Mit Händen und Füßen

Kommunikation mit Migranten - Freundlichkeit, Zuwendung, Gelassenheit und Wertsch?tzung geh?ren zu einer internationalen Sprache, die überall verstanden wird. Denn: Ist man nicht in der Lage, sich in der Sprache des Gastlandes zu verst?ndigen, kann das, besonders in so einer sensiblen Situation wie der Einlieferung in ein Krankenhaus, gro?e Probleme mit sich bringen.     

Determinants of Trade: the Role of Innovation in Presence of Quality Standards

This paper analyses the role that quality standards and innovation play on trade volume, by using a gravity model. The role of innovative activity and quality standards in enhancing trade performance is widely accepted in the literature. However, in this paper, we argue that the net effect of quality standards on trade is affected by the exporter’s ability to innovate and comply with these requirements. In particular, by using a sample of 60 exporting countries and 57 importing countries, for a wide range of 26 manufacturing industries over the period 1995–2000, we show that the most innovative industries are more likely to enhance the overall quality of exports, and then gain a competitive advantage. We also find that this effect depends on the level of technology intensity at industry-level and on the level of economic development of exporting country.     

Determinants of sustainable mode choice in different socio-cultural contexts: A comparison of Rome and San Francisco

This paper is a part two of a study investigating the relative importance of the built environment, socio-demographic, and attitudinal factors on mode choice. A semi-experimental approach that aims to measure causal effects of the built environment is utilized. This paper reports spatial analysis, survey and modeling results for San Francisco, CA, USA and compares the results with a previous similar study in Rome, Italy. Results reveal that the local street network's integration is important in both cities and that in both cases built environment seems to have higher impact on mode choice than attitudes and socio-demographic factors. Built environment is especially impactful when diversity, design quality, density and syntactical accessibility are combined. In San Francisco willingness to spend time walking, biking or taking transit is lower than in Rome, and residents are more sensitive to concerns about safety and security. Work travel is more affected by demographic and attitudinal factors in San Francisco than in Rome implying that in San Francisco, nonwork travel behavior may have slightly higher potential to respond positively to improvements in the built environment than work trips. In Rome, peer pressure, cost sensitivity, and probiking attitude can compensate for lack of some built environmental characteristics, but not in San Francisco, where only protransit attitude has this effect. Moreover, lack of any built environmental characteristics reduces the possibility of sustainable mode choice more dramatically in San Francisco pointing to the higher importance of investments on improving the built environment rather than marketing efforts to change attitudes.     

Sources of Canadian economic growth

We apply modern ideas‐oriented growth accounting, based on the semi‐endogenous growth theory of Jones (2002), to compare the sources of Canadian and US economic growth between 1981–2014. This framework allows us to distinguish between transition dynamics and steady state growth as well as quantify their respective contributions. We find that the bulk of the 1.1 percentage points total average Canadian growth rate of output per hour has been due to transitional factors, mainly capital intensity and domestic human capital growth driven by educational attainment. The growth in excess ideas (total ideas growth minus steady state growth) has contributed a small share of 0.06 percentage points. Two features stand out in comparison to the US growth experience over the same period. First, over a full percentage point of the average US growth of 1.64% is due to excess ideas growth. Second, the “constant growth view” that reconciles large sources of transitional growth with relatively stable average growth is not supported in Canada. We estimate a relatively low elasticity of output with respect to world research effort as the reason behind the small share of R&D‐oriented sources of Canadian growth.     

Key Components for Organizing Architectural Tours in Isfahan,Iran

Architectural heritage attracts many tourists due to its aesthetic features and celebrities. Architourism as a new niche tourism strives to attract those who are interested in architectural heritage. This paper highlights the introduction of Isfahan city (Iran) as a new architourism destination. This research also has three other major purposes: (1) to identify the attractions for promoting architourism in Isfahan; (2) to investigate the key components for organizing architectural tours; and (3) to introduce architectural tour packages. Using a qualitative method clearly shows that demography, visitor/tourist interest, motivation and expertise, the time and duration of the visit, providing special tourism facilities, organizing educational and research activities and marketing are key components in organizing architectural tours. The results also illustrated that Isfahan has buildings, urban collections and historical textures that can be attractions for promoting architourism. Further analysis illustrated that Isfahan city has potential to organize architectural tours with 16 themes.