HOUSING AND LABOR MARKETS CONNECTIONS: recent developments in the portuguese economy

Housing policies have been mostly analysed as a sectoral policy across countries. This paper, written within a European research project (HOSE), aims a slightly different approach while housing policy is considered in a broader context of welfare provision. Comparing structural developments in housing and labour markets in some EU countries and the associated household behavioral responses will enable us to highlight the trend in the future social welfare provision. Particularly we will look at the possible friction between the homeownership incentives and the labor mobility needs. In this paper we sum up some of the main changes carried out in the last five years, we will identify the main trends in housing and labour markets, considering them as an important territorial issue, interfering in the future of the competitiveness in a small, back warded and open economy. Finally we will present some considerations about policy implications and research agenda on the subject. According to the group template, in the first section we refer to some structural developments starting from the research questions, urban change and social changes in the new paradigm, ending with the shifts in household structure, housing and labour markets situations. In the second section we establish some considerations about the behavioral responses of the agents. In the third section some policy implications are mentioned and conclusions are drawn.

Housing Demand in Portugal

In a former study (Carvalho 1995) we modeled the housing market in Portugal in a classic cross section framework and did find that housing construction was dependant from income, population and sensitive to location. Nevertheless we couldn t find the extent of this sensitivity in such a framework. This paper is an upgrade of that study, using a spatial econometric model. Comparing the results, there are some slightly different estimates in the coefficients, but a lot more of precision once we incorporate the spatial interaction between the counties, changing the magnitude and significance of the coefficients.housing market;spatial econometrics;Portugal

Key Issues on Tourism Strategies

After an institutional request, strategic planning is usually promoted by teams coordinated by one expert in the field, by a firm or by a University. The day it is delivered there is a general feeling of frustration with the outcome. This feeling is most likely due to an incomplete diffusion process or/and to some difficulties to measure long term and intangible outcomes. In this paper we intend to overcome some of these misinterpretations, reflecting on the mostly theoretical questions popping up from recent study cases; it is essentially centred upon the lived experiences and the methodological issues that only future will assess. This paper is also an academic exercise to share with the regional science peers the life experiment we had during PETUR (Strategic Plan for Tourism in Serra Estrela - Portugal), the acronym of the work team I coordinated, which rose a number of practical questions that one should reflect upon under recent theoretical developments in social sciences involving decision and collective action. The paper is structured as follows: (1) a context introduction; (2) an international and national literature review considering then in more detail (3) some recent developments on innovation diffusion theories. The (4) section illustrates some of the initiatives we took in the case study for a the specific region in Serra da Estrela, an internal small region located in between the Portuguese Atlantic coast and the Spanish border; the (5) section is devoted to the main focus of the paper - key issues in tourism Strategies. The paper will close with the concluding remarks where private-public partnership is mostly considered a complex learning process in order to excel in innovative diffusion processes. JEL Classification: R58; L83; O22; L26; C61; H77Keywords: tourism economics; planning methodology; organizational complexity; cluster strategy; Portugal

Housing Market in Portugal revisited. A spatial analysis for 275 counties

In a former study (Carvalho 1995) we modeled the housing market in Portugal in a classic cross section framework and did find that housing construction was dependant from income, population and sensitive to location. Nevertheless we couldn’t find the extent of this sensitivity in such a framework. This paper is an upgrade of that study, using a spatial econometric model. Comparing the results, there are some slightly different estimates in the coefficients, but a lot more of precision once we incorporate the spatial interaction between the counties, changing the magnitude and significance of the coefficients.Housing Market; Portugal; spatial econometrics

Keystone sector methodology:network analysis comparative study

In this paper, we present some new perspectives on rural regional development strategies. Contradictory goals in macroeconomic policies, such as maximizing growth, efficiency and technological innovation with equity or efficient growth with regional disparities, tend to appear with higher costs to small open economies. A large number of studies are focused on this trade-off, using national and some regional aggregate indicators mostly based on economic flows prices and quantities). However the urbanization process is still concentrated in a few traditionally big cities, which is particularly the case in Portugal. The ‘keystone sector’ methodology we apply here shows that other important flows embedded in small town social networks can provide complementary understanding of such issues. Conclusions about a case study in Portugal, its internal and external relations and the comparison with some US similar studies described in the literature, will highlight and enhance the understanding of this approach to the articulation of development strategies in sparsely populated regions in the E.U.

Keystone sector methodology:a network comparative study

Within neoclassical economic growth approaches there is no fully satisfactory explanation for regional asymmetric growth. More recent extensions of the neoclassical model (new endogenous growth theories) recognise the possible influence of a set of intangible factors, which, nevertheless, do not allow a treatable empirical formalisation. Neo- institutional and evolutionary theories highlight the complex nature of economic growth, recognising the difficulty of non-linear dynamic modelling; however, both theories highlight the influential role played by innovation and technology diffusion processes. Missing from these theories is any appreciation of the social network characteristics of regions and the interaction between social and economic systems in conditioning the growth and development processes. In the present PhD thesis, we take the institutional network in small towns as the unity for analysis where information, money and support flows among them are studied. We apply a social network analysis framework, which allow us to find numerical indicators for the whole network as for each individual institutional role in it. Applying this framework in two case studies (in Portugal and in the USA) we found a set of interesting differences about the institutional mediation roles. While in the US, the private sector leaded by banks plays the keystone sector role, in Portugal, we still have public institutions as the main players. After the identification of the significant variables and attending to the different results in the two studies, we built a testable cross-section model that, controlling for proximity from urban centre, transportation costs, local factor endowments, amenities and so forth, can be tested using a broader database, to correlate town economic performances with the network identified variables. The deep understanding of the relational structure within these small towns makes it possible to quantify a set of crucial intangible variables that, acknowledged in a regional policy design, will contribute to increase its efficiency. Without a complete understanding of these social network structures, it is possible that current EU criteria used to define regions eligible for assistance may be inadequate. At the present time, the criteria for receipt of regional development funds are based on relative (to EU average) per capita levels and do not explore differences in economic potential or the capacity for regions to develop. Part of this capacity is rooted in the social network structure. Further on-going research will contribute to the deepening of neoclassical growth models, complementing considerations that evolutionary economics uses to explain the complexity of modern socio-economic life.Network methodology; regional development

The kk-th derivatives of the immanant and the χ\chi-symmetric power of an operator

In recent papers, R. Bhatia, T. Jain and P. Grover obtained formulas for directional derivatives, of all orders, of the determinant, the permanent, the $m$-th compound map and the $m$-th induced power map. In this paper we generalize these results for immanants and for other symmetric powers of a matrix

Compact source detection in multi-channel microwave surveys: from SZ clusters to polarized sources

In this paper we describe the state-of-the art status of multi-frequency detection techniques for compact sources in microwave astronomy. From the simplest cases where the spectral behaviour is well-known (i.e. thermal SZ clusters) to the more complex cases where there is little a priori information (i.e. polarized radio sources) we will review the main advances and the most recent results in the detection problem.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in the Special Issue "Astrophysical Foregrounds in Microwave Surveys" of the journal Advances in Astronom