Coastal tourism. The economy and the environment

The environment is a major component in the tourist production and the tourist product. This is particularly evident in the case of coastal tourism. However, for the natural resources to be part of the tourist product, important transformations are needed in the space. That is why we say that tourist development involves the creation of a tourist territory. However, when the regional transformations define the tourist model and intensity of the natural resources, we also define the model and intensity of the environmental impact of the tourist development, with the subsequent loss in the quality of the tourist product. In front of this loss, any policies aiming at improving the quality of the tourist product must include obligatory regional planning performance, that is, a regional planning policy.

Uncertainty about children's survival and fertility : a test using Indian microdata

The authors present a non-altruistic model of demand for children, in the presence of uncertainty about children's survival. Children are seen as assets, as they provide help during old age. If certain conditions are met, both the financial market, and the family network are used to transfer resources to old age. Theoretical predictions relative to the change in the mean, and variance of the survival rate are derived. The empirical analysis is based on data from the Human Development of India (HDI) Survey. Different models for count variables, such as Poisson, Hurdle, and ZI models have been employed in the empirical analysis. The results highlight the importance of the uncertainty about children's survival in determining parental choices, thus showing that realized, or expected children'sdeath, is not the only dimension that links fertility decision to children's mortality. The policy implications of such findings are briefly discussed.Youth and Governance,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Population&Development,Environmental Economics&Policies,Adolescent Health

The Role of Social Security in Household Decisions: Var Estimates of Saving and Fertility Behaviour in Germany

Estimating saving and fertility simultaneously by the VAR method, we find that social security cover has a positive effect on household saving, and a negative effect on fertility. In Germany, as in other countries where the hypothesis was tested, social security is thus good for growth. A possible explanation for this unconventional finding is that compulsory saving in the form of pension contributions tends to displace intra-family transfers, rather than asset formation. However, the negative effect of social security on fertility tends to erode the system’s own contributory base, because it reduces the number of future contributors. That is one of the reasons why, in Germany as elsewhere, pay-as-you-go pension systems tend to be financially unstable. To some extent, this is counteracted by child-related benefits, which tend to encourage fertility, but the effect appears to be weak.

A data mining approach for the monitoring of active labour market policies

The paper addresses the problem of evaluation of the effectiveness of Active Labour Policies in the province of Bologna, a manufacturing district in Northern Italy, during the period 2004/2006. Using surviving analysis through Kaplan Meier filter and a new approach to propensity score computation, the Authors shows that the policies run by the Labor Market Authorities are able to compensate the disavatanges that secondary labor forces such as migrants, old age or less educated workers have in getting a job when fired. Moreover, they put new light on the transitions from temporary job to permanent jobs, and show that the probability of transitions is very low.Mercato del lavoro, Precarietà, Valutazione delle politiche Labour Market, Temporary Jobs, Evaluation of Policy Effectiveness

Child labor handbook

This paper surveys many aspects and issues of child labor, including its causes and effects as well as policies associated with it. Child labor has come to be considered an expression of poverty, both a cause and an effect of underdevelopment. Child labor cannot be viewed in isolation from educational, health, fertility, and technological issues; and is not necessarily an aberration but a rational household response to an adverse economic environment. With this in mind, the following proposition was supported - that forbidding children to work or making school attendance compulsory without changing the economic environment may, if effectively enforced, leave children worse off. There is a tendency to believe that income redistribution from the rich to the poor is more powerful for reducing child labor than a universal income rise. It is also indicated that child labor cuts across policy boundaries: health, education, labor market, capital security, criminal law, international peace keeping, income growth, and distribution all have a bearing on child labor. Therefore, reducing child labor cannot be regarded as just another policy issue.Child Labor,Street Children,Youth and Governance,Children and Youth,Health Monitoring&Evaluation