Tourism expenditure model — a functional planning and policy-making tool

The Tourism Expenditures Model (TEM) is a short-run systems model which at both the national and regional level can provide a detailed analysis of the nature of tourism-related expenditures. The tourism-related sectors covered are transportation, accommodation, meals and beverages, recreation and entertainment and other purchases disaggregated with respect to time, region and economic subsector. The model is intended to help in the evaluation and planning of specific tourism proposals and in the development of the industry as a whole.     

Structural funds, EU enlargement, and the redistribution of FDI in Europe

The EU enlargements of 2004 led to a redirection of Structural and Cohesion Funds expenditures from EU-15 to new EU members as did those of 2007. This redistribution of funds makes the accession countries even more attractive as a location of FDI. Using a logistic regressions approach, this paper shows that a reallocation of structural funds as outlined in Agenda (For a stronger and wider union, COM(97) 2000 final, 2000) and successive revisions of the financial perspectives for an enlarged union leads to a redistribution of FDI by approximately 4−8 percentage points from the current EU members to the accession countries (2004 scenario) and 7−10 percentage points (2007 scenario), respectively.     

Coal not becoming superfluous

The rapid change in the European energy sector has mainly affected the coal. It is more and more threatened to lose its importance. The importance of exploitation and transport means increasing competitivenes of non-European suppliers, and technical progress enables the economical use of new power categories. For the adjustment of coal demand to the present and future one, many-sided politico-economical measures and programmes are imperative. INTERECONOMICS had the occasion to talk with Dr Hellwig, Vice President of the Commission of the European Communities, about these questions.     

Gerechte Löhne und Arbeitslosengelder

Aufgrund der hohen Arbeitslosigkeit in Deutschland wird von Seiten der Unternehmer sowie vieler Ökonomen eine Senkung der Löhne bzw. eine Ausweitung der Arbeitszeit gefordert. Doch welcher Anteil der Löhne am erwirtschafteten Nettoertrag wird von den Tarifparteien als fair angesehen? Wie hoch sollte unter Fairnessgesichtspunkten die Sozialhilfe bzw. das Arbeitslosengeld II sein, und welchen Anteil sollte das Arbeitslosengeld I als Teil des früheren Gehalts erreichen?Prof. Dr. Fritz Helmedag, 51, lehrt Volkswirtschaftslehre, insbesondere Mikroökonomik, an der Technischen Universität Chemnitz.     

Prefabrication makes shipbuilding competitive

At the beginning of February the Hamburg shipyard, Blohm & Voss, introduced the public to a new technical concept which may mean a revolution in shipbuilding: the “Pioneer”-multi-carrier. This design is composed of prefabricated elements. It is based on the mechanical assembly technique and more than one hundred variations are available. INTERECONOMICS asked two representatives of this shipyard about the economic advantages of this new system and what effects it will have upon the shipbuilding industry.     

Environmental Health Risks and Tradable Health Risk Permits

Health risk permits are suggested as an instrument for the systematic management of all health-relevant pollutants. These permits are denominated in statistical deaths due to pollution and have to be acquired by firms which emit pollutants inimical to health. They have two advantages: First, they guarantee that a clear decision about the acceptable number of statistical deaths due to pollution is made. Second, health risk permits are able to realize any level of health risk thus chosen in an efficient way. However, in practice some compromises have to be made: The health risk function relating emissions to health risk must employ some simplifying assumptions and complementary regulation is needed to make health risk permits feasible and acceptable. Furthermore, there are other aims of environmental policy besides the preservation of human health, such as climate control and conservation, for which health risk permits are of no use.