Competition for Public Transport Services

Competition for Public Transport Services
Author: Arne Beck
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2012-03-23
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3790828025

This book evaluates the successes, failures, and factors that influence the competition for public bus transport services. Using Germany as a case study, the author explains the dichotomous system of a market with licenses for commercial services, where operators are granted exclusivity, and licenses for non-commercial services, where supplementary direct subsidies are tendered out by public transport authorities. The empirical analysis is based on primary data usually not publicly available, and supplemented by numerous expert interviews. The book aims to provide a basic understanding of the players and their options, offer insights into the German model, and make policy recommendations for those whose goal is to increase competition.

The Collapse of the German War Economy, 1944-1945

The Collapse of the German War Economy, 1944-1945
Author: Alfred C. Mierzejewski
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2017-10-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 146963970X

In this book Alfred Mierzejewski describes how the German economy collapsed under Allied bombing in the last year of World War II. He presents a broad-based, original study of German wartime industry and transportation, and of Allied air force planning and intelligence, including the first complete analysis in English of the German National Railway. The German industrial economy was extraordinarily dependent on the timely, adequate distribution of coal by railroad and inland waterway. The German National Railway in particular was the pivot of the finely balanced armaments production and distribution system created by Albert Speer. But Allied strategists did not immediately recognize this. Only in late 1944, when Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Sir Arthur Tedder built a new strategic consensus, was this vital coal/transport nexus severed. The result was the rapid paralysis of the Nazi war economy. Mierzejewski measures the economic consequences of the bombing by considering broad indices such as armaments and coal production, railway performance, and weapons deliveries to the armed forces. In addition, he shows how individual companies in each of Germany's major economic regions fared. By drawing on previously unexamined files of private German manufacturing companies, the Reich Transportation Ministry, and Allied air intelligence agencies, Mierzejewski creates a rare combination of economic analysis and military history that provides new perspectives on the German war economy and Allied air intelligence.

Policy Making in Multilevel Systems

Policy Making in Multilevel Systems
Author: Jan Biela
Publisher: ECPR Press
Total Pages: 148
Release: 2024-10-31
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1910259470

Does the territorial state organisation matter for effective policy making, and if so, in what way? So far, we know relatively little about its effects on policy making and policy outputs. Starting from the hypothesis that decentralised policy making has positive effects whereas federalism has a slightly negative impact on policy performance, this book systematically tests the independent and interdependent effects of different combinations of federal/unitary and decentralised/centralised structures of decision making and implementation. Based on a mixed methods design it first quantitatively tests the relationships for the OECD countries in cross-sectional as well as panel designs. In a second step, qualitative case studies are conducted for four countries: federal-centralised Austria, federal-decentralised Switzerland, unitary-decentralised Denmark, and unitary-centralised Ireland. The authors study two space-related policy areas, both with regard to the decision making and the implementation stage of the policy-making process: regional policy and transport policy.

Financial Cooperatives and Local Development

Financial Cooperatives and Local Development
Author: Silvio Goglio
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2013-05-02
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1136253599

This book examines the opportunities opened up for financial cooperatives by the recent financial crisis, and explores the role of these institutions in promoting and sustaining local development. The global financial crisis has not only shown the limits of the mainstream theory of markets and rational expectations, but has also generated a great deal of disillusionment with the banking system and underlined the importance of a healthy society for the welfare of the individual. Consequently, new and innovative ways of providing finance are needed, especially for strengthening the development of local societies.

Sales

Sales
Author: E. H. Hondius
Publisher: sellier. european law publ.
Total Pages: 526
Release: 2008
Genre: Contracts for work and labor
ISBN: 3935808615

The sales contact has served as the paradigm for contracts in general. Moreover, it is also probably the most common contract, and certainly the most common consumer contract that there is. Furthermore, there are many mixed transactions that contain a certain element of sale, such as distribution contracts or all sorts or manufacturing contracts. This book presents the rules regarding sales contracts under European law. The principles examined here start from the idea of a uniform regime for all kind of sales transactions. Moreover, these principles aim to meet the needs of international and national commerce alike and attempt to create a truly uniform sales law, bridging the differentiation into different settings, different parties to the contract, and different object of sales. However, when deemed necessary, certain provisions are declared mandatory in consumer sales in order to protect the weaker party in the transaction involved. To that end, a balance is struck between the two major international instruments in this area, the CISG (Contracts for the International Sale of Goods) and the Consumer Sales Directive. Moreover, during the drafting process, comparative material from over 20 different EU Member States has been taken into account. The work is not only a presentation of a future model for European rules to come, but also provides a fairly detailed indication of the present legal situation in the Member States.

Governance and City Regions

Governance and City Regions
Author: Karsten Zimmermann
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2021-12-24
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1000536556

City-regions are areas where the daily journeys for work, shopping and leisure frequently cross administrative boundaries. They are seen as engines of the national economy, but are also facing congestion and disparities. Thus, all over the world, governments attempt to increase problem-solving capacities in city-regions by institutional reform and a shift of functions. This book analyses the recent reforms and changes in the governance of city-regions in France, Germany and Italy. It covers themes such as the impact of austerity measures, territorial development, planning and state modernisation. The authors provide a systematic cross-country perspective on two levels, between six city-regions and between the national policy frameworks in these three countries. They use a solid comparative framework, which refers to the four dimensions functions, institutions and governance, ideas and space. They describe the course of the reforms, the motivations and the results, and consequently, they question the widespread metropolitan fever or resurgence of city-regions and provide a better understanding of recent changes in city-regional governance in Europe. The primary readership will be researchers and master students in planning, urban studies, urban geography, political science and governance studies, especially those interested in metropolitan regions and / or decentralisation. Due to the uniqueness of the work, the book will be of particular interest to scholars working on the comparative European dimension of territorial governance and planning. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.