Tradable water saving certificates to improve urban water use efficiency: an ex‐ante evaluation in a French case study

This paper proposes a system of tradable Water Saving Certificates to improve the efficiency of water allocation between Drinking Water Utilities at river basin level. A market institutional set‐up, inspired from recent policy developments in the energy sector, is proposed. An original analytical price‐endogenous model is developed to simulate trade intensity, equilibrium price and efficiency gains in this urban water market. The economic model is implemented in a French case study using mathematical programming. It is used for conducting an ex‐ante evaluation of trade possibilities and efficiency gains, considering different spatial restrictions aimed at controlling environmental externalities. Our modelling exercise provides evidence of the benefits of the proposed Water Saving Certificate scheme.     

Economic impact of cruise activity: the case of Barcelona

ABSTRACT

This article shows the methodology and the main figures of the local and regional economic impact generated by cruise activity. This article is pioneering in combining different issues: estimating the impact of the cruise port activity, presenting these impacts disaggregated at a sectoral level, using a rigorous methodology and carrying out extensive fieldwork. It is demonstrated that all sectors, not just traditional tourism-related sectors, benefit from cruise tourism. In order to test and apply our methodology we focus the analysis on the Port of Barcelona, which has become the leading cruise port in the Mediterranean area.     

Correction to: Multinational corporations and tax havens: evidence from country‑by‑country reporting

International Tax and Public Finance - The original version of this article contained a mistake in the co-author name “Javier Garcia?Bernando”.     

Mergers and acquisition trends in Europe

The research revises, in a first step, the different European waves of mergers and acquisitions and their differences with the American waves. Mergers and acquisitions are defined as an important corporate restructuring method with four main different ways to make them. The body of this paper analyzes the merger and acquisition situation in 1994 in Europe compared with the situation in previous years. Mergers and acquisitions activity in major European countries in 1993 and 1994, various volume transactions in mergers and acquisitions activity, cross-border deals in Europe between 1989 and 1994, and the big buyers in cross-border deals in 1994 are analyzed. The paper also emphasizes the different characteristics and their evolution.     

Bidding ‘as if’ risk neutral in experimental first price auctions without information feedback

Experimental research on first price sealed bid auctions has usually involved repeated settings with information feedback on winning bids and payoffs after each auction round. Relative to the risk neutral Nash equilibrium, significantly higher bidding has been reported. The present paper reports the results of experimental first price auctions with n=7 where feedback on payoffs and winning bids is withheld. Under these conditions, average bidding is below the risk neutral Nash equilibrium prediction but converges to it with repetition.

---

Electronic Supplementary Material  The online version of this article () contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.      

An alternative approach to estimating demand: Neural network regression with conditional volatility for high frequency air passenger arrivals

In this paper we provide an alternative approach to analyze the demand for international tourism in the Balearic Islands, Spain, by using a neural network model that incorporates time-varying conditional volatility. We consider daily air passenger arrivals to Palma de Mallorca, Ibiza and Mahon, which are located in the islands of Mallorca, Ibiza and Menorca, respectively, as a proxy for international tourism demand for the Balearic Islands. Spain is a world leader in terms of total international tourist arrivals and receipts, and Mallorca is one of the most popular destinations in Spain. For tourism management and marketing, it is essential to forecast high frequency international tourist demand accurately. As it is important to provide sensible international tourism demand forecast intervals, it is also necessary to model their variances accurately. Moreover, time-varying variances provide useful information regarding the risks associated with variations in international tourist arrivals.     

The influence of price and brand loyalty on store brands versus national brands

Abstract

This article investigates how price and brand loyalty of three frequently purchased product categories can influence the purchase decision process of store brands versus national brands. A multinomial logit model was constructed to analyse the data obtained from a consumer panel. The results confirmed that brand loyalty is the main variable which influences the purchase decision process of both national and store brands. The influence of price on the purchase decision process is product specific. There is a clear distinction between the buyer's profile of store brands and national brands. But there is no evidence of any correlation between demographic variables and national brands or store brands.     

Blinded by Growth

Everybody loves a growth story. But that does not make growth by itself a good investment thesis. Fast‐growing countries and their companies often produce low returns for investors, and slow‐growing ones sometimes produce high returns. In exploring this apparent paradox, this article argues that valuation plays a critical role. It matters not only how fast a country or company may grow, but also how much investors pay for that growth. Blinded by growth, investors often pay too much to participate in the prospective growth of both countries and companies; and as result, they earn low returns. This tendency to overpay for growth helps explain what the author describes as indisputable evidence that, over the long term, value investing beats growth investing. This article discusses growth from three different points of view. First, it looks into the relationship between general economic growth and equity returns. Second, it examines the relationship between corporate growth and equity returns. And finally, it compares value investing with growth investing.     

Valuation in Emerging Markets: A Simulation Approach

Most of the foundations of valuation theory have been designed for use in developed markets. Because of the greater, and in some cases different, risks associated with emerging markets (although recent experience might suggest otherwise), investors and corporate managers are often uncomfortable using traditional methods. The typical way of capturing emerging-market risks is to increase the discount rate in the standard valuation model. But, as the authors argue, such adjustments have the effect of undermining some of the basic assumptions of the CAPM-based discounted cash flow model. The standard theory of capital budgeting suggests that estimates of unconditional expected cash flows should be discounted at CAPM discount rates (or betas) that reflect only “systematic,” or “nondiversifiable,” market-wide risks. In practice, however, analysts tend to take what are really estimates of “conditional” expected cash flows—that is, conditional on the firm or its country avoiding a crisis—and discount them at higher rates that reflect not only systematic risks, but diversifiable risks that typically involve a higher probability of crisis-driven costs of default. But there is almost no basis in theory for the size of the increases in discount rates. In this article, the authors propose that analysts in emerging markets avoid this discount rate problem by using simulation techniques to capture emerging-market risks in their estimates of unconditional expected cash flows—in other words, estimates that directly incorporate the possibility of an emerging-market crisis and its consequences. Having produced such estimates, analysts can then discount them using the standard Global CAPM.