Where to vacation? An agent-based approach to modelling tourist decision-making process

Agent-based models (ABMs) are becoming more relevant in social simulation due to the potential to model complex phenomena that emerge from individual interactions. In tourism research, complexity is a subject of growing interest and researchers start to analyse the tourism system as a complex phenomenon. However, there is little application of ABMs as a tool to explore and predict tourism patterns. The purpose of the paper is to develop an ABM that increases knowledge in tourism research by (i) considering the complexity of tourism phenomenon, (ii) providing tools to explore the complex relations between system components and (iii) giving insights on the functioning of the system and the tourist decision-making process. A theoretical ABM is developed to improve knowledge on tourist decision-making in the selection of a destination to vacation. Tourists’ behaviour, such as individual motivation, and social network influence in the vacation decision-making process are hereby discussed.     

The strategic strength of weak signal analysis

Foresight can be seen as a social cognition process involving a complex set of methods and interactive processes intended to assist policy in becoming more adaptive and forward-oriented in unpredictable environments. As a form of foresight raw material, “weak signals” can be thought of as gross, unstructured, fragmented, incomplete and inadvertent environmental data that may be refined into valuable information regarding context and further be articulated into strategically actionable knowledge. As advanced indicators that precede significant discrete one-off events and/or novel developments in the rate and direction of trends, their analysis has the potential to facilitate the real-time alignment between organisational decision-making and changing external circumstances. These predictors of future change pose fundamental problems of identification and interpretation and represent a challenge to established mental models. Thus, the practical significance of weak signals is that they can be transformed into meaningful insight for policy action. Such a value, however, does not materialise automatically. Realising this potential requires a degree of tolerance and fluidity of the collective cognitive frameworks by which weak signals can be apprehended, assessed and acted upon. This paper aims at covering the scope of perceptions and actions typically involved in the tracing and tracking of this shaping process.     

Teaching the history of economic thought

The main purpose of this survey is to present the results of a questionnaire recently sent to historians of economic thought. This questionnaire — presented in the appendix - was devised so as to provide data on the approaches and experiences of teaching the history of economic thought in a wide range of universities throughout the world.

A summary of the most significant results is presented in section 2 of this survey. Section 1 provides a general introduction to the methodological context of the discussion of problems concerning the teaching of the discipline.     

Workers or Employers: Who is Shaping Wage Inequality?

An extensive micro data set matching firms, establishments and their employees, is used to study the determinants of earnings inequality in Portugal and its evolution from 1983 to 1992, with the Theil index, its decomposition, and the decomposition of its change as tools of analysis. The relevance of both worker and employer attributes in shaping earnings inequality and its trend is quantified. The impact of the firm on wage inequality in a European country is compared to the situation in the USA, and the results suggest that a more regulated and centralized European bargaining system might reduce the scope for firm action. A profile of an economy undergoing modernization, where rising labour market inequality signalled the lack of an adequate labour force, can be drawn, with the minimum wage having nonetheless a certain narrowing effect on the earnings distribution.     

Restoring balance: how consumers orchestrate family care following unplanned disruptions

ABSTRACT

How do consumers orchestrate multiple and complex practices of care when faced with unplanned disruptions to their lives, such as chronic health conditions? We conduct a qualitative study of families where a child was diagnosed with Type-1 diabetes. Inspired by a dance metaphor, we explain how families (1) gather materials for movement, (2) link movements into phrases, and (3) develop an orchestrated style of care as they sense and respond to the dynamic requirements of caregiving when faced with insufficient or unfeasible market solutions. Adding this new perspective to the managerial view used by prior consumer research on family care, we propose an extended perspective on care, which better accounts for how families search to restore life balance in challenging circumstances. This extended perspective illuminates new aspects of consumer engagement with paid and non-paid service providers, and opens avenues for future research in the domain of family care.     

Inequality and criminality revisited: further evidence from Brazil

The objective of this study is to shed light on the determinants of criminality rates in Brazil. A panel data model was estimated using Brazilian states’ data. Our main result suggests that income inequality plays an important role in the determination of the crime rate. Furthermore, there are evidence suggesting that both unemployment and urbanization rates are positively related to crime. Based on a GMM approach we find the existence of an “inertial effect” on criminality. Besides that, the GMM results show that public security spending is effective in reducing criminality rates. Contrary to the common wisdom, we could not find evidence that poverty increases violent crimes. Finally, we have evidence that income inequality Granger causes crime, but not the reverse.     

Environmental factors and satisfaction in a specialty store

Given the intense competition experienced in the sector, retailers have been designing strategies to create an environment conducive to consumer satisfaction and purchase, particularly in supermarkets and hypermarkets. This paper develops a conceptualization of customer satisfaction based on field data collected in a specialty store, focusing on the relative importance of the environmental factors on satisfaction. The results show that the most important environmental determinant of customer satisfaction is the variety of products. The help from employees, lighting, layout and design also stand out from the set of stimuli considered.     

The effects of offshoring on wages: a meta-analysis

Review of World Economics - Offshoring, either as FDI or offshore outsourcing, is a phenomenon of increasing importance that has been widely studied in the economics literature. Studies analysing...     

Enrolling in Higher Education: The Impact of Regional Mobility and Public-Private Substitution Effects

Abstract:

In this article, we study the enrollment decision of candidates to Portuguese public Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). We classify candidates according to their revealed preference for regional mobility and measure the impact of their mobility status on the likelihood of enrollment. For instance, candidates succeeding to be placed in their home district are about fourteen percentage points more likely to enroll than those pushed away. We also show that distance deters enrollments, even for candidates that reveal a preference for migrating. Finally, we measure the impact of the availability of private sector alternatives in the home district on the likelihood of enrollment and show that their existence reduces the likelihood of enrollment by up to nine percentage points.     

Is it all about awareness? The normalization of coastal risk

Coastal risk is already high in several parts of the world and is expected to be amplified by climate change, which makes it necessary to outline effective risk management strategies. Risk managers assume that increasing awareness of coastal risk is the key to public support and endorsement of risk management strategies – an assumption that underlies a common worldview on the public understanding of science, which has been named the deficit model. We argue that the effects of awareness are not as straightforward. In particular, awareness of coastal hazards might not lead to more technically accurate risk perceptions. Based on research on risk perception normalization, we explored the hypothesis that coastal risk awareness reduces coastal risk perception – in particular the perceived likelihood of occurrence of coastal hazards – through its effect on reliance on protective measures to prevent risk. Individuals can rely on protective measures, even when those are not effective, as a positive illusion to reduce risk perception. This effect might be stronger for higher probability hazards and for permanent residents of costal zones. Data from 410 individuals living in coastal zones corroborated most of our expectations. Global results demonstrated a risk normalization effect mediated by reliance on current measures. Additional analyses made clear that this effect occurred in 2 of the 5 high-probability hazards (flood and storm), and not in the low-probability hazard (tsunami). Normalization might be more likely among high-probability hazards which entail catastrophic and immediate impacts. This effect was also found among permanent residents, but not among temporary residents. Results imply that coastal risk management might benefit from (a) taking risk perception normalization effects into account, (b) tailoring strategies for permanent and temporary residents and (c) promoting a higher public engagement, which would facilitate a more adaptive and effective coping with coastal risk than the use of positive illusions.