Financial Liberalisation and Consumption Behaviour

The paper addresses the question of whether financial liberalisation and innovation have significantly altered consumption behaviour by reducing liquidity constraints as capital markets have become more flexible. A consumption model in which the permanent income hypothesis and extreme Keynesian consumption functions are nested as special cases is the starting point for this analysis. Estimated values for the sensitivity of consumption to current income for different time periods and for several OECD countries are assessed and compared in the light of various econometric properties, country-specific liberalisation measures and a variety of proxies reflecting changing liquidity constraints.

"Making the leap to medical education": a qualitative study of medical educators' experiences of career transition

Background Medical educators often have prior and primary experience in other academic and clinical disciplines. Individuals seeking successful careers in the education of medical students and doctors must, at some point in their development, make a conscious transition into a new identity as a medical educator. This is a necessary move if individuals are to commit to acquiring and maintaining specialist expertise in medical education. Some achieve this transition successfully, while others struggle and may even lose interest and abandon the endeavour. We explored senior educators’ experiences of achieving the transition into medical education and their views on what helps and hinders the process. Methods In 2015 we conducted three focus groups with 15 senior medical educators. All focus groups were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. We applied transition theory to guide our deductive analysis, using Schlossberg’s Four S (4S) framework to code and report the participants’ self-reported perceptions of those factors relating to Self, Situation, Support and Strategy that had assisted them to make a successful transition to a fully acknowledged medical educator identity. Through inductive analysis, we then identified 17 explanatory sub-themes that were common to all three focus groups. Results Background and circumstances, individual motivation, a sense of control, organisational support, and effective networking and information seeking behaviour were factors identified as contributing to successful transition into, and maintenance of, a strong self-identity as a medical educator. Conclusions The experiences of established medical educators, and in particular an exploration of the factors that have facilitated their transition to an acknowledged self-identity as a medical educator could assist in supporting new educators to cope with the changes involved in developing as a medical educator

Can people talk together about their practices? Focus groups, humour and the sensitive dynamics of everyday life

The exploration of everyday social practices related to sustainability often touches on the most invisible parts of peoples’ everyday lives. Given the multiple cultural forces that govern cleanliness and comfort, and the intimate spheres in which these practices are performed, practices associated with everyday water use (and associated energy consumption) bump up against ‘the taboo’. While it has been resolved that ‘people can talk about their practices’ in interviews, a range of other methods – including CCTV, video and other data to survey and document practices in homes – are increasingly being used. As we delve theoretically closer to these public/private boundaries with new studies on social practices and sustainability, greater attention to the ethics of methods is needed. Different ‘talk’ based methodologies such as focus groups that could allow researchers to work more ethically with the strong moral sensitivities of certain domestic practices have not yet been considered. This article explores 6 focus groups on ‘bodies, clothes, dirt, and cleanliness’ which took place in Lancaster, UK. Reflecting on researcher positionality, and results of a survey of focus group participants following the focus groups, the paper concludes that focus groups, humour and laughter enable intimately political conversations about aspects of everyday practices that might be difficult to access or articulate through other research methods. The implications of using conversational humour and laughter as a purposeful tools for exploring particular aspects of everyday social practices is also explored. This article responds to recent calls for greater consideration of fieldwork and methodologies ethics related to gender and embodiment within human geography, and on the ethics and politics of everyday life research

The Fragmentation-Coherence Paradox in Twente

In this chapter, we will concentrate on the Dutch water authority of Vechtstromen, more specifically the region of Twente part of Vechtstromen. The Twente region has some 135,000 ha and about 630,000 inhabitants. Though most of the Netherlands is flat and the highly artificial system of waterways often enables to let water in from outside each region, a substantial part of the Twente region does not have this option and is thus fully dependent on rainwater and groundwater. Apart from the wetland nature areas, especially the northeast of the region is for this reason relatively vulnerable for water scarcity and droughts

Lifestyle mobilities and urban environmental degradation: Evidence from China

Building on the intersection of lifestyle mobilities, changing environments and climates, and practice theories, this paper explores how lifestyle mobilities are mobilised in response to the pervasive environmental and climatic stress in China. Grounded in an ethnographic study conducted in a lifestyle destination with lifestyle travellers moored across multiple domestic nature-based destinations, this paper finds that the motivations towards lifestyle mobility are rooted in how people relate their health and desired ways of life with the natural environment through previous travel experiences, everyday practices both at original homes and destinations, and the mobility practice itself. The consistent movements of human bodies, objects, and skills enable lifestyle travellers to further perceive, understand, and respond to the changing climates, embodying alternative ways of indoor climate control. Rather than focusing on identity construction or the sense of belonging, we provide a different way to conceptualise lifestyle mobilities by appreciating the sensitivity and reflexivity that an emerging Chinese mobile population develops when living with environmental crises, climate change, and changing climates across various indoor and outdoor spaces. This paper concludes by reflecting on the potential of intersecting practice theories with mobilities paradigm and pollution perception studies and suggesting policy intervention on lifestyle mobilities in a rapidly industrialising and highly mobile era

Browne & Hoolohan Response to Second Consultation for Ofwat's Water Efficiency Fund

The key points to our response to the second consultation are as follows. Further evidence for these points is presented in the following section. 1. Need to reduce demand. Important that action has an impact. Limited evidence of communications leading to behaviour change. Not well-justified in spending this scale of investment in communication campaigns.2. Rather than a focus on micro-component use (showers, toilets etc), a focus on practices (personal cleanliness, laundry, garden use, water use for leisure etc) will encourage a more systemic approach to intervention, and invoke a multi-partner approach.3. Similarly, rather than individual water users, recognising a variety of collectives – households, communities, practice clusters (e.g. frequent daily showerers), and social groups to deliver bespoke and sensitive activities.4. The amount spent on WEL versus WEF is disproportionate. A centrally organised communications campaign should not require £75m to deliver, whereas a multi-partner approach to WEL will require considerable investment and deliver more creative approaches to social change.5. Ensuring the vast majority of funds are ringfenced to focus on meaningful, demonstrable change projects is essential. 6. Evaluation: Evaluation of water efficiency activities needs to verify behaviour change, using mixed methods to confirm actual behaviour change (not reported change, or change in attitudes/awareness) and understand how and why change occurred. Longitudinal studies to understand the long-term impact of any intervention would also be worthwhile, and principles of Open Data to ensure lessons are accessible between water companies and beyond the sector.7. Involvement of academics and scientific oversight: Ensuring that there are strong connections to academic bodies (e.g. via an academic steering group) to make the most of recent research in this field. Presently there is a lack of evidence for the scope and framing of the fund, and if it is too late too substantially reframe what the funding can be spent on – then ensuring academic input into the design, conduct and evaluation of activities is needed. This requires organisation and funding.8. There is a need to consult with a wider range of organisations involved in behaviour change (including for example, Natural Environment Social Research Network which is a group of social science researchers within the UK government and devolved authorities). Oversight of the fund needs to be led by organisations experienced in water, as while there are transferable insights from energy and other sectors, water use/demand is fundamentally different to other forms of resource use. <br/