Martin Snell

Encouraging Walking: The Case of Journey-to-school Trips in Compact Urban Areas

An activity-based approach is used to analyse one specific short-trip purpose that has persistently frustrated transport analysts trying to induce more walk, cycle or public transport based trips. This study of the journey-to-school trip is motivated by a general consensus that, to effect a more sustainable transport system, there is a necessity to reduce car use (especially for short trips). Resistance to modal transfer from cars has been shown to be embedded in various psycho-social obstacles which are not readily teased out in orthodox econometric studies of travel demand. We report on an empirical study which fuses psychometric (construction of coping scales) and econometric analyses (logit analysis) in an attempt to uncover the psychological and sociological factors influencing modal choice, as well as the usual range of economic and demographic factors.

Household participation in waste recycling: Some national survey evidence from Scotland

Abstract Increasing levels of household waste have raced up national, regional and municipal environmental policy agendas around the world, especially as heavy reliance on landfill and incineration is becoming prohibitively expensive and also a high profile source of local voter dissent or vociferous NIMBY behaviour. In an attempt to reduce reliance on these options, UK local authorities have increasingly been forced to turn to recycling. This paper reports on a broad empirical study of household recycling, utilizing national survey-based evidence (drawn from over 31 000 interviews in Scotland). Hitherto, very few published empirical studies have addressed the household recycling decision using national survey data to furnish baseline evidence. For this purpose logit analysis is undertaken, using data extracted from the Scottish Household Surveys of 2000 and 2001. This work also serves as the basis for further detailed modelling of a selection of illustrative household types. After consideration of particular waste streams and the availability of different recycling schemes, the effects on the probability of recycling participation of age, income level, household composition, car ownership and local authority were analysed. While there are clear income effects, the picture regarding the impact of household composition and some other factors is more complex.

Teachers’ perceptions and A‐level performance: is there any evidence of systematic bias?

Applications for places in UK Higher Education are usually made before the results of A‐level examinations are known, so references from schools and colleges normally refer to expected (or predicted) grades. Inaccuracies in these predictions may be systematically related to key characteristics of the applicant and could lead to under‐representation from various groups of students. This paper examines data on predicted A‐level grades for 415 recently‐enrolled university students. In contrast to the findings of previous studies however, we find that prediction bias is not particularly related to the gender, class or schooling of the student, but is closely linked to the predicted grades themselves—students predicted low grades performed above expectations, and vice‐versa. The implications of this for current UK government initiatives intended to widen participation in Higher Education are considered briefly in the conclusion.

Estimating Spatial Models Within A Disequilibrium Framework

Modeling demand in a spatial context requires careful handling of regional interactions. In situations where there are constraints in some markets that lead to spillovers to others it is useful to build this explicitly into the model. In this paper I present a theoretical model that is related to the disequilibrium and the spatial econometric literature. Under certain conditions the model may be estimable and an appropriate estimation technique that uses the EM algorithm, is put forward. A data set from the U.K. market for secondary school places provides a test for the procedure.

Still Big in Bangkok? An Empirical Analysis of the Regional Distribution of Foreign Direct Investment in Thailand

Abstract This paper analyses regional Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Thailand. Its determinants are identified using a unique assembled panel dataset comprising all 76 Thai provinces during the period 1985–2005. The work is premised on the view that foreign investors consider various determinants of location choices in each province (including labour costs, Gross Provincial Products (GPP) per head, areas of industrial estates, communication and transportation issues, population characteristics, educational attainment, population density and distance from the centre of town to the main ports of Thailand) as well as government incentives, before deciding to undertake FDI in a given region. Our econometric model estimates suggest that government regional policy, and the effect of zoning in particular, however, has a significant and positive effect on regional FDI, drawing FDI to those zones where the greatest incentives are on offer. The other possible determinants of FDI amongst regions are largely shown to be insignificant.