Domestic tourism and sustainability in an emerging economy: Brazil's littoral pleasure periphery

The littoral pleasure periphery (LPP) is a major and expanding spatial feature of Brazil that is dominated by almost 200 specialised coastal resorts, beachfront metropolises and beachfront cities. It is notable in an emerging economy context for the extent to which domestic forces have influenced its development, including not just favourable geographic features but patterns of historical settlement, modernisation processes, national culture, and geopolitical motivations. Reflecting Brazil's economic and social dualities, the LPP exhibits two distinct models. The southern LPP, like counterparts in the more developed world, is long-established and displays an “organic” growth trajectory. The northern LPP is a hybrid of “organic” and “induced” impulses exhibiting more rapid and largely planned growth manifested in low density development. Despite efforts of a multi-partner regional tourism initiative – the Programa de Desenvolvimento do Turismo (PRODETUR) – to facilitate economic and social equity through targeted tourism investment, the northern LPP resembles classic Third World LPPs where mainly “non-white” local residents are often displaced by coastal development involving “white” investors and tourists. Unsustainable tourism outcomes are therefore indicated in both components of the Brazilian LPP and minimal progression toward an enlightened mass tourism ideal.     

The Tourism Area Life Cycle in Kim Yujeong Literary Village,Korea

The application of Butler's tourism area life cycle model to the Korean literary village and hyper-destination of Kim Yujeong yields a basic pattern of conformity, although the staggered and overlapping sequencing of indicators suggests the presence of successive exploration, involvement, and development “tendencies” rather than stages. Apparent contradictions between very high guest-to-host ratios and contact and relatively low levels of resident dissatisfaction and attraction change reflect the topophilia of both residents and visitors and, more speculatively, the influence of a homogeneous cultural context.     

Removing biases in computed returns

This paper presents a straightforward method for asymptotically removing the well-known upward bias in observed returns of equally-weighted portfolios. Our method removes all of the bias due to any random transient errors such as bid-ask bounce and allows for the estimation of short horizon returns. We apply our method to the CRSP equally-weighted monthly return indexes for the NYSE, Amex, and NASDAQ and show that the bias is cumulative. In particular, a NASDAQ index (with a base of 100 in 1973) grows to the level of 17,975 by 2006, but nearly half of the increase is due to cumulative bias. We also conduct a simulation in which we simulate true prices and set spreads according to a discrete pricing grid. True prices are then not necessarily at the midpoint of the spread. In the simulation we compare our method to calculating returns based on observed closing quote midpoints and find that the returns from our method are statistically indistinguishable from the (simulated) true returns. While the mid-quote method results in an improvement over using closing transaction prices, it still results in a statistically significant amount of upward bias. We demonstrate that applying our methodology results in a reversal of the relative performance of NASDAQ stocks versus NYSE stocks over a 25 year window.     

Clearing the path to sustainable mass tourism: A response to Peeters

Peeters’ well-considered rejoinder emphasises the utility of a systems approach for framing the planning and management of sustainable tourism that takes into account global as well as local impacts. All five factors that are alleged to facilitate sustainable tourism are necessarily dynamic and speculative, and hence contestable, and more attention needs to be paid to the synergistic effects of all five interacting together. A reform-based path to sustainable mass tourism convergence, proceeding along organic, incremental and induced paths, is therefore still regarded as a valid macro-perspective on the evolution of contemporary tourism.     

Social Enterprise and the Capability Approach: Exploring How Social Enterprises Are Humanizing Business

ABSTRACT

This mixed-method empirical study applies the capability approach, a multidimensional framework for evaluating human development, to survey 115 social enterprises on their social activities. Findings reveal that social enterprises create services and programs that seek to meet an average of three types of human needs and are more likely to target some human needs more than others. Research implications include the creation of a model and a tool for applying the capability approach to examine social value creation in social businesses. Findings contribute to practice by introducing a tool that leaders of social organizations, consultants, or training institutions may use to design the social activities of social enterprises and other social businesses and organizations.     

Cross-national invariance of the entrepreneurial orientation scale

This study utilizes data from 1279 SMEs spanning seven countries to assess the cross-national invariance of the Covin and Slevin entrepreneurial orientation scale. We first examine the psychometric properties of the scale across the full sample and each of the individual countries, identifying the optimal model for invariance testing. We then conduct a series of tests for invariance, utilizing the American sample as a reference in each. Study results highlight the optimality of a three-factor, six-item scale, and provide additional information regarding the level of measurement equivalence that exists between the U.S. and each of the other countries analyzed.     

Intertemporal and Interfirm Heterogeneity: Implications for Pesticide Productivity

This paper presents evidence concerning the existence and implications of heterogeneity effects for estimates of the marginal productivity of pesticides, The paper extends the work of Calpentier and Weaver (1996a), which considered fured effects that homothetically shift the conditional mean of output. This paper considers the implications of time-varying marginal productivity, allowing for nonhomothetic shifts in production. The extent and structure of heterogeneity found in French crop agriculture is first presented to illustrate that persistent heterogeneity exists across these firms. Next, we review the implications of such heterogeneity for econometric estimates and show that estimates of marginal productivity of pesticides will be biased when based on models that do not explicitly account for these types of heterogeneity across firms and time. An alternative estimation approach is proposed, based on Chamberlain (1982 and 1984) and implemented to produce asymptotically unbiased estimates and to statistically validate the model specification. Existence of fixed firm effects is statistically confirmed and temporal variation of marginal productivity is found to be substantial.     

Market Maker Quotation Behavior and Pretrade Transparency

We examine the impact of differing levels of pretrade transparency on the quotation behavior of Nasdaq market makers. We find that market makers are more likely to quote on odd ticks, and to actively narrow the spread, when they can do so anonymously by posting limit orders on Electronic Communication Networks (ECNs). From a public policy perspective, our findings suggest that making the level of pretrade transparency on Nasdaq more opaque by allowing anonymous quotes could improve price competition and narrow spreads further.