify energy consumption. If local photovoltaic generation is available, DSM techniques can use generation forecast to schedule the local consumption. On the other hand, local storage systems can be used to separate electricity availability from instantaneous generation; therefore, the effects of forecast error in the electrical system are reduced. The effects of uncertainty associated to the forecast of photovoltaic generation in a residential electrical system equipped with DSM techniques and a local storage system are analyzed in this paper. The study has been performed in a solar house that is able to displace a residential user?s load pattern, manage local storage and estimate forecasts of electricity generation. A series of real experiments and simulations have carried out on the house. The results of this experiments show that the use of Demand Side Management (DSM) and local storage reduces to 2% the uncertainty on the energy exchanged with the grid. In the case that the photovoltaic system would operate as a pure electricity generator feeding all generated electricity into grid, the uncertainty would raise to around 40%.

ICT Road map for supporting energy systems in smart cities

This paper introduces a road map for ICTs (Information and communication technologies) supporting planning, operation and management of energy systems in smart cities. The road map summarises different elements that form energy systems in cities and proposes research and technical development (RTD) and innovation activities for the development and innovation of ICTs for holistic design, planning and operation of energy systems. In addition, synergies with other ICT systems for smart cities are considered. There are four main target groups for the road map: 1) citizen; 2) building sector; 3) energy sector; and 4) municipality level. As an example for enabling active participation of citizens, the road map proposes how ICT can enable citizens? involvement among others into building design. The building sector roadmap proposes how ICTs can support the planning of buildings and renovations in the future, as well as how to manage building energy systems. The energy sector road map focuses on city?s energy systems and their planning and management, including e.g. demand side management, management of different district level energy systems, energy performance validation and management, energy data models, and smarter use of open energy data. Moreover, the municipality level road map proposes among others ICTs for better integration of city systems and city planning enabling maximised energy efficiency. In addition, one road map section suggests development needs related to open energy data, including among others the use of energy data and the development and harmonisation of energy data models. The road map has been assembled in the READY4SmartCities project (funded by EU 7th Framework Programme), which focuses on the energy system at the city level, consisting of centralised energy systems and connections to the national level energy grids, as well as interconnections to the neighbourhood and building level energy systems.

Instruments for analysing urban conflicts in the Global South: The case of urban transformation processes in Dakar

Physical and social transformation processes that take place in urban contexts with strong spatial growth and hardly any economic development frequently have significant adverse impacts for the affected people, which tend to be made invisible. This paper presents an analytical framework to explore different ways to approach urban transformation processes (supply side), their impacts on the set of needs of the community (demand side) and their consequences on the urban environment as a whole (context). The proposed method has been used to assess three actions related to the physical and social transformation of the largest self-made settlement in the city of Dakar, Senegal, during the 2005–2012 period. Research findings show how exogenous interests are privileged over the common good when the affected citizens are not effectively involved in decision-making processes.

Long-term change in the organization of inventive activity

Relying on a quantitative analysis of the patenting and assignment behavior of inventors, we highlight the evolution of institutions that encouraged trade in technology and a growing division of labor between those who invented new technologies and those who exploited them commercially over the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. At the heart of this change in the organization of inventive activity was a set of familiar developments which had significant consequences for the supply and demand of inventions. On the supply side, the growing complexity and capital intensity of technology raised the amount of human and physical capital required for effective invention, making it increasingly desirable for individuals involved in this activity to specialize. On the demand side, the growing competitiveness of product markets induced firms to purchase or otherwise obtain the rights to technologies developed by others. These increasing incentives to differentiate the task of invention from that of commercializing new technologies depended for their realization upon the development of markets and other types of organizational supports for trade in technology. The evidence suggests that the necessary institutions evolved first in those regions of the country where early patenting activity had already been concentrated. A self-reinforcing process whereby high rates of inventive activity encouraged the evolution of a market for technology, which in turn encouraged greater specialization and productivity at invention as individuals found it increasingly feasible to sell and license their discoveries, appears to have been operating. This market trade in technological information was an important contributor to the achievement of a high level of specialization at invention well before the rise of large-scale research laboratories in the twentieth century.

Europe's economic challenges and the importance of ideas and innovation. CHALLENGE EUROPE Issue 22 - Challenges and new beginnings: Priorities for the EU's new leadership, September 2014.

How will we Europeans earn our living in 20 or 30 years' time? And how can it be done, while remaining true to our values of fairness, freedom and solidarity? These fundamental questions predate the financial crisis and will still be with us once we have fully overcome it. Of all the groups in society, business leaders are probably most keenly aware of the challenge posed by globalisation. They have their finger on the pulse of global economic activity and keep alerting me that Europe is losing out. The trade unions, generally more focused on the economy's demand side, regularly call for more (public) investment. Their leadership remains highly committed to Europe but they can sense a rise of Euro-scepticism among their members. We must, and can bring these two narratives together. Yes, global change is relentless and our societies must adapt, but we can also preserve what makes Europe such a special place: a unique combination of relative prosperity, solidarity, individual freedoms, and security. This challenge was always on my mind.

A New Euro-Mediterranean Energy Roadmap for a Sustainable Energy Transition in the Region. MEDPRO Policy Paper No. 3, February 2013

This paper addresses the urgent need for a sustainable energy transition in the southern and eastern Mediterranean region. It analyses the unsustainable burden of universal energy subsidies and calls for new development paths unlocking the huge potential for low-cost energy efficiency and demand-side management as well as for renewable energy. It argues that a new structure of regional and interconnected energy markets is needed. It then proposes some original approaches regarding the financing of this sustainable energy transition and finally calls for an ambitious, Euro-Mediterranean Energy Roadmap, which should contribute not only to the economic and environmental development of the region, but also to its social and political stability.

Drivers of Agricultural Physical Capital Development: Theoretical Framework and Hypotheses. Factor Markets Working Paper No. 18, February 2012

This paper aims to identify drivers of physical capital adjustments in agriculture. It begins with a review of some of the most important theories and modelling approaches regarding firms’ adjustments of physical capital, ranging from output-based models to more recent approaches that consider irreversibility and uncertainty. Thereafter, it is suggested that determinants of physical capital adjustments in agriculture can be divided into three main groups, namely drivers related to: i) expected (risk-adjusted) profit, ii) expected societal benefits and costs and iii) expected private nonpecuniary benefits and costs. The discussion that follows focuses on the determinants belonging to the first group and covers aspects related to product market conditions, technological conditions, financial conditions and the role of firm structure and organization. Furthermore, the role of subjective beliefs is emphasized. The main part of this paper is concerned with the demand side of the physical capital market and one section also briefly discusses some aspects related to supply of farm assets.

Comparison of PRC and Vietnam's Responses to the Elimination of U.S. Textile and Apparel Quotas: Economic and Cultural Perspectives. ACES Working Paper No. 1, 2007

International trade in textiles and apparel has, as of January 1, 2005, been set free from the very intricate Multi-Fiber textile and apparel quota Arrangement (MFA). This event has raised many uncertainties about the new international trade climate and has placed enormous pressure on China as the expected clear cut beneficiary of this liberalization.' Other countries considered to be major contenders include Vietnam which also has a large population employed in the textile and apparel (T&A) sector. Since the old quota system had provided a certain degree of market certainty to competing T&A producers, will the new free trade environment lead to a shake out where mass producers with large economies of scale dominate the new reality? The removal of T&A quotas will create opportunities for Vietnam and China along with other developing countries, but it will also expose them to additional competition from each other. The outcome of this competition will depend on the demand in the US, the ability of the exporting countries to differentiate their exports and on their ability to transfer additional resources to expand domestic output in the direction of the new 'free market signals' and away from rent seeking objectives. Obviously, exporting countries that adjust to this new environment quickly will improve their competitiveness, and will be the new beneficiaries of a quota free international trade in textiles and apparel. This paper attempts to shed some light on the differences and similarities in the responses of Chinese and Vietnamese T&A sectors to this new environment. It first focuses on the demand side attempting to determine whether or not Chinese and Vietnamese T&A items, formally under quota control, are substitutes or compliments. On the supply side, the paper focuses on institutional differences between each country's T&A sectors, the different domestic government policies that have contributed to their growth and the unique cultural differences which will determine the future progress in each country's T&A sectors.