The end of growth in residential tourism destinations: steady state or sustainable development? The case of Calpe

This article discusses how the slowdown in the real estate market during the most recent economic and financial crisis has affected residential tourism destinations on the Spanish coast. The afore-mentioned crisis, which gave rise to a standstill in residential activity, coincided with the turbulences experienced in the competing destinations of Northern Africa, which brought about a record number of international tourist arrivals to Spain. The resulting situation enables us to explore the future scenario of all the Spanish destinations that, due to the depletion of available land, are reaching their maximum levels of urban growth. Examining the case of Calpe, a destination which is representative of the Spanish Mediterranean, the study analyses whether the foreseeable dynamics for the future are conceptualized in the favourable terms that characterize “sustainable development” or, on the contrary, exhibit negative implications which the classic economists refer to as the “steady state”.     

Why has Europe Become Environmentally Cleaner? Decomposing the Roles of Fiscal,Trade and Environmental Policies

This paper examines the role of fiscal policy, trade and energy taxes on environmental quality in Europe using disaggregated data at the monitoring station level for the 12 richest European countries spanning the period from 1995 to 2008. Our estimations show that fiscal policies and energy taxes are important determinants of pollution through various mechanisms. We find that increasing the share of fiscal spending in GDP and shifting the emphasis towards spending in public goods and against non-social subsidies significantly lower the concentrations of sulfur dioxide and ozone but not nitrogen dioxide. At the same time, energy taxes reduce nitrogen dioxide concentrations but have no effect on ozone and sulfur dioxide. Finally trade openness has a direct effect on sulfur dioxide but no effect on nitrogen dioxide or ozone. Our estimates account for time-varying unobserved heterogeneity.     

Anticounterfeiting Strategies and Their Influence on Attitudes of Different Counterfeit Consumer Types

This article reports the findings of two studies that were designed to determine the effectiveness of several anticounterfeiting strategies on the counterfeit purchasing behavior of the participants, through a mixed methods research approach. In Study 1, in‐depth interviews were conducted with 50 consumers of counterfeit brands in order to investigate their attitudes. Drawing on the results, which revealed four different consumer types (struggle, spurious, indifferent, and liberated), Study 2 was undertaken with a further 128 consumers (32 from each type) to further define each group's type and identify the best anticounterfeit strategies suited to each. The findings suggest that counterfeit purchasing may be reduced if a specific strategy is adapted to suit each typology. Overall, positive rather than negative strategies were found to be more effective for the struggle and spurious consumers compared with indifferent and liberated consumers. The findings also reveal that the acquisition of affordable genuine merchandise may be the key to preventing counterfeit purchasing.     

Identifying micro-destinations and providing statistical information: a pilot study in the Canary Islands

Municipalities and regions are often used as an object of tourism analysis at the subnational level. This occurs because administrative borders are used to implement tourism policies and collect statistical information. However, administrative boundaries may not always be suitable for studying tourism destinations at a local level. Sometimes, particularly in high-density tourism destinations, several differentiated tourism areas occupy a single municipality; tourism areas may, and often do, extend beyond municipal boundaries and tourism destinations may not occupy the whole of the municipal area. As such, a new level of analysis is often required: the micro-destination. There are few tourism concepts as imprecise as that of the destination. Therefore, the process of identifying and establishing the boundaries of a micro-destination is by no means a straightforward one. This paper presents six criteria for establishing the boundaries of this type of tourism area. Of these six, the two primary criteria used are: the concentration of tourism establishments; and tourism typologies and supply characteristics. These criteria have been applied as part of a pilot study in the Canary Islands. Statistical information for nine micro-destinations is generated using the geolocation of tourism establishments together with information obtained from both supply-side and demand-side surveys.     

ROSA,ROSAE, ROSIS: modelling a regional open sectoral innovation system

The literature on territorial innovation modes has identified the development of a diverse set of innovation systems at multiple levels of analysis. However, there are certain gaps that do not allow their adaptation to the particularities of certain territories. Despite the multiple concepts related to innovation systems approach, the state of the art does not yet provide a useful analytical approach for a deep and comprehensive characterization of territories with a high sectoral and technological specialization. This paper introduces an analytical framework based on a regional open and sectoral innovation system, which is qualitatively tested in the Durango County (Spain). The aim of this paper is to introduce a subtype of innovation system that meets the requirements and needs of a located micro-territory with a high level of sectoral specialization.     

Coping with regional inequality in Sweden: structural change,migrations, and policy, 1860–2000

In many countries, regional income inequality has followed an inverted U‐shaped curve, growing during industrialization and market integration and declining thereafter. By contrast, Sweden's regional inequality dropped from 1860 to 1980 and did not exhibit this U‐shaped pattern. Accordingly, today's regional income inequality in Sweden is lower than in other European countries. We note that the prime mover behind the long‐run reduction in regional income differentials was structural change, whereas neoclassical and technological forces played a relatively less important role. However, this process of regional income convergence can be divided into three major periods. During the first period (1860–1940), the unrestricted action of market forces, particularly the expansion of markets and high rates of internal and international migration, led to the compression of regional income differentials. During the next period (1940–80), regional convergence was even more intense. In this period, institutional arrangements favoured the reduction of productivity differentials across industries and successive governments aided the reallocation of the workforce from declining to thriving regions and economic sectors. During the last period (1980–2000), when regional incomes diverged, internal migration and structural change slowed. Furthermore, the development of knowledge‐intensive service industries favoured economic growth in the main metropolitan areas.     

An empirical assessment of the value of irrigation water: the case study of Murrumbidgee catchment*

Evaluation of value of irrigation water is essential for supporting policy decision making relating to investments in the irrigation sector, efficient allocation of irrigation water and water pricing and for crafting policies to compare the variable impacts of water reform within and across sectors of the economy. This paper asks the question of how much an established irrigator would pay for water and at what price farmers planning to expand the area they have under irrigation would consider paying for the right to access water. An analytical framework is developed to estimate the net present value of both annual and perennial agricultural activities in the Murrumbidgee catchment. Using these estimates the total value of water used in Murrumbidgee catchment is estimated. An aggregate water supply curve is derived for the catchment from where water may be acquired from irrigators for environmental flows.     

Reviews

This study investigated the interaction between proficiency in both mathematics and English on students' performance in the first-year level financial accounting course, The data were gathered on the results of first-year accounting major students at the recently established Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and analysed using regression analysis. The findings showed that a higher degree of proficiency in mathematics was associated with a higher level of performance in the financial accounting course for students who were more competent in English.     

Impatience implication of weakly Paretian orders: Existence and genericity

We study order theoretic and topological implications for impatience of weakly Paretian, representable orders on infinite utility streams. As a departure from the traditional literature, we do not make any continuity assumptions in proving the existence of impatient points. Impatience is robust in the sense that there are uncountably many impatient points. A general statement about genericity of impatience cannot be made for representable, weakly Paretian orders. This is shown by means of an example. If we assume a stronger sensitivity condition, then genericity obtains.