Landscape Systems and Human Land-Use Interactions in Mediterranean Highlands and Littoral Plains during the Late Holocene: Integrated Analysis from the InterAmbAr Project (North-Eastern Catalonia).

The main goal of the InterAmbAr reseach project is to analyze the relationships between landscape systems and human land-use strategies on mountains and littoral plains from a long-term perspective. The study adopts a high resolution analysis of small-scale study areas located in the Mediterranean region of north-eastern Catalonia. The study areas are distributed along an altitudinal transect from the high mountain (above 2000m a.s.l.) to the littoral plain of Empordà (Fig. 1). High resolution interdisciplinary research has been carried out from 2010, based on the integration of palaeoenvironmental and archaeological data. The micro-scale approach is used to understand human-environmental relationships. It allows better understanding of the local-regional nature of environmental changes and the synergies between catchment-based systems, hydro-sedimentary regimes, human mobility, land-uses, human environments, demography, etc.

The missing link in key sectors analysis

In general terms key sectors analysis aims at identifying the role, or impact, that the existence of a productive sector has in the economy. Quite a few measures, indicators and methodologies of varied complexity have been proposed in the literature, from multiplier sums to extraction methods, but not without debate about their properties and their information content. All of them, to our knowledge, focus exclusively on the interdependence effects that result from the input-output structure of the economy. By so doing the simple input-output approach misses critical links beyond the interindustry ones. A productive sector’s role is that of producing but also that of generating and distributing income among primary factors as a result of production. Thus when measuring a sector’s role, the income generating process cannot and should not be omitted if we want to better elucidate the sector’ economic role. A simple way to make the missing income link explicit is to use the SAM (Soci

Competition with forward contracts: a laboratory analysis motivated by electricity market design

We use experiments to study the efficiency effects for a market as a whole of adding the possibility of forward contracting to a pre-existing spot market. We deal separately with the cases where spot market competition is in quantities and where it is in supply functions. In both cases we compare the effect of adding a contract market with the introduction of an additional competitor, changing the market structure from a triopoly to a quadropoly. We find that, as theory suggests, for both types of competition the introduction of a forward market significantly lowers prices. The combination of supply function competition with a forward market leads to high efficiency levels.

An analysis of strategic paths through the decomposition of total factor productivity: the case of Spanish savings banks

The Spanish savings banks attracted quite a considerable amount of interest within the scientific arena, especially subsequent to the disappearance of the regulatory constraints during the second decade of the 1980s. Nonetheless, a lack of research identified with respect to mainstream paths given by strategic groups, and the analysis of the total factor productivity. Therefore, on the basis of the resource-based view of the firm and cluster analysis, we make use of changes in structure and performance ratios in order to identify the strategic groups extant in the sector. We attain a threeways division, which we link with different input-output specifications defining strategic paths. Consequently, on the basis of these three dissimilar approaches we compute and decompose a Hicks-Moorsteen total factor productivity index. Obtained results put forward an interesting interpretation under a multi-strategic approach, together with the setbacks of employing cluster analysis within a complex strategic environment. Moreover, we also propose an ex-post method of analysing the outcomes of the decomposed total factor productivity index that could be merged with non-traditional techniques of forming strategic groups, such as cognitive approaches.

Industrial location at a local level: some comments about the territorial level of the analysis

This paper contributes to the existing literature on industrial location by discussing some issues regarding the territorial levels that have been used in location analysis. We analyse which could be the advantages and disadvantages of performing locational analysis at a different local levels. We use data for new manufacturing firms located at municipality, county and travel to work areas level. We show that location determinants vary according to the territorial level used in the analysis, so we conclude that the level at which we perform the investigation should be carefully selected. Keywords: industrial location, cities, agglomeration economies, count data models.

Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism (MUSIASEM): an outline of rationale and theory

This paper presents an outline of rationale and theory of the MuSIASEM scheme (Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism). First, three points of the rationale behind our MuSIASEM scheme are discussed: (i) endosomatic and exosomatic metabolism in relation to Georgescu-Roegen’s flow-fund scheme; (2) the bioeconomic analogy of hypercycle and dissipative parts in ecosystems; (3) the dramatic reallocation of human time and land use patterns in various sectors of modern economy. Next, a flow-fund representation of the MUSIASEM scheme on three levels (the whole national level, the paid work sectors level, and the agricultural sector level) is illustrated to look at the structure of the human economy in relation to two primary factors: (i) human time - a fund; and (ii) exosomatic energy - a flow. The three levels representation uses extensive and intensive variables simultaneously. Key conceptual tools of the MuSIASEM scheme - mosaic effects and impredicative loop analysis - are explained using the three level flow-fund representation. Finally, we claim that the MuSIASEM scheme can be seen as a multi-purpose grammar useful to deal with sustainability issues.