Climate Change and Its Socioeconomic Importance

Climate change has played an increasingly key role in recent years and is now one of the leading political priorities worldwide. This article illustrates the scope of the problem, its causes and its impacts, along with the possible solutions that are being considered on the international stage. The existing information regarding these topics is summarised, together with the associated costs and the scale of the effort required to tackle climate change. The article explains why climate change can be seen as a market failure, the importance of public policies to correct this problem and its impact on international trade. The last section considers the international debate taking place in the United Nations Conferences and the Kyoto Protocol as well as what is expected with respect to the future post-Kyoto negotiations.Climate change, policy

Economic techniques to estimate the demand for sustainable products: a case study for fair trade and organic coffee in the United Kingdom

The hedonic approach is used in this paper to estimate how much is paid for the fair trade/organic characteristic of the coffee in the British market. This information is later combined with the Quantity Based Demand System (QBDS) model -developed by the authors- and the Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) (Deaton and Muellbauer, 1980) to completely determine the demand function for different coffees. The QBDS model is easier to handle and less data demanding than the AIDS model in this study. Resumen El presente artículo se basa en la utilización del método hedónico para la estimación de la cantidad que se paga por la característica de "Orgánico/Comercio Justo" del café en el mercado británico. La información obtenida se combina después con el modelo Sistema de Demanda Basado en Cantidades (QBDS) - desarrollado por los autores- y el Sistema de Demanda Casi Ideal (AIDS) (Deaton and Muellbauer, 1980) para determinar por completo la función de demanda de los diferentes tipos de café. El modelo QBDS es más sencillo en su utilización y necesita de menos datos que el modelo AIDS. Palabras clave: sistemas de demanda, método hedónico, demanda de café, etiquetadodemand systems, hedonic method, coffee demand, labelling, C13, C21, D12,

Problematical and critical idealism : the new discussion about the 'cogito' in Kant's "opus postumum"

It's well known that Kant paid little attention to the history of philosophy. The discussions about his predecessors were not systematical, but they responded to inner, precise problems of his philosophy. The same concerns Descartes. Kant wrote on the problematical idealism of Descartes shortly in the Prolegomena (§49) and then in the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason (1787), in the "Refutation of Idealism", an addition that responded to criticism of the first edition

Evaluating the Role of Energy Efficiency Labels: the Case of Dish Washers

This article uses the hedonic approach to estimate how much is paid for the energy efficiency label on the dishwasher market in Spain. The estimated figure is 15.6% of the final price. This accounts for about 80€ of the average price. We use this estimate combined with a demand systems to obtain own and cross price elasticities of demand, vital for policy designing and analysis. This is done by combining the use of the estimate with the Quantity Based Demand System (QBDS) model to completely determine the demand function for different dishwashers. Finally, the elasticity results are compared with the figure calculated using the Linear Almost Ideal Demand System (LA/AIDS). The comparison of the results confirms that the QBDS model is easier to handle and less data demanding than the LA/AIDS model but provide reliable estimates of demand elasticities.demand systems, hedonic method, energy efficiency labelling, household appliances (dishwashers)

Carbon leakage and the future of Old Industrial Regions after Copenhagen

CO2 prices will continue to differ from one country to another for a long time, even if a global post-Kyoto agreement is achieved in the near future. The non-homogeneous nature of climate policies may decrease the competitiveness of some industries with the risk of relocation of activities due to carbon leakage. One of most exposed industries in Europe is iron and steel, as it is highly CO2-intensive and relatively open to international trade. Most studies estimate a leakage of up to 20% as a consequence of all the industrial production activities that are expected to be relocated, and a level of relocation ranging from 1.5% to 35% specifically for the iron and steel sector. This might seem a relatively small macroeconomic impact if measured at country or EU level. However, the picture may be quite different if the analysis is conducted at sub-national level. Therefore, one could argue that there is an important gap in the literature as the relevant studies are applied to a large geographical scale when the fact is that in Europe this industry is highly concentrated in certain specific regions, i.e. the so-called Old Industrial Regions (OIR). This paper seeks to analyse the impact that different levels of relocation of the iron and steel industry in the OIRs will have as a consequence of climate policy. This is done using an AGE (Applied General Equilibrium) model. The results show that although these effects may be diluted from a national perspective, the impact for incumbent regions may be very large, and may in fact significantly reduce their GDPs. Another important outcome emerges when the costs of CO2 reduction derived from industry relocation and from cost-effective policies are compared. Although relocation of industrial activity (i.e. forced output change) can reduce CO2, the cost is very high compared with other options (e.g. induced input substitution). These results can help national and regional policy makers understand the necessary linkages between their environmental and industrial policies.Climate Policy, Regional Economics 

The Role of Regions in Climate Change Policy

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing human kind. Urgent policy action is needed. Climate change policies are mainly being discussed at international level by means of the United Nations Conventions and the Kyoto Protocol. However, the bulk of the impact will be felt at regional and local level. And these levels of governance hold many of the competences for implementing policy actions. Regional governments are important agents and should, therefore, be incorporated into the negotiation rounds so that their voices can be heard. This paper illustrates the important role of regions in climate policies and considers many of the policy instruments being designed and implemented. More than 20 major regions are showcased here. Finally, the case of Basque climate policy is described to shed some light as to what regions could do.Climate change, regional policy

Posibilidades de promover una enculturación matemática en la infancia a través del arte

Atendiendo a los puentes existentes entre arte y matemáticas, mediante este ensayo se profundiza en la posibilidad de emplear el arte para el aprendizaje matemático. Así, partiendo de los preceptos de la antigua Grecia en cuanto a la educación, se opta por una perspectiva cultural de la educación matemática, analizando cómo se forma esta tecnología simbólica, cuáles son los valores que organizan nuestra cultura matemática concreta, cómo ha de ser la enculturación de los niños, la cabida del arte en el proceso y el encaje de todo ello en la legislación vigente. A través de este análisis teórico, se concluye que el arte puede ser un elemento útil para la educación matemática siempre que se desarrolle e incluya tanto los valores de la cultura matemática como los de las obras empleadas para, de esta manera, evitar la instrumentalización del arte y favorecer una sinergia entre ambas disciplinas

The Equivalency Principle for Discounting the Value of Natural Assets: An Application to an Investment Project in the Basque Coast

Making decisions about optimal investments in green infrastructure necessitates setting social discount rates. This paper suggests a practical way for determining the discount rate for projects or programmes in which one of the options is to maintain or improve land in its natural state. We propose an “equivalency principle†to derive a simple rule that sets the discount rate. The rule is based on the premise that the long term value of a naturally preserved land track ought to be at least the same as the value of an identical land track in the vicinity to which permission has been granted for development. We illustrate this principle with various case studies and we apply it to a contentious investment project in the Basque Country associated with the regeneration of a large scale harbour in the province of Gipuzkoa (North of Spain) that involves reclaiming natural land that has important ecological value, including for the conservation of a marine ecosystem.Economic valuation, discounting, equivalency principle, Basque Country

Censura(s) en la traducción al/del vasco

Vegeu resum en castellà i anglèsLa censura es un fenómeno de larga tradición en España, y la lengua vasca ha sufrido también a causa de ella. En este trabajo nos centramos en la forma que toma la censura durante la dictadura franquista y en la influencia que tiene sobre la edición en lengua vasca, con especial atención a la traducción. En un primer momento se describe el estado de la investigación sobre el tema y se discuten algunos problemas metodológicos vinculados al objeto de estudio. Seguidamente se hace un repaso histórico de la censura sobre el libro escrito en vasco, con ejemplos de distintas épocas. A continuación se desarrollan tres temas desde una perspectiva sistemática: la censura de la lengua vasca, la censura de las traducciones al vasco y el papel de la traducción en los procesos de censura. Para finalizar se defiende que la censura es un fenómeno social sistémico, que su aplicación en los estudios de traducción requiere un concepto amplio de la misma y que la censura aplicada en las traducciones, lejos de ser un asunto meramente histórico, tiene plena actualidad.Censorship is a phenomenon with a long tradition in Spain and the Basque language has also suffered because of it. In this paper we focus on the form taken by censorship during Franco’s dictatorship and its influence on Basque language publishing, with special attention to translations. First we describe the state of research on this subject and discuss some related methodological problems. We then present a historical review of the censorship imposed on books written in Basque, with examples from different periods. Next, we develop three topics from a systematic perspective: censorship of the Basque language, censorship of translations into Basque and the role of translation in the censorship process. Finally, it is argued that censorship is a systemic social phenomenon, that its inclusion in translation studies requires a broad understanding of the concept and that censorship in translations, far from being a purely historical subject, is a highly topical issue

Detección de fraude fiscal en alquiler de pisos turísticos mediante técnicas de clasificación positive-unlabeled

El objetivo principal de este trabajo final de master consiste en la identificación de alojamientos turísticos fraudulentos a partir de datos extraídos de webs de alojamiento turístico. Se trata de un problema de clasificación semisupervisada o, más concretamente, aprendizaje a partir de datos positivos y no etiquetados. Además de un modelo capaz de detectar el fraude fiscal, también es necesario un método de evaluación del modelo fiable para este tipo de clasificación particular