Redefining Goods Movement: Building an Ecosystem for the Introduction of Heavy-Duty Battery-Electric Vehicles

This article reviews the Volvo Low-Impact Heavy Green Transport Solution (LIGHTS) project, a multifaceted public–private partnership in Southern California, and provides some early insights and a model for successful fleet adoption of Class 8 battery-electric trucks. This paradigm shift in commercial trucking is emerging, forcing greater interdependence among many stakeholders—fleets, %, truck manufacturers, and policymakers—not currently engaged in the traditional heavy-duty commercial truck market. The many perspectives from this article such as lead times and costs associated with the deployment of charging infrastructure, developing the workforce to support largescale deployments, and the need for market development incentives from the government can be used to inform the programs and policies of California and other states seeking to follow their lead.

Pandering Politicians? Targeted Economic Development Incentives and Voter Response

Empirical evidence largely suggests that the billions of dollars state and local governments spend on targeted economic development incentive (EDI) programs are typically ineffective at stimulating broad economic activity. The continued use of EDIs by public officials has thus led scholars to investigate the role of these programs in political pandering. In this paper, we explore the relationship between EDIs and gubernatorial elections in Arkansas. Specifically, we investigate whether officials strategically allocate discretionary EDIs based on previous county-level gubernatorial election outcomes. We subsequently explore the impact of discretionary EDIs on an incumbent party’s bid for gubernatorial reelection at the county level. Our results largely suggest that public officials do not allocate EDIs based on previous election outcomes. Moreover, our results indicate that voters are unresponsive to both the quantity and magnitude of credit claiming messages.

Unaccounted infrastructure needs for transit-oriented developments

Increasingly, U.S. cities are focusing on transit-oriented development (TOD) policies to expand the stock of higher-density, mixed-use development near public transit stations within the context of a transit corridor and, in most cases, a regional metropolis. A TOD zone relies on a regulatory and institutional environment, public and private participation and investment, and development incentives to create vibrant, people-oriented communities and mobility options and to support business development. TODs provide local governments with more tax revenues due to increased property values (and, as applicable, income and sales tax revenues), but most planning for TODs ignores the non-transit infrastructure costs of increasing development density. This study focused on determining the water and sewer infrastructure costs for TOD zones along a rail line in southeast Florida. The finding was that millions of dollars in funds are needed to meet those water and sewer needs and that few are currently planned as a part of community capital improvement programs.

Enhancing local development through trans-regional cooperation: Lessons from long-term practice of the LEADER concept

Resumen: Durante mucho tiempo se consideró que el desarrollo local combinaba múltiples esfuerzos para fortalecer las zonas desfavorecidas o remotas, con riesgo de periferización o incluso de marginación. A partir de los años ochenta, la concienciación sobre el potencial endógeno y los servicios rurales permitió centrarse más en la capacidad de acción y cambio local específico de cada territorio. Este cambio en la política regional promovió el apoyo a los territorios rurales, centrándose especialmente en zonas de geografía específica, como montañas, islas y otros lugares “desfavorecidos”. Calificado como “desarrollo regional endógeno”, este planteamiento queda plasmado en el principal programa de desarrollo local de la UE, el programa LEADER, disponible desde 1991. Aunque se centró en establecer incentivos para el desarrollo en contextos rurales, el rendimiento de las regiones rurales, sin embargo, se estancó desde entonces. Este documento concibe el proceso de desarrollo local y la influencia de la cooperación transregional como los motores decisivos e interrelacionados de todo el proceso. Los efectos limitados podrían estar relacionados con la dependencia del camino, el bloqueo institucional y el escaso reconocimiento y énfasis en el papel crucial de la innovación social, lo que ahoga la necesaria adaptación de las políticas. Sin embargo, la orientación hacia la combinación de la experiencia y la contribución de los sistemas de conocimiento externos, con la singularidad y los activos locales, son aspectos que podrían contribuir de manera decisiva a los incentivos y cambios sociales tan deseados. Palabras clave: Desarrollo rural, LEADER, innovación social, cooperación transnacional, desarrollo local dirigido por la comunidad. Abstract: For long, local development was seen as combining multiple efforts for strengthening areas that were either disadvantaged or remote, at-risk of peripheralization or even of marginalization. Since the 1980s an emerging awareness of endogenous potential and rural amenities enabled a stronger focus on the area-specific capability for local action and change. This shift in regional policy instigated support for remote places, focusing particularly on areas of specific geographies, like mountains, islands and other places of “disadvantage”. Referred to as “endogenous regional development” that approach is epitomized by the main local development scheme of the EU, the LEADER programme which was available since 1991. While it focused on setting development incentives in rural contexts, the performance of rural regions, nevertheless, stagnated since then. This paper conceives the local development process and the influence by trans-regional cooperation as the decisive, inter-related drivers. Limited effects might be linked to path dependency, institutional lock-in and little recognition and emphasis on the crucial role of social innovation, stifling required policy adaptation. Yet, particularly the orientation on combining the experience and contribution of external knowledge systems with uniqueness and local assets might contribute decisively to the long-desired incentives and social changes. Key words: Rural development, LEADER, social innovation, trans-national cooperation, community-led local development.

“Even the NGOs Never Talk About Ufiti [Witchcraft]”: a Decolonial and Feminist Cultural Psychological Analysis of Individualized Development Clashing with Communal Ways of Being

Conducting a multi-sited psychology study on how Malawian participants perceive Western-oriented non-governmental organizations’ (NGOs) gendered development approaches, it became apparent that perceptions of ufiti (the Malawian term for what loosely translates as witchcraft in English)—and its gendered inclination—was highly relevant. As in many parts of the world, people in Malawi may relate themselves and their social world in connection to spiritual and supernatural dimensions, manifested in practices and discourses often closely linked to communal norms and values. Many international NGOs in Malawi run individualized development initiatives, often particularly focusing on women and girls’ personal empowerment. When local communal ways of experiencing and knowing are not taken account for in the NGOs’ interventions, this indiviualized approach can spur interpersonal resentment, and in worst-case ufiti assaults. This article explores the link between individualized development incentives and perceptions of ufiti. Using decolonial and feminist cultural psychology as a lens, we ask how the individualized focus of the NGOs plays out in Malawi, and what negative and unintended consequences individualized interventions can lead to. Our results indicate the need for contextually grounded and informed development approaches, to avoid that effort to empower individual women and girls lead to their disempowerment, social disruption, and ufiti accusations and assaults. The article speaks to the need for decolonial and feminist cultural psychological approaches that consider subjective intentional worlds.

Taxes and Economic Development: An Update on the State of the Economics Literature

There is a large literature examining the effect of taxes and tax concessions on local economic development. The last comprehensive review of taxes and economic development, however, was Wasylenko’s review in 1997, which mostly examined the location response of firms. Subsequent to the last major review of the literature, empirical work in this area sought to address endogeneity concerns that plagued previous studies, resulting in a series of compelling new studies. This article reviews the empirical literature on tax-based economic development incentives produced since Wasylenko’s 1997 review and covers property tax (including tax increment financing and business improvement districts); spatially targeted and zone-based tax concessions; firm-specific incentives; and corporate income taxes. The review focuses on academic studies that employ modern program evaluation or quasi-experimental techniques and U.S.-based policies.