Does Agricultural Employment Benefit From Eu Support?

Studies dealing with the impact of public support on employment have given varying results, depending on the estimation process, sample and type of subsidy. In this paper, we investigate the impact of support from the Common Agricultural Policy and Objective 5 funds on agricultural employment changes in European regions. We use a spatial econometric approach to consider the fact that employment dynamics in one region also depend on the dynamics of its neighbors. Our conclusions raise interesting issues for the ongoing debate on the role of support to the agricultural sector and provide several policy perspectives for the new member countries where this sector still influences economic performance.

Guest Editorial - Special Issue on ‘Taxation And Microsimulation’

This special issue is one of several reporting on papers presented during the 2nd General Conference of the International Microsimulation Association (IMA): “Microsimulation: Bridging Data and Policy”, Statistics Canada, Ottawa, Canada, June 8th to 10th, 2009. The papers all deal with tax issues and are selected on the basis of innovativeness and relevance for all IJM readers.

Regional Concentration and Specialisation in Agricultural Activities in EU-9 Regions (1950-2000)

Both traditional (von Thünen) and modern (Hayami & Ruttan, Krugman) theories on land use suggest that productions with a high value added per unit of land tend to be located near urban centres. In this article it is tested to what extent these theoretical findings are confirmed by empirical data on agricultural land use and production for the EU-9. The focus is not only on the degree of concentration and specialisation, but also on their development over time. Growth and decline of agricultural productions are here related to the degree of rurality. It is found that high value productions indeed tend to be located in urban regions. It is also found that most specialisation patterns that already existed in 1950 are even stronger in 2000

CLIMATE CHANGE: FROM GLOBAL CONCERN TO REGIONAL CHALLENGE

This paper aims to map out various research and policy challenges inherent in the need to cope with climate change. Therefore, four critical domains are identified which will most likely be seriously affected by climate change. Next, both the global/general and the regional/specific dimensions of these domains are described, with a view to the identification of a proactive research and policy constellation that might be put in effect to effectively address climate issues.climate change effects, ecosystem, region, environmental policy

Do households prefer to move up or down the urban hierarchy during an economic crisis?

In this paper, we investigate the relationship between adverse economic circumstances and the desire of Dutch households to move up or down the urban hierarchy. We apply three consecutive waves of the Dutch Housing Demand Survey (WoON) in a repeated cross-section setting, with data collected at the time of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and its aftermath. We find that households desire to move down the urban hierarchy during the volatile and uncertain periods following the GFC. This is a surprising result, given that urban areas are generally considered more opportunity rich. In order to uncover the mechanisms driving this result, we considered the impact of the economic circumstances on the general willingness to move and on the underlying motives. We find that willingness to move increased when the adverse economic consequences of the GFC hit Dutch households. Further, it appears that this willingness to move is only partially related to work. Besides work, desires to move for health, education, vicinity to family and friends, and reasons related to the dwelling, also become more prevalent during the aftermath of the GFC as well. This heterogeneity in impacts and consequences for household desired mobility serves to explain some of the mixed results in the literature, and generates lessons for current and future crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic

THE USEFULNESS OF ANALYTICAL TOOLS FOR SUSTAINABLE FUTURES

The aim of this study is to assess the usefulness of analytical tools for policy evaluation. The study focuses on a multi-method integrated toolkit, the so-called SMILE toolkit. This toolkit consist of the integration of three evaluation frameworks developed within an EU-funded consortium called Development and Comparison of Sustainability (DECOIN) and further applied within the consortium Synergies in Multi-Scale Inter-Linkages of Eco-social systems (SMILE). This toolkit is developed to provide reporting features that are required for monitoring policy-making. The sustainable development perspective is rather difficult to attempt due to its dynamism and its multi-dimensionality. Therefore, in this study, we aim to assess the usefulness of the SMILE toolkit to sustainable development issues on the basis of the critical factors of sustainable development. In other words, here, we will prove the usefulness of the toolkit to help policymakers to think about and work on sustainable developments in the future.

Diversity as the key to success? Urban and rural employment dynamics in the Netherlands

This study addresses how diversity in the local sector structure is associated with employment development across different municipality types (urban, intermediate and rural). While this relationship has been studied primarily from an urban perspective, increasing economic diversity has gained traction as a policy tool, particularly in rural areas. Given the diverse roles of municipalities in the urban hierarchy, the analysis explicitly identifies the impact of other nearby local economies. It is found that nearby dense and diverse local economies are indeed important for employment growth for all three types of municipality. Diversity in a given municipality has no or even a negative relationship with growth.</p

A Comparative study of Integrated River Basin Projects in Europe

Since climate changes became more obvious and since growing concern about our responsibility for the environment started, water management became more important. Projects carried out in river basin areas often impose changes in spatial functions that are situated in these areas. The analysis of scarcity issues regarding spatial functions observed in a river basin area is at the core of economic and spatial sciences. Water functions are predominant in a river basin area and problems related to these functions highlight the increasing scarcity of water in the world. Scarcity could be a shortage of water quantity, but also a shortage of water of a certain quality or protection against an abundance of water. Evaluation processes are the heart of public decision-making when spatial projects are carried out. For decades, project evaluation was carried out by measuring tangible streams of cost and benefits summarised in a cost-benefit analysis. Recently, environmental and social aspects gradually get more attention in the public decision making process by means of for example multi-criteria analysis. This method is a tool to evaluate the scores of totally different indicators with the great advantage that they do not necessarily have to be expressed in streams of costs. In this paper we carry out a comparative analysis of evaluation techniques for projects carried out in river basin areas. We evaluate for which projects certain techniques are used and to which extend the chosen technique is related to for example environmental, institutional and communicative indicators. The method used for this evaluation is a rough set analysis. For this analysis projects concerning river basins, carried out in different river regions of Europe, with different kind of problems are used, to obtain a broad overview.

A Framework for Quality of Life Assessment of Urban Green Areas in Europe; An application to District Park Reudnitz Leipzig

A general concern on quality of life, with a particular view to the city has emerged in the last decade. The positive relation between quality of life and urban green is often described as significant. Therefore, public and private decision-makers want and need better information about the quantity and quality of urban green available in their city. Another important aspect to urban green is to which extent the area satisfies the needs of the users and the inhabitants of the city. Only if users are satisfied with the urban green it will increase the quality of life in the city. This paper is part of the project ?Development of Urban Green Spaces to Improve the Quality of Life in Cities and Urban Regions? (URGE). The aim of the URGE project is to improve the provision of cities with green spaces, both qualitatively and quantitatively, thus enhancing the quality of life of the urban population and contributing to the sustainable development of European cities. One major objective is to increase the available knowledge about the complex interactions between nature, economy and social systems in urban environments. To be able to increase this knowledge, several criteria concerning ecological, economic, social and planning attributes have been developed. The purpose of this paper is to describe and discuss an evaluation framework, which can be used to evaluate the quality of an urban green area with help of the developed criteria. This evaluation framework includes Regime Analysis, which is a discrete multi-assessment method suitable to assess projects as well as policies. It can be used to evaluate and compare an urban green area with a benchmark or with other green areas. This paper will describe the evaluation of the Leipzig ?District Park Reudnitz? with help of a benchmark which is composed of planning objectives and expert meanings.