General Economics (econ.GN)

Abstract: The distributional impacts of congestion pricing have been widely studied in the literature and the evidence on this is mixed. Some studies find that pricing is regressive whereas others suggest that it can be progressive or neutral depending on the specific spatial characteristics of the urban region, existing activity and travel patterns, and the design of the pricing scheme. Moreover, the welfare and distributional impacts of pricing have largely been studied in the context of passenger travel whereas freight has received relatively less attention. In this paper, we examine the impacts of several third-best congestion pricing schemes on both passenger transport and freight in an integrated manner using a large-scale microsimulator (SimMobility) that explicitly simulates the behavioral decisions of the entire population of individuals and business establishments, dynamic multimodal network performance, and their interactions. Through simulations of a prototypical North American city, we find that a distance-based pricing scheme yields the largest welfare gains, although the gains are a modest fraction of toll revenues (around 30\%). In the absence of revenue recycling or redistribution, distance-based and cordon-based schemes are found to be particularly regressive. On average, lower income individuals lose as a result of the scheme, whereas higher income individuals gain. A similar trend is observed in the context of shippers -- small establishments having lower shipment values lose on average whereas larger establishments with higher shipment values gain. We perform a detailed spatial analysis of distributional outcomes, and examine the impacts on network performance, activity generation, mode and departure time choices, and logistics operations.

Abstract: Organizations face numerous challenges posed by unexpected events such as energy price hikes, pandemic disruptions, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters, and the factors that contribute to organizational success in dealing with such disruptions often remain unclear. This paper analyzes the roles of top-down and bottom-up organizational structures in promoting organizational resilience. To do so, an agent-based model of stylized organizations is introduced that features learning, adaptation, different modes of organizing, and environmental disruptions. The results indicate that bottom-up designed organizations tend to have a higher ability to absorb the effects of environmental disruptions, and situations are identified in which either top-down or bottom-up designed organizations have an advantage in recovering from shocks.

Abstract: In this paper we present a new method to trace the flows of phosphate from the countries where it is mined to the counties where it is used in agricultural production. We achieve this by combining data on phosphate rock mining with data on fertilizer use and data on international trade of phosphate-related products. We show that by making certain adjustments to data on net exports we can derive the matrix of phosphate flows on the country level to a large degree and thus contribute to the accuracy of material flow analyses, a results that is important for improving environmental accounting, not only for phosphorus but for many other resources.