Decision Making for Extreme Events: Modeling Critical Infrastructure Interdependencies to Aid Mitigation and Response Planning

Recent tragedies such as Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, and the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake have revealed a need for methods to evaluate and plan for the impact of extreme events on critical infrastructure. In particular, awareness has been raised of the threat that a major disruption will lead to cascading failures that cross boundaries between interdependent infrastructure sectors, greatly magnifying human and economic impacts. To assist in planning for such extreme events, researchers are developing modeling tools to aid in making decisions about how best to protect critical infrastructures. We present some of the capabilities of this modeling approach as well as some of the challenges faced in developing such applications based on our experience with the Critical Infrastructure Protection Decision Support System (CIPDSS) model, developed for use by the Department of Homeland Security. A set of disruptions to road and telecommunication infrastructures is implemented in CIPDSS and the modeled disruptions to the original infrastructure as well as cascading effects on other infrastructure sectors are discussed. These simulations provide insights into the potential of this approach.     

Forecast of Growth Potential in the Next Ten Years as well as Strategic Objectives and Key Points in the 14th Five-Year Plan Period

The “14th Five-Year Plan” period is a key transition period from comprehensively building a well-off society to basically realizing socialist modernization. Based on the dual dimensions of quantity and quality, this paper uses the trend extrapolation method to predict the future economic growth potential. In the next 10 years, China's potential economic growth rate will show a significant decline, while the quality potential of economic growth will show a significant upward trend. The strategic objectives of building a modern socialist country during the “14th Five-Year Plan” period mainly include: promoting high quality development as the basic orientation, enhancing the core competitiveness of the country as the concentrated expression, improving people's well-being as the ultimate goal, and promoting the modernization of state governance as an important guarantee. On this basis, the strategic focus of the “14th Five-Year Plan” period is more powerful innovation drive, more optimized economic structure, more comprehensive infrastructure system and a more modern development path.     

APEC:Seeking Common Development of the Asia-Pacific

Propelled by APEC and newly bolstered bilateral and multilateral relations between China and the Asia-Pacii c region, economic and trade relations between China and other major APEC members have witnessed bounding development.     

基础设施投资与公共财政

市场经济条件下,公共财政是基础设施的投资主体,建立公共财政框架体系对推进基础设施建设具有十分重要意义;经济理论上基础设施应该完全由公共财政投资,然而实践中必须根据客观需要,充分利用社会资本促进基础设施建设.     

The relationship between regulation and contracts in infrastructure industries: Regulation as ordered renegotiation

This paper discusses the relationship between regulation and contracts in infrastructure industries and the role of regulation, particularly the role of regulatory agencies in the review, revision, and renegotiation of contracts. The paper starts with a short survey of relevant economic and legal issues. Examples are presented of how and why infrastructure contracts, including concession contracts, have been combined with monitoring and enforcement by external regulatory agencies. The examples discussed include historical UK experience, recent French experience, and developing country experience. The paper concludes with a discussion of the role that regulatory entities can play to reinforce trust and sustain contracts by enabling simpler contracts, resolving contract misunderstandings, and providing processes for ordered renegotiations.     

When All Roads Lead to Beijing. Assessing China’s New Silk Road and its Implications for Europe

The Belt and Road, unveiled by President Xi Jinping in late 2013, is China’s most ambitious geo-economic and foreign policy initiative in decades, combining a land-based Silk Road Economic Belt and a sea-based 21st Century Maritime Silk Road which connect China to Europe. With this grandiose initiative, Beijing seeks to tackle industrial overcapacity at home and acquire political influence abroad through investment. Sitting at the end-point of the maritime Silk Road, Southeast Europe and the Mediterranean have been the main focus of investment in infrastructure projects so far. If managed successfully by both sides, China’s Belt and Road could be a great opportunity for a European continent that is still struggling to recover from the crisis. What is urgently needed in Europe is a comprehensive response to China’s new initiative, with the focus not only on the economy and trade, but also on the monetary and financial aspects of the Belt and Road, including discussion of the political and security implications of Beijing’s inroads into Europe and its neighbourhood.     

Policy actions for developing the infrastructure sector: Learnings from the Indian experience

The infrastructure sector is one of the major pillars for economic growth and development of a country. The responsibility to develop this crucial sector is shifting away from the public to the private sector. After the economic liberalization in 1991, India opened the infrastructure sector, among many others, to private domestic and foreign investment. The shortage of electricity, the poor state of roads, and limited telecom access necessitated a stream of persistent reforms, which were expected to play a significant role in the infrastructure sector's growth. Although some subsectors witnessed success, others continued to face hurdles. The paper highlights the role of infrastructure in socio-economic development through global literature. It also presents a story of infrastructure development in India since the inception of economic liberalization. It highlights various challenges that discourage private sector investments, thus providing a rationale for policy initiatives by the government. The paper also presents critical issues highlighted by multiple government committees over nearly three decades and identifies residual issues that merit attention. The outcomes of the paper are relevant in the context of developing and emerging economies.     

Regional fiscal cooperation in metropolitan areas: An exploration

This article explores the potential benefits and costs of regional cooperation on metropolitan area fiscal policies. After discussing the relationships between cities and suburbs, as well as the role of local fiscal policies in regional well‐being, the article presents and tests a model for measuring benefit spillovers resulting from fiscal policies. The results show that state and local infrastructures have important effects on metropolitan property markets, and that current spending is less influential than the level of public capital in place in determining property values. State highway investments are found to reduce the attractiveness of metropolitan area locations. Enhancements to central city infrastructure are estimated to significantly increase suburban property values, and the results of some simple policy experiments are examined.© 1999 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Beyond regulatory capture: Coproducing expertise for critical infrastructure protection

Complex industries such as petroleum production, civil aviation, and nuclear power produce “public risks” that are widely distributed and temporally remote, and thus tend to be ignored by the risk producers. Regulation is perhaps the most common policy tool for governing such risks, but requires expert knowledge that often resides solely within the industries. Hence, many scholars and policymakers raise concerns about “regulatory capture,” wherein regulation serves private interests rather than the public good. This paper argues that regulatory capture framing has tended to limit understanding of expertise and its role in governing public risks. Most studies of regulatory capture treat expertise as a source of knowledge and skills that are created exogenously to political processes, and which can therefore be politically neutral. By contrast, we draw on work in science and technology studies that highlight the value‐laden and relational nature of knowledge and expertise, showing how its formation is endogenous to political processes. Thus, we argue for both broadening analyses of regulatory capture to consider the historically contingent and uncertain process of creating expert knowledge, and going beyond the capture framing by considering the challenge of negotiating different epistemologies and ways of life. We illustrate this analytic strategy by examining the history of and current debate about critical infrastructure protection standards to protect the United States electric power grid from cyberattack. We conclude by considering the broader implications of these findings for governing public risks.     

Developing Durable Infrastructures: Politics,Social Skill,and Sanitation Partnerships in Urban India1

Accelerated national and international efforts to redress the acute lack of infrastructures in the developing world have focused on forging partnerships to spur infrastructure development. This article finds a sore lack in attempts to grasp how infrastructures implemented through multiactor partnerships within entrenched, often volatile, political environments, become durable. Durability is understood here through field analysis, an approach common within the “new institutional” literature. Two case studies of sanitation infrastructure‐making from cities in India are presented as empirical evidence. Failure of the first case and the success of the second in acquisition of durability clearly illustrate the vital role political strategy plays in making infrastructures durable.