Bilateral intra-industry trade flows and intellectual property rights protections: further evidence from the United Kingdom

This paper investigates the relationship between the United Kingdom's (hereafter referred as UK) bilateral intra-industry trade (IIT) and foreign intellectual property rights (IPRs) protections. The empirical investigation is based on pooled UK data and benefits from the theoretical distinction between horizontal and vertical IIT. It also estimates a gravity equation for international trade using both fixed and random effects models. We then extend the analysis by employing the GMM system for dynamic panel models. The principal findings suggest that the UK's IIT is stimulated when the level of a trading partner's IPRs and its imitative ability are considered jointly. However, when IPRs and imitation abilities are considered separately, their disparate effects are not an important factor in determining UK IIT flows

MEDEAS: a new modeling framework integrating global biophysical and socioeconomic constraints

Producción CientíficaA diversity of integrated assessment models (IAMs) coexists due to the different approaches developed to deal with the complex interactions, high uncertainties and knowledge gaps within the environment and human societies. This paper describes the open-source MEDEAS modeling framework, which has been developed with the aim of informing decision-making to achieve the transition to sustainable energy systems with a focus on biophysical, economic, social and technological restrictions and tackling some of the limitations identified in the current IAMs. MEDEAS models include the following relevant characteristics: representation of biophysical constraints to energy availability; modeling of the mineral and energy investments for the energy transition, allowing a dynamic assessment of the potential mineral scarcities and computation of the net energy available to society; consistent representation of climate change damages with climate assessments by natural scientists; integration of detailed sectoral economic structure (input–output analysis) within a system dynamics approach; energy shifts driven by physical scarcity; and a rich set of socioeconomic and environmental impact indicators. The potentialities and novel insights that this framework brings are illustrated by the simulation of four variants of current trends with the MEDEAS-world model: the consideration of alternative plausible assumptions and methods, combined with the feedback-rich structure of the model, reveal dynamics and implications absent in classical models. Our results suggest that the continuation of current trends will drive significant biophysical scarcities and impacts which will most likely derive in regionalization (priority to security concerns and trade barriers), conflict, and ultimately, a severe global crisis which may lead to the collapse of our modern civilization. Despite depicting a much more worrying future than conventional projections of current trends, we however believe it is a more realistic counterfactual scenario that will allow the design of improved alternative sustainable pathways in future work.Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (Project CO2017-85110-R)Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (Project JCI-2016–28833)MEDEAS project, funded by the European Union’s Horizon2020 research and innovation programme under grant agree-ment no. 691287.LOCOMOTION project, funded by the EuropeanUnion’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programmeunder grant agreement no. 82110

Grievance handling in Egyptian hotels and travel agencies

The literature on grievance handling is a highly developed body of work. Yet, findings on the most effective means of conflict management remain inconclusive. To address this gap, the current study adopts a novel fuzzy-set configuration approach using a sample of 857 employees in Egyptian tourism and hospitality. Consistent with the view that grievance handling is a complex issue that is responsive to “equifinal” solutions, the inherent findings establish the existence of two effective but alternative grievance handling techniques. These two styles were found to differ in terms of education, experience, age, gender and the nature of the organisation. The findings hold important implications for theory and practice

Cross-Country Evidence on Motherhood Employment and Wage Gaps: The Role of Work–Family Policies and Their Interaction

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A comparative analysis of health policy performance in 43 European countries.

BACKGROUND: It is unknown whether European countries differ systematically in their pursuit of health policies, and what the determinants of these differences are. In this article, we assess the extent to which European countries vary in the implementation of health policies in 10 different areas, and we exploit these variations to investigate the role of political, economic and social determinants of health policy. DATA AND METHODS: We reviewed policies in the field of tobacco; alcohol; food and nutrition; fertility, pregnancy and childbirth; child health; infectious diseases; hypertension detection and treatment; cancer screening; road safety and air pollution. We developed a set of 27 'process' and 'outcome' indicators, as well as a summary score indicating a country's overall success in implementing effective health policies. In exploratory regression analyses, we related these indicators to six background factors: national income, survival/self-expression values, democracy, government effectiveness, left-party participation in government and ethnic fractionalization. RESULTS: We found striking variations between European countries in process and outcome indicators of health policies. On the whole, Sweden, Norway and Iceland perform best, and Ukraine, Russian Federation and Armenia perform worst. Within Western Europe, some countries, such as Denmark and Belgium, perform significantly worse than their neighbours. Survival/self-expression values and ethnic fractionalization were the main predictors of the health policy performance summary score. National income, survival/self-expression values and government effectiveness were the main predictors of countries' performance in specific areas of health policy. CONCLUSIONS: Although many new preventive interventions have been developed, their implementation appears to have varied enormously among European countries. Substantial health gains can be achieved if all countries would follow best practice, but this probably requires the removal of barriers related to both the 'will' and the 'means' to implement health policies