An Approach to Support Negotiation Processes with Imprecise Information Multicriteria Additive Models

This paper discusses the possible uses of the VIP (Variable Interdependent Parameters) Analysis software and methodology in negotiation support. VIP Analysis is a decision support tool that incorporates complementary approaches to deal with the aggregation of multi-criteria performances under imprecise information. Its purpose is to support the evaluation of a discrete set of alternatives according to multi-attribute additive value functions. We propose extensions of the methodology of VIP Analysis to address explicitly the differences among the actors in terms of the weights space.     

Research and development in pharmaceuticals: Mexico

The article analyses the activities of the pharmaceutical industry in Mexico. From information available, there appear to be close links between the imports of foreign technology, the restrictive uses of industrial property and the weakness of local R and D. The spending on local R and D by US-owned drug companies was negligible compared to their expenditure on technology imports and advertising. It is suggested that the prerequisite for a strong indigenous pharmaceutical industry is the development of local technological capability. The article concludes by putting forward policy-oriented proposals aimed at creating local R and D capability.     

Explaining the reduction in the gender wage gap during the 1990–94 economic recession in Spain

Many studies reveal that male-female wage differentials increase with the level of unemployment, suggesting that women are hurt by a recession more than men. However, the 1990–94 economic recession in Spain contributed to reduce the gender wage gap by almost 5 percentage points (from 83.94 percent in 1990 to 90.44 percent in 1994). This was mainly due to the relative increase in services industry employment, the activity where the gender wage gap is the lowest.     

The social construction of the tourism degrowth discourse in the Balearic Islands

Abstract

In recent years, overtourism and tourism gentrification have been a central feature of public debate in the Balearic Islands, one of the most touristified regions on the planet. In this context, the discourse of tourism degrowth has thrived, being discussed across the political spectrum and even serving to legitimize a sustainable tourism plan and a new Tourism Act. This article provides a brief analysis of the debate around tourism degrowth in the 2014–2019 period and differentiates between two approaches. On the one hand, tourism degrowth has been used by socio-environmental platforms as a byword for detourisfication and the politicization of the hegemonic consensus on tourism. On the other, degrowth has been adopted as a green washing rhetoric in order to justify public policies aimed at tourist decongestion through deseasonalizing, while promoting tourism expansion. This work brings into focus the social construction of the tourism degrowth narrative by applying critical discourse analysis. We conclude that the debate over tourism degrowth is not just a discrepancy between different approaches to deal with overtourism, tourism pressure and gentrification. It is also a social struggle where the discourse over tourism degrowth has helped new democratic political subjects to coalesce and organize in civil society.     

The Institutionalization of Genocidal Leadership: Pol Pot and a Cambodian Dystopia

Misleadership is defined as leadership process involving a complex interplay of leader, follower, and situational elements, inscribing a vicious circle of intensifying dysfunctional action. It is tempting to see misleadership as the result of the madness of one leader. It is also misleading. Leadership research has been insufficiently attentive to misleadership and, in particular, to the misleadership factors intervening in genocidal processes. Discussed in the current article are the antecedents and the rule of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia in the 1970s as an extreme case of misleadership. Lessons from the Polpotist dystopia are derived and reflections on possible contra‐strategies are presented. In particular, it is suggested that it is necessary to distinguish measures for social change that are admissible and positive, from negative utopian visions that are negative, inadmissible, and facilitative of evil leadership.     

Spring cleaning: rural water impacts, valuation, and property rights institutions

Using a randomized evaluation in Kenya, we measure health impacts of spring protection, an investment that improves source water quality. We also estimate households' valuation of spring protection and simulate the welfare impacts of alternatives to the current system of common property rights in water, which limits incentives for private investment. Spring infrastructure investments reduce fecal contamination by 66%, but household water quality improves less, due to recontamination. Child diarrhea falls by one quarter. Travel-cost based revealed preference estimates of households' valuations are much smaller than both stated preference valuations and health planners' valuations, and are consistent with models in which the demand for health is highly income elastic. We estimate that private property norms would generate little additional investment while imposing large static costs due to above-marginal-cost pricing, private property would function better at higher income levels or under water scarcity, and alternative institutions could yield Pareto improvements.     

What determines the holding of association meetings in a global context?

This article aims to understand the determinants influencing the number of association meetings held in countries worldwide and which may be controlled by their economic agents and policymakers. For this purpose, we use a dynamic panel model with data provided by the Data World Bank, the World Travel & Tourism Council, and the International Congress and Convention Association, in a time series of 8 years. The results reveal the importance of the experiences obtained by the tourists in previous meetings, as well as the countries’ need to implement measures to stimulate the dynamism of economic activity and political stability.