We have issued the 51st volume of Investigaciones Regionales - Journal of Regional Research, including a diverse list of articles, including multiple disciplines and orientations, following the philosophy of the journal of accommodating papers with the diversity of disciplines within Regional Science.
The work authored by Francisco Yépez Muñoz, Luis Palma Martos and Noemí Pulido Pavón opens the current issue with the title “Rethinking Andalusian RIS3 Strategy Design through Regional Benchmarking”, within the papers devoted to European Policy. According to the authors, research and innovation strategies for smart specialisation (RIS3) has played a key role in the European Union regional policy in the 2014-2020 programing period. Regional benchmarking exercises are encouraged by the European Commission to provide a better vision of the position of the region and detect its strengths and weaknesses. In this work the authors intend to reinforce the SWOT analysis included in the RIS3 strategy of Andalusia 2014-2020 using the benchmarking methodology proposed by the European Commission. This exercise allows to outline new proposals for action and a qualitative methodology that could be useful in the design of RIS3 strategies in the period 2021-2027.
The next article is titled “The influence of agglomeration on growth: A study of Argentina”, being authors Alberto José Figueras, Daniela Cristina, Valeria Blanco and Iván Martín Iturralde. This paper analyses the influence of agglomeration on economic growth in the Argentinian provinces for the period 1981–2007 using fixed effects and GMM estimation for panel data, and estimation technique considered for controlling for potential simultaneity bias. The authors find evidence of a link between agglomeration and growth in the Argentinian provinces, suggesting that the Williamson hypothesis is in place.
Jhon James Mora Rodríguez writes the paper titled “Spatial social effects on the decision to participate in the youth labor market in a developing country”. The point of departure assumes that globally, many public policies seek to improve the results in participation, employment, and unemployment of the youth in the labor market. Evidence shows that education, age, sex, income conditions of the household, and working conditions affect labor market participation. However, how the behavior of the closest individuals affects the decision of the younger individuals to labor participation in a developing country is a matter of discussion. Using GPS location for 1094 young people, I estimate a spatial model for individual decisions to participate in the labor market in Colombia. Results show that the nearby individual’s similar decision regarding labor participation affects the youth’s decision to participate or social effects in youth labor participation
The objective of the paper “Special employment centers, Profitable or social objective? An study of their economic and financial situation” is to find differences in the core economic indicators of the special employment centers depending on, if they were created to obtain profit, or with social goals. The authors, José Manuel Santos Jaén, Esther Ortiz Martínez, Salvador Marín Hernández, have created a database with 166 financial statements of the special employment centers from the Region of Murcia for the period 2012-2016. They do a descriptive analysis of these data using the core economic and financial ratios. The obtained results allow to conclude that the different orientation of the special employment centers doesn´t have direct effects on the profitability, but there are significant differences in their liquidity and solvency depending on the CEE type.
The next paper is authored by David Giner Sánchez and Marco Antonio Celdrán Bernabeu and is titled “The Smart scenario and its derivatives in the online marketing strategy of tourist destinations. The case of the Valencian Region”. The technological revolution has shaped a renewed tourism scenario characterised by an intensive use of technology throughout the travel cycle, which is evolving towards a context of smart management in which technologies associated with social media stand out, due to their influence on the strategy and operations of online marketing at the destinations. The new patterns of behaviour of supply and demand associated with social media now determine the image of destinations and influence their competitiveness, thus placing social media at the centre of marketing management of the entities responsible for promoting and managing the destination. Social media and the technologies that support it represent the main way to bring destinations closer to the smart destination model. This research approaches the current tourism scenario in order to understand its influence on the online marketing processes developed by tourist destinations. Specifically, and for a group of destinations in the Valencian Community, an applied analysis is carried out based on a social media measurement index.
Two papers are related to cases of study focused in Portugal. Carlos Gonçalves, Monique Borges and João Marques publishes the work “Post-crisis Resilient Governance in Centro region (Portugal) after 2017 wildfires”: governance systems, when addressing post-disaster action, play an important role in minimizing the community’s vulnerability in future disruptive events. The literature describes how post-disaster actions towards resistance-resilience measures are often implemented, shifting to adaptive-resilience approaches as a second concern, and disregarding resilience-transformative strategies. Two consecutive wildfires in the Centro Region (Portugal), in 2017, cut off access to the Services of General Interest (SGIs) and knocked off-balance the socioeconomic territorial structure and identity (the main impact was 116 mortal victims). In this paper, the media coverage of the phenomena during the 12 months following the disaster is analysed using a sample of 150 news articles published in two newspapers. The public discourses are indicative of the overall importance given to the impact and to the responses based on resistance-resilience measures. Moreover, the theoretical and practical challenges for the policy design and organization of the governance systems in post-disaster contexts is discussed
Next, we find “The forestry products value chain and the costs of reshaping it: Multi-regional impacts of shrinking the pulp and paper industries in Portugal”, by Luis Cruz, Pedro Ramos, Eduardo Barata and João-Pedro Ferreira. Forestry industry macroeconomic assessments typically concentrate on the production, harvesting, and earliest processing of wood products, underestimating the full range of forests impacts in regional economies. This work proposes a broader concept – forestry products value chain – that ponders the contribution of the downstream activities relying (directly and indirectly) on Silviculture and Forestry products. The paper adopts a methodology based on a Multi-Regional Input-Output framework. We apply this approach to the Portuguese economy. Results clarify the role of eucalyptus in “Pulp”, “Paper and Cardboard” and “Paper and Cardboard Articles”. Finally, the projected wider macroeconomic consequences from a reduction of these productions is evaluated
The last paper “Value Capture Instruments: evolution of the Participation in Land Value increments in Colombia 1997-2017” is signed by Yency Contreras Ortiz. This article analyzes the concept of value capture, the typologies of existing instruments and it examines the opportunities and regulatory and operational restrictions of “participation in capital gains” as one of the main bets in regards in Colombia. Using qualitative and quantitative tools, the results of the regulation and implementation of the instrument are shown in 20 years of formal existence for 444 municipalities in the country. It is evident that although a significant number of municipalities incorporate the tax in their territorial regulations, despite its potentialities this instrument has not been consolidated as an important source of financing. Small and medium municipalities have most mobilized such participation in the context of their urban growth transformations and the territorial planning decisions.
The volume closes with two reviews. The first one introduces a data set, “The Social Explorer”, a free and open access platform that allows an agile and interactive approach to geo-referenced data from Spain of sociodemographic, economic, political and environmental interest. In this review, signed by Amalia Gómez Casillas on behalf of the team of the Social Explorer, a brief presentation of it is made. And last, Ángeles Sánchez Díaz describes a collective volume “World Economy: Deconstructing Global Capitalism. Economy and Business”
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ISSN: 1695-7253 E-ISSN: 2340-2717