Eastern Orthodoxy,Geopolitics and the 2016 ‘Holy and Great Synod of the Orthodox Church’

In March 2014, at the time of Russia’s takeover of Crimea, the heads of 14 Orthodox churches convened under the leadership of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the Istanbul-based primus inter pares in Eastern Orthodoxy, and announced that a ‘Holy and Great Synod of the Orthodox Church’ would be held in 2016. The Synod, which took place in June 2016 in Crete, was a unique ecclesiastical gathering, bringing together competing geopolitical visions of religion, state and power. This article examines the political mobilisation of Orthodox churches by contextualising the holding of the Synod in relation to Russia’s advancement of spiritual security after the end of the Cold War. It provides a textual analysis of Synodical documents and highlights the patterns of religious and political structures in the contemporary Eastern Orthodox world.     

Comercio y empleo en Europa. El papel de las exportaciones de servicios en modo 5

En las dos últimas décadas, el empleo sostenido por las exportaciones extracomunitarias de bienes y servicios ha crecido considerablemente en la UE, con un giro hacia el empleo sostenido por los servicios exportados como parte de productos manufacturados. Para estudiar este fenómeno, los autores descomponen totalmente los flujos comerciales de 40 países y 35 sectores durante el periodo 1995–2011 utilizando un modelo input‐output multirregional y la base de datos mundial input‐output (WIOD). Los resultados indican que los cuatro modos de suministro de servicios tradicionales del Acuerdo General sobre el Comercio de Servicios deberían revisarse para adecuarlos a la nueva realidad del comercio mundial.     

Intangible capital and the investment-q relation

The neoclassical theory of investment has mainly been tested with physical investment, but we show that it also helps explain intangible investment. At the firm level, Tobin’s q explains physical and intangible investment roughly equally well, and it explains total investment even better. Compared with physical capital, intangible capital adjusts more slowly to changes in investment opportunities. The classic q theory performs better in firms and years with more intangible capital: Total and even physical investment are better explained by Tobin’s q and are less sensitive to cash flow. At the macro level, Tobin’s q explains intangible investment many times better than physical investment. We propose a simple, new Tobin’s q proxy that accounts for intangible capital, and we show that it is a superior proxy for both physical and intangible investment opportunities.     

Paths to success: Benchmarking cross-country sustainable tourism

Given the complexity of the issues surrounding the concept of sustainable tourism, the current paper tries to provide a unified methodology to assess tourism sustainability, based on a number of quantitative indicators. The proposed methodological framework (Sustainable Tourism Benchmarking Tool – STBT) will provide a number of benchmarks against which the sustainability of tourism activities in various countries can be assessed. A model development procedure is proposed: identification of the dimensions (economic, socio-ecologic, infrastructure) and indicators, method of scaling, chart representation and evaluation on three Asian countries. This application to three countries shows us that a similar level of tourism activity might bring on different sorts of improvements to implement in the tourism activity and might have different consequences for the socio-ecological environment. The heterogeneity of developing countries exposed in the STBT is useful to detect the main problem that each country faces in their tourism sector.     

Trade and Labour Market Adjustments: What Role for the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund?

Trade agreements have become a growing source of concern due to the potential job losses that some sectors can incur as a result of increased competition. Although the economic literature shows that the overall results of trade liberalisation are positive, some sectors may be adversely affected, leading to job losses and adjustment costs. In 2006 the European Commission established the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) to help workers who have lost their jobs due to globalisation. Despite the relevance of the EGF as a trade-adjustment mechanism, the existing evidence suggests that its use is still limited compared to its potential. This paper reviews some of the constraining factors identified in the latest mid-term evaluation by the European Commission and suggests several avenues for further improvement.