Anàlisi de la imatge turística projectada a través del cinema: el cas de Barcelona

L’objectiu principal d’aquest estudi és explorar el rol del cinema com a generador d’imatge de la destinació turística. El cinema és capaç de promoure, confirmar i reforçar les imatges, les opinions i la identitat d’una destinació de manera molt poderosa

El Turisme i el món de la moda: el cas concret de Barcelona

L'objectiu principal d’aquest estudi és determinar la rellevància del turisme de moda en una destinació turística. El cas concret d’estudi és la ciutat de Barcelona

Scientific journals in Brazil and Spain: Alternative publishing models

This paper describes high-quality journals in Brazil and Spain, with an emphasis on the distribution models used. It presents the general characteristics (age, type of publisher, and theme) and analyzes the distribution model by studying the type of format (print or digital), the type of access (open access or subscription), and the technology platform used. The 549 journals analyzed (249 in Brazil and 300 in Spain) are included in the 2011 Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases. Data on each journal were collected directly from their websites between March and October 2012. Brazil has a fully open access distribution model (97%) in which few journals require payment by authors thanks to cultural, financial, operational, and technological support provided by public agencies. In Spain, open access journals account for 55% of the total and have also received support from public agencies, although to a lesser extent. These results show that there are systems support of open access in scientific journals other than the"author pays" model advocated by the Finch report for the United Kingdom.

The Social Politics of Fatherhood in Spain and France: a Comparative Analysis of Parental Leave and Shared Residence

The Social Politics of Fatherhood in Spain and France: A Comparative Analysis of Parental Leave and Shared Residence The article provides a comparative analysis of policy developments on leaves for fathers and joint custody in Spain and France in the last decade. These two types of measures have been selected because they are both widely recognised as main instruments to promote new fathering styles and consequently more gender equality in the European Union. While the rhetoric of choice has been developed in both countries in relation to maternal employment and childcare, with better results in France than in Spain, it remains to be seen to what extent choice will also be extended to fathers. Keywords: Fatherhood. Family. Comparative social policy. Parental leave. Joint custody.

Older people's university students in Spain: a comparison of motives and benefits between two models

This study examines both the motives for and the benefits of attending a uni- versity programme for older people (UPOP) in Spain, and how they vary with the type of UPOP. Two UPOP models were assessed: The"Older People"s Classes" of the University of Barcelona, which is organised as a lecture course, and the"University of Experience" at the University of Valencia, which is a three- or four- year variant of regular university degrees. A sample of 321 older students (mean age 67.5 years) was gathered from the two UPOPs, 161 participants from the former and 157 from the latter. The findings suggest that expressive motives such as acquiring knowledge, expanding the mind or learning for the joy of learning were the most important reasons for joining a UPOP, and that among the perceived benefits from taking classes at university featured"gaining more friends","enhanced self or life-satisfaction" and"joy in life". Perceived benefits were particularly high among the less educated and the older students. While students participating in the Older People"s Classes were older and included relatively more women, differences between the two models in motives and benefits did not exist or were slight. These results are discussed in the context of new strategies to improve university courses aimed at older students.

Audit firm tenure and qualified opinions: New evidence from Spain

The 2010 Green Paper on Audit Policy by the European Commission has explicitly questioned the sufficiency of audit rotation rules established by European Union Members to guarantee auditor independence. In addition, the Paper clearly states that more research is needed regarding the effects of long audit tenures on independence. In this article, we have replicated the research by Ruiz-Barbadillo, Gómez-Aguilar, and Biedma (2005) about the effects of audit firm tenure on independence with more updated data. However, unlike them, we have performed panel data estimations instead of pooled regression. Our approach allows for a better control of individual unobserved heterogeneity, thus reducing potential problems caused by omitted variable bias. While Ruiz-Barbadillo et al. reported an unexpected positive effect of tenure on the likelihood of audit qualifications, we do not show any significant effect of tenure on the opinion of the audit report. Our results are robust to various sensitivity analyses.

The Role of Firm Size in Training Provision Decisions: evidence from Spain

The level of training provided by small firms to their employees is below that provided by their larger counterparts. The provision of firm-related training is believed to be associated to certain characteristics of the firm. In this paper we argue that small firms provide fewer training opportunities as they are less likely to be associated with these characteristics than large firms. The suitability of estimating training decisions as a double-decision process is examined here: first, a firm has to decide whether to provide training or not and, second, having decided to do so, the amount of training to provide. The differences in training provision between small and large firms are decomposed in order to analyse the individual contribution of these characteristics to explaining the gap. The results show that small firms face greater obstacles in accessing training and that the main reasons for that are related to their technological activity and the geographical scope of the market in which they operate.

Similar problems, different solutions: Comparing refuse collection in the Netherlands and Spain

Local public service provision can vary greatly because of differences in institutional arrangements, public service markets, and national traditions regarding government intervention. In this paper we compare the procedures adopted by the local governments of the Netherlands and Spain in arranging for the provision of solid waste collection. We find that Spain faces a consolidation problem, opting more frequently to implement policies of privatization and cooperation, at the expense of competition. By contrast, the Netherlands has, on average, larger municipalities, resorting somewhat less to privatization and cooperation, and more to competition. The two options - cooperation and competition - have their merits when striving to strike a balance between transaction costs and scale economies. The choices made in organizational reform seem to be related to several factors, among which the nature of the political system and the size of municipalities appear to be relevant.

Intermunicipal cooperation and privatization of solid waste services among small municipalities in Spain

The aim of this paper is to analyze the effects of intermunicipal cooperation and privatization on the delivery costs of urban solid waste services. The results of our empirical analysis, which we conducted among a sample of very small municipalities, indicate that small towns that cooperate incur lower costs for their waste collection service. Cooperation also raises collection frequency and improves the quality of the service in small towns. By contrast, the form of production, whether it is public or private, does not result in systematic differences in costs. Interestingly, the degree of population dispersion has a significant positive relation with service costs. No evidence of scale economies is found because, it would seem, small municipalities exploit them by means of intermunicipal cooperation.

Defining housing market areas using commuting and migration algorithms. Catalonia (Spain) as an applied case study

In the literature on housing market areas, different approaches can be found to defining them, for example, using travel-to-work areas and, more recently, making use of migration data. Here we propose a simple exercise to shed light on which approach performs better. Using regional data from Catalonia, Spain, we have computed housing market areas with both commuting data and migration data. In order to decide which procedure shows superior performance, we have looked at uniformity of prices within areas. The main finding is that commuting algorithms present more homogeneous areas in terms of housing prices.

Local privatization, intermunicipal cooperation, transaction costs and political interests: Evidence from Spain

Several empirical studies have analyzed the factors that influence local privatization. Variables related to fiscal stress, cost reduction, political processes and ideological attitudes are the most common explanatory variables used in these studies. In this paper, we add to this literature by examining the influence of transaction costs and political factors on local governments’ choices through new variables. In addition to this, we consider the role of additional aspects, such as intermunicipal cooperation as a potential alternative to privatization in order to exploit scale economies or scope economies. We consider two relevant services: solid waste collection and water distribution. Results from our estimates show that privatization (that is, contracting out to a private firm) is less common for water distribution than for solid waste collection. Higher transaction costs in water distribution are consistent with this finding. Furthermore, we find that municipalities with a conservative ruling party privatize more often regardless of the ideological orientation of the constituency. This shows that those political interests able to influence local elections are more important in determining the form of delivery than is the basic ideological stance of the constituency. Finally, we find that intermunicipal cooperation is an alternative to local privatization.

How are riparian plants distributed along the riverbank topographic gradient in Mediterranean rivers? Application to minimally altered river stretches in Southern Spain.

Species structure and composition in Mediterranean riparian forests are determined by hydrological features, longitudinal zonation, and riverbank topography. This study assesses the distribution of four native riparian plants along the riverbank topographic gradient in three river stretches in southern Spain, with special emphasis on the occupation of adult and young feet of each species. The studied stretches suffered minimal human disturbances, displayed semi-arid conditions, and had wide riparian areas to allow the development of the target species: black alder (Alnus glutinosa), salvia leaf willow (Salix salviifolia), narrow-leafed ash (Fraxinus angustifolia), and oleander (Nerium oleander). Thalweg height was used to define the riverbank topographic gradient. The results showed a preferential zone for black alder and salvia leaf willow in the range of 0-150 cm from the channel thalweg, with adult alders and willows being more common between 51 and 150 cm and young alders being more common under 50 cm. Conversely, narrow-leafed ash and oleander were much more frequent, and showed greater development, in the ranges of 151-200 cm and 201-250 cm, respectively, whereas the young feet of both species covered the entire topographic range. Adult feet of the four species were spatially segregated along the riverbank topographic gradient, indicating their differential ability to cope with water stress from the non-tolerant alders and willows to more tolerant narrow-leafed ash trees and oleanders. Young feet, however, showed a strategy more closely linked to the initial availability of colonisation sites within riparian areas to the dispersion strategy of each species and to the distribution of adult feet. In Mediterranean areas, where riparian management has traditionally faced great challenges, the incorporation of species preferences along riverbank gradients could improve the performance of restoration projects.

Modelling nitrogen and phosphorus loads in a Mediterranean river catchment (La Tordera, NE Spain)

Human activities have resulted in increased nutrient levels in many rivers all over Europe. Sustainable management of river basins demands an assessment of the causes and consequences of human alteration of nutrient flows, together with an evaluation of management options. In the context of an integrated and interdisciplinary environmental assessment (IEA) of nutrient flows, we present and discuss the application of the nutrient emission model MONERIS (MOdelling Nutrient Emissions into River Systems) to the Catalan river basin, La Tordera (north-east Spain), for the period 1996–2002. After a successful calibration and verification process (Nash-Sutcliffe efficiencies E=0.85 for phosphorus and E=0.86 for nitrogen), the application of the model MONERIS proved to be useful in estimating nutrient loads. Crucial for model calibration, in-stream retention was estimated to be about 50 % of nutrient emissions on an annual basis. Through this process, we identified the importance of point sources for phosphorus emissions (about 94% for 1996–2002), and diffuse sources, especially inputs via groundwater, for nitrogen emissions (about 31% for 1996–2002). Despite hurdles related to model structure, observed loads, and input data encountered during the modelling process, MONERIS provided a good representation of the major interannual and spatial patterns in nutrient emissions. An analysis of the model uncertainty and sensitivity to input data indicates that the model MONERIS, even in data-starved Mediterranean catchments, may be profitably used by water managers for evaluating quantitative nutrient emission scenarios for the purpose of managing river basins. As an example of scenario modelling, an analysis of the changes in nutrient emissions through two different future scenarios allowed the identification of a set of relevant measures to reduce nutrient loads.

Public-private sector wage differentials by type of contract: evidence from Spain

The article examines public-private sector wage differentials in Spain using microdata from the Structure of Earnings Survey (Encuesta de Estructura Salarial). When applying various decomposition techniques, we find that it is important to distinguish by gender and type of contract. Our results also highlight the presence of a positive wage premium for public sector workers that can be partially explained by their better endowment of characteristics, in particular by the characteristics of the establishment where they work. The wage premium is greater for female and fixed-term employees and falls across the wage distribution, being negative for more highly skilled workers.

The age of the"Grande Coupure" mammal turnover: New constraints from the Eocene Oligocene record of the Eastern Ebro Basin (NE Spain.)

The Grande Coupure represents a major terrestrial faunal turnover recorded in Eurasia associated with the overall climate shift at the Eocene-Oligocene transition. During this event, a large number of European Eocene endemic mammals became extinct and new Asian immigrants appeared. The absolute age of the Grande Coupure, however, has remained controversial for decades. The Late Eocene-Oligocene continental record of the Eastern Ebro Basin (NE Spain) constitutes a unique opportunity to build a robust magnetostratigraphy- based chronostratigraphy which can contribute with independent age constraints for this important turnover. This study presents new magnetostratigraphic data of a 495-m-thick section (Moià-Santpedor) that ranges from 36.1 Ma to 33.3 Ma. The integration of the new results with previous litho- bio- and magnetostratigraphic records of the Ebro Basin yields accurate ages for the immediately pre- and post-Grand Coupure mammal fossil assemblages found in the study area, bracketing the Grande Coupure to an age embracing the Eocene-Oligocene transition, with a maximum allowable lag of 0.5 Myr with respect to this boundary. The shift to drier conditions that accompanied the global cooling at the Eocene-Oligocene transition probably determined the sedimentary trends in the Eastern Ebro Basin. The occurrence and expansion of an amalgamated-channel sandstone unit is interpreted as the forced response of the fluvial fan system to the transient retraction of the central-basin lake systems. The new results from the Ebro Basin allow us to revisit correlations for the controversial Eocene-Oligocene record of the Hampshire Basin (Isle of Wight, UK), and their implications for the calibration of the Mammal Palaeogene reference levels MP18 to MP21.