Understanding ASEAN tourism collaboration — the preconditions and policy framework formulation

Intergovernmental collaboration in tourism among ASEAN nations has received little attention in the literature despite the significant contribution that tourism makes in the region. This paper helps improve our understanding of the phenomenon by providing empirical evidence that explains the preconditions that gave rise to ASEAN tourism and the formulation of its policy framework. It is suggested that, to truly realise the vision of economic integration and sustainable tourism development, continuous efforts are required to establish, promote and protect the common interests of member countries. Policy‐makers should also strive for a good balance between pragmatism and mechanism when implementing policies. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Are the Mediterranean countries competitive in fresh fruit and vegetable exports?

For many of the countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, fruit and vegetables are very important products. In light of the increasing trade liberalization and thus increasing competition between countries, this paper aims to investigate the competitiveness of ten Mediterranean countries with respect to fresh fruit and vegetables. The analysis rests on two foundations. First, a set of indicators are calculated to give a general impression of trends and potentials. Second, a constant market share analysis is performed where the countries' competitiveness in world trade is investigated. The results show that the competitiveness of the investigated countries has deteriorated over the period.     

An analysis of the use and success of online recruitment methods in the UK

The use of online recruitment methods is now widespread among UK organisations, but has not dominated the recruitment market in the way that was predicted by the popular media. This may be because organisations experience mixed success in using online methods of recruitment. This article reports on the use of a large‐scale, longitudinal survey of recruitment activity to investigate the usage and perceived success of both corporate and commercial web sites by employers. In addition, 20 interviews with users and providers of online recruitment were conducted in order to provide a deeper exploration of the factors that may affect the success of these methods. The results provide valuable insights into the use and success of online recruitment in the UK and have strong implications for practitioners.     

Employment relationship in the small firm: Revisiting orientations to work

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role that owners’ orientations to work play in the employment relationship in the small business. Through four case studies in the restaurant sector the work challenges whether sector and size are influential or whether agency is vital to the discussion. The paper positions the importance of orientations to work in discussing the small business owner and highlights the role orientation to work plays on the employment relationship in these firms. Four alternate orientations to work operating within the businesses are discussed and their impact is evaluated through two examples: interacting with the labour market and pay setting.     

Characterization and incentive compatibility of Walrasian expectations equilibrium in infinite dimensional commodity spaces

Summary. We consider a differential information economy with infinitely many commodities and analyze the veto power of the grand coalition with respect the ability of blocking non-Walrasian expectations equilibrium allocations. We provide two different Walrasian expectations equilibrium equivalence results. First by perturbing the initial endowments in a precise direction we show that an allocation is a Walrasian expectations equilibrium if and only if it is not privately dominated by the grand coalition. The second characterization deals with the fuzzy veto in the sense of Aubin but within a differential information setting. This second equivalence result provides a different characterization for the Walrasian expectations equilibrium and shows that the grand coalition privately blocks in the sense of Aubin any non Walrasian expectations equilibrium allocation with endowment participation rate arbitrarily close to the total initial endowment participation for every individual. Finally, we show that any no free disposal Walrasian expectations equilibria is coalitional Bayesian incentive compatible. Since the deterministic Arrow-Debreu-McKenzie model is a special case of the differential information economy model, one derives new characterizations of the Walrasian equilibria in economies with infinitely many commodities.Received: 29 October 2003, Revised: 24 February 2004, JEL Classification Numbers: D51, D82, D11. Correspondence to: Emma Moreno-GarcíaThe authors are grateful to an anonymous referee for his/her careful reading and helpful comments and suggestions.C. Hervés and E. Moreno acknowledge support by Research Grant BEC2000-1388-C04-01 (Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología and FEDER); and support by the Research Grant SA091/02 (Junta de Castilla y León).     

Equilibrium existence in infinite horizon economies

In sequential economies with finite or infinite-lived real assets in positive net supply, we introduce constraints on the amount of borrowing in terms of the market value of physical endowments. We show that, when utility functions are either unbounded and separable in states of nature or separable in commodities, these borrowing constraints not only preclude Ponzi schemes but also induce endogenous Radner bounds on short-sales. Therefore, we obtain existence of equilibrium. Moreover, equilibrium also exists when both assets are numéraire and utility functions are quasilinear in the commodity used as numéraire.     

Gender and competition in adolescence: task matters

We look at gender differences among adolescents in Sweden in preferences for competition, altruism and risk. For competitiveness, we explore two different tasks that differ in associated stereotypes. We find no gender difference in competitiveness when comparing performance under competition to that without competition. We further find that boys and girls are equally likely to self-select into competition in a verbal task, but that boys are significantly more likely to choose to compete in a mathematical task. This gender gap diminishes and becomes non-significant when we control for actual performance, beliefs about relative performance, and risk preferences, or for beliefs only. Girls are also more altruistic and less risk taking than boys.     

Fundamental and technical analysis: substitutes or complements?

Although the fundamental and technical analysis literatures invest considerable effort in assessing their respective ability to explain share prices, they invariably do so without reference to each other. In this context, we propose an equity valuation model integrating both fundamental and technical analysis and, in doing so, recognize their potential as complements rather than as substitutes. Testing confirms the complementary nature of fundamental and technical analysis by showing that, although each performs well in isolation, models integrating both have superior explanatory power. While our findings relate to the valuation of shares, they also have implications for other valuation exercises.     

Climate change adaptation in the Pacific Island tourism sector: analysing the policy environment in Vanuatu

Tourism is a growing economic sector in the South Pacific providing the region with great potential for economic development. Vanuatu and its neighbouring Small Island Developing States and Territories experience a high vulnerability to climate change impacts. The tourism sector in Vanuatu is particularly vulnerable, and it needs to develop and implement effective adaptation strategies to reduce climate change risks. Policies play an important role by providing the platform on which adaptation can occur and resilience be built. This study examines the policy environment in Vanuatu for its conduciveness to climate change adaptation. It identifies the types of adaptation processes (explicit or implicit) and types of adaptation measures (technical, business management, behavioural, policy, and research and education) and critically analyses the current tourism-related policies for their effectiveness in assisting the sector to address climate change. It is found that the majority of policies identified deal with climate change through implicit adaptation processes and mainly through the use of policy and research and education measures. The authors argue that in order to strengthen the resilience of the tourism industry, the Government of Vanuatu needs to develop and implement explicit climate change adaptation policies for the tourism sector.