Does ignoring multidestination trips in the travel cost method cause a systematic bias?

The present paper demonstrates that treating multidestination trips (MDT) as single-destination trips does not involve any systematic upward or downward bias in consumer surplus (CS) estimates because the direct negative effect of a price increase (treating MDT as a single-destination trip) is offset by a shift in the estimated demand curve. Still, ignoring MDT can greatly underestimate or overestimate the CS. In addition, we demonstrate that there is a sound theoretical basis for using preference information for allocating travel costs between different sites included in the MDT package. A novel extreme value approach is proposed, which does not require any overly restrictive assumptions about consumer preferences. This approach is applied to the zonal travel cost model of the Bellenden Ker National Park, Australia. Parametric and non-parametric estimation techniques are used for calculating CS estimates, and the effects of different MDT treatments and estimation methods are compared.     

Rethinking futures studies

The author traces the development of futures studies from the Second World war and considers its philosophical basis. Futures thinking is seen as vision; futurists have special responsibilities as they are part of the world they describe. Futures thinking is seen as a learning process.     

External Public Debt,Trade Linkages and Contagion During the Eurozone Crisis

Against the backdrop of the contagion literature, the paper analyses the impact of financial and trade linkages on sovereign bond spreads in the Eurozone crisis. Using quarterly data for a sample of EMU countries during the period 2000–13, we estimate fixed‐effect panel models with Driscoll and Kraay standard errors that are robust to general forms of spatial and temporal dependence. Our main results can be summarised as follows: first, we suggest that the ‘sudden stop’ of capital inflow towards the peripheral sovereign debt triggered a re‐segmentation of financial markets and economic systems along national borders, with negative implications for risk‐sharing and the efficient allocation of capital. The ‘home bias’ effect – that is the increase in the share of sovereign debt held by domestic banks – worsened the country‐specific risk because the twin crisis (sovereign and banking) began to be conceived as more closely intertwined within countries than before. Second, the structure of international trade helps to account for the geographic scope of contagion, even after controlling for macroeconomic and fiscal vulnerabilities. Finally, the ‘substitution effect’ of public debt securities of stand‐alone emerging countries has affected more the sovereign spreads in the core than in the periphery.     

Does technological innovation undertaken alone have a real pivotal role? Product and marketing innovation in manufacturing firms

This paper investigates the role of non-technological innovation on firms' innovation propensity and performance. We note that emphasis on technological innovation alone is misleading, as a firm's decision to undertake technological innovation brings about a more complex and general process which may involve new attitudes regarding organization and market orientation. We analyse the relationship between product and marketing innovation in manufacturing, focusing specifically on the food industry. We propose a bivariate probit model in which product and marketing innovation are estimated taking into account their reciprocal interactions. This enables us to provide more efficient and realistic estimates of a firm's probability of introducing either a new or improved product or a new marketing technique. In addition, the proposed model provides the determinants of such probabilities.