Towards groundwater security in coastal East Africa: initiating a regional research network and integrated hydrogeologic, climatic & socio-economic observatories in coastal aquifers of the Comoros Islands, Kenya and Tanzania

African coastal regions are expected to experience the highest rates of population growth in coming decades. Fresh groundwater resources in the coastal zone of East Africa (EA) are highly vulnerable to seawater intrusion. Increasing water demand is leading to unsustainable and ill-planned well drilling and abstraction. Wells supplying domestic, industrial and agricultural needs are or have become, in many areas, too saline for use. Climate change, including weather changes and sea level rise, is expected to exacerbate this problem. The multiplicity of physical, demographic and socio-economic driving factors makes this a very challenging issue for management. At present the state and probable evolution of coastal aquifers in EA are not well documented. The UPGro project 'Towards groundwater security in coastal East Africa' brings together teams from Kenya, Tanzania, Comoros Islands and Europe to address this knowledge gap. An integrative multidisciplinary approach, combining the expertise of hydrogeologists, hydrologists and social scientists, is investigating selected sites along the coastal zone in each country. Hydrogeologic observatories have been established in different geologic and climatic settings representative of the coastal EA region, where focussed research will identify the current status of groundwater and identify future threats based on projected demographic and climate change scenarios. Researchers are also engaging with end users as well as local community and stakeholder groups in each area in order to understanding the issues most affecting the communities and searching sustainable strategies for addressing these.

Trends in Economic Stress and the Great Recession in Ireland: An Analysis of the CSO Survey in Income and Living Conditions (SILC)

Since 2008, Ireland has experienced the most severe economic and labour market crisis since the foundation of the State. These economic and labour market changes have had a stark impact on the standard of living across the Irish population. The rapid deterioration in the labour market, the rising level of household indebtedness and stringent austerity measures to plug the public finance deficit have had a widespread impact yet there is debate about where the heaviest burden has fallen and where the economic stress has been felt most. The paper analyses data from the Survey of Income and Living Conditions for the period 2004 to 2011. The aim of the paper is to develop and test a measure of economic stress, which will capture some of the aspects of the rapid change in economic fortunes on Irish households that are not picked up by income alone. This includes tapping into features of the recession such as debt problems, unsustainable housing costs, and other difficulties associated with managing on reduced household income in a period of uncertainty. In testing such a measure we examine trends over time from boom to bust in the Irish economy and consider how economic stress is distributed across different socio-economic groups. The paper explores the distribution and level of economic stress across income class groups, social classes and the life-course and tests the thesis of ‘middle class squeeze’.

Is Mortality Spatial or Social?

Mortality modelling for the purposes of demographic forecasting and actuarial pricing is generally done at an aggregate level using national data. Modelling at this level fails to capture the variation in mortality within country and potentially leads to a mis-specification of mortality forecasts for a subset of the population. This can have detrimental effects for pricing and reserving in the actuarial context. In this paper we consider mortality rates at a regional level and analyse the variation in those rates. We consider whether variation in mortality rates within a country can be explained using local economic and social variables. Using Northern Ireland data on mortality and measures of deprivation we identify the variables explaining mortality variation. We create a population polarisation variable and find that this variable is significant in explaining some of the variation in mortality rates. Further, we consider whether spatial and non-spatial models have a part to play in explaining mortality differentials.

Recessionary Bundles: HR Practices in the Irish Economic Crisis

The HR practices adopted by firms in response to the current deep and prolonged recession have received little attention in the literature. There are reasons for supposing that firms will adopt HR practices in bundles in responding to the recession in order to benefit from technical and behavioural complementarities. Drawing on a nationally representative survey, the article investigates the bundles of HR practices adopted by firms during the Irish recession and examines influences on the bundles that are evident. The article contributes to HRM theory by testing different views on HR bundles likely to be adopted in recessionary conditions and by moving beyond the prevailing focus in HRM on HR bundles adopted by firms in steady-state business conditions.

Reimagining rights-based accountability: Community use of economic and social rights

This article explores the ways in which marginalised groups in Northern Ireland have employed and translated for practical use human rights standards, principles and mechanisms to campaign for the implementation of economic and social rights obligations. With the support of Participation and Practice of Rights, a regional nongovernmental organisation, marginalised groups have drawn upon human rights in their local context to campaign on issues related to mental health, housing, work and play. Based on case studies from four such campaigns, this article reviews the practical steps groups took to engage directly or indirectly with economic and social rights tools and mechanisms. The article reflects on the usefulness of these frameworks and mechanisms for achieving change in the case studies discussed, as well as the value of a human rights framework for empowering marginalised communities to make rights-based demands for change. It is argued that although the realisation of economic and social rights is limited in part by the lack of traditional enforcement mechanisms, community driven campaigns offer an opportunity for reimagining mechanisms for rights-based accountability.

Government Influence on the Construction Industry during the Economic Recession 2007 - 2013

Due to the high degree of international and economic integration across the globe, the 2007 global financial crisis quickly spread, causing recessions and widespread credit restrictions in advanced nations. During recessions, economic fluctuations cause dramatic changes to the market structure of industries, in particular, that of the construction sector. These structural changes can be further influenced by government strategies and policies; which if used incorrectly, can serve to fuel and exacerbate downturns. In contrasting form, during an economic recession, government strategies and policies can also be used to aid in exiting such economic turbulence. From an extensive review of literature it became apparent that very little research offered a comprehensive and systematic overview of Irish and UK construction related government policies and strategies adopted during recessions; hence the emergence of this topic. As part of an ongoing research PhD, the purpose of this paper is to collate and group Irish and UK Government strategies and policies adopted for the construction sector during the recession period 2007-2013; resulting in the establishment of a construction industry development framework and a taxonomic framework. The results reveal serious problems with the national strategic plan for the Irish construction industry, given that there is no overseeing body or target dates for implementation of the proposed actions. Furthermore, both countries failed to prioritize the proposed key actions within their strategic plans. The findings of this paper can be applied in the context of the construction sector to address shortcomings in the respective sub-sectors, while also aiding policy makers and company executives in mapping out future strategic milestones.

Varieties of Economic Crisis, Varieties of Ideational Change: How and Why Macroeconomic Policy and Financial Regulation Differ

One of the principal tasks facing post-crash academic political economy is to analyse patterns of ideational change and the conditions that produce such change. What has been missing from the existing literature on ideational change at times of crises however, is a sense of how processes of persuasive struggle, and how the success of those ‘norm entrepreneurs’ arguing for ideational change is shaped by two contextual variables: the most immediate material symptoms and problems that a crisis displays (the variety of crisis); and the institutional character of the policy subsystem that agents have to operate within to affect change. Introducing these two variables into our accounts of persuasive struggle and ideational change enables us to deepen our understanding of the dynamics of ideational change at times of crisis. The article identifies that a quite rapid and radical intellectual change has been evident in the field of financial regulation in the form of an embrace of a macroprudential frame. In contrast in the field of macroeconomic policy - both monetary and fiscal policy, many pre-crash beliefs remain prominent, there is evidence of ideational stickiness and inertia, and despite some policy experimentation, overarching policy frameworks and their rationales have not been overhauled. The article applies Peter Hall’s framework of three orders of policy changes to help illuminate and explain the variation in patterns of change in the fields of financial regulation and macroeconomic policy since the financial crash of 2008. The different patterns of ideational change in macroeconomic policy and financial regulation in the post-crash period can be explained by timing and variety of crisis; sequencing of policy change; and institutional political differences between micro policy sub systems and macro policy systems.

Green Political Economy: beyond orthodox undifferentiated economic growth as a permanent feature of the economy

This chapter outlines the main features of green political economy and the principal ways in which it differs from dominant mainstream or orthodox neoclassical economics. Neoclassical economics is critiqued on the grounds of denying its normative and ideological commitments in its false presentation of itself as ‘objective’ and ‘value neutral’. It is also critiqued for its ecologically irrational commitment to the imperative of orthodox economic growth as a permanent feature of the economy, compromising its ability to offer realistic or normatively compelling guides to how we might make the transition to a sustainable economy. Green political economy is presented as an alternative or heterodox form of economic thinking but one which explicitly expresses its normative/ideological value bases (hence it represents a return to ‘political economy’, the origins of modern economics). Green political economy also challenges the commitment to undifferentiated economic growth as a permanent objective of the human economy. In its place, green political economy promotes ‘economic security’ as a better objective for a sustainable, post-growth economy. The latter includes the transition to a low-carbon energy economy, and is also one which maximises quality of life (as oppose to formal employment, income and wealth), and actively seeks to lower socio-economic inequality. Green political economy views orthodox economic growth as having passed the threshold in most ‘advanced’ capitalist societies beyond which it has undermined quality of life and at best manages rather than reduces socially and ecologically damaging inequalities.

Reducible Diffusions with Time-Varying Transformations with Application to Short-Term Interest Rates

Reducible diffusions (RDs) are nonlinear transformations of analytically solvable Basic Diffusions (BDs). Hence, by construction RDs are analytically tractable and flexible diffusion processes. Existing literature on RDs has mostly focused on time-homogeneous transformations, which to a significant extent fail to explore the full potential of RDs from both theoretical and practical points of view. In this paper, we propose flexible and economically justifiable time variations to the transformations of RDs. Concentrating on the Constant Elasticity Variance (CEV) RDs, we consider nonlinear dynamics for our time-varying transformations with both deterministic and stochastic designs. Such time variations can greatly enhance the flexibility of RDs while maintaining sufficient tractability of the resulting models. In the meantime, our modeling approach enjoys the benefits of classical inferential techniques such as the Maximum Likelihood (ML). Our application to the UK and the US short-term interest rates suggests that from an empirical point of view time-varying transformations are highly relevant and statistically significant. We expect that the proposed models can describe more truthfully the dynamic time-varying behavior of economic and financial variables and potentially improve out-of-sample forecasts significantly.