Debate: Can Sustainable Tourism include Flying?

Can Sustainable tourism include flying? was the question addressed by the debate at the University of Central Lancashire (University of Central Lancashire), UK on March 30th 2012. There was an unexpected degree of consensus among the speakers that tourism had severe environmental impacts, mainly from flying and that many countries currently benefitting from tourism development were likely to suffer from climate change. They also agreed that corporate tourism often diverted funds from destination areas into their own profits. Those arguing for flying stressed the balance of environmental, social and economic benefits, while those arguing against prioritised the environmental damage of increasing aviation. The pro-fliers were optimistic about technological advances in aircraft and fuels but the others doubted their potential to reduce emissions from current or increased levels of aviation. Both sides admitted behavioural change was difficult, but saw hope in recent trends

Cadabra: reference guide and tutorial

Cadabra is a computer algebra system for the manipulation of tensorial mathematical expressions such as they occur in “field theory problems”. It is aimed at, but not necessarily restricted to, high-energy physicists. It is constructed as a simple tree-manipulating core, a large collection of standalone algorithmic modules which act on the expression tree, and a set of modules responsible for output of nodes in the tree. All of these parts are written in C++. The input and output formats closely follow TEX, which in many cases means that cadabra is much simpler to use than other similar programs. It intentionally does not contain its own programming language; instead, new functionality is added by writing new modules in C++

The return of the CC(C)TB: First critical analysis (including hybrid mismatches with non-Eu countries)

International and EU reactions against hybrid mismatche

Tax avoidance revisited: exploring the boundaries of anti-avoidance rules in the EU BEPS context

Analysis of Belgian anti-avoidance rules in tax legislatio

Modelling unemployment in the presence of excess labour supply:An application to Egypt

Due to its pyramid population structure, Egypt needs to create jobs at a high pace to absorb the many new entrants at its labour market. This article structurally models and quantifies the impact of these demographic shocks and the shedding of public sector jobs on unemployment. The findings indicate that Egypt needs to grow at 5% for many years to come. Job creation better occurs in the private than in the public sector. Egypt’s public sector has been driving up government expenditures disproportionably, not only because of the numerous public sector employees but also because of high public wage growth. Keywords: Demography, labour supply, employment, public sector employment, public finance.

Job Opportunities, Amenities, and Variable Distance-Deterrence Elasticities: An Empirical Model of Inter-Municipal Migration in Belgium

This paper investigates inter-municipal migration flows in Belgium using a Poisson gravity model. Besides distance, the model also includes municipal-specific factors as explanatory variables. The model is tested using aggregate, cross-sectional, data on migrations between the municipalities of the Belgian province of Limburg, over the period 1998-2003. The model assumes heterogeneity of the distance-deterrence effect. The model also accounts for unobserved origin/destination characteristics. To overcome the problem of under-determinacy, we use the method of Generalized Cross-Entropy estimation. A number of major findings stand out. Firstly, we find evidence of a "U-shaped" relationship between the distance-deterrence elasticity and distance, where the distance elasticity is smaller for short-distance moves. Secondly, distance between origin and destination reinforces (attenuates) the pull effect of local employment opportunities (amenities). This finding may indicating a shift in the composition of migration flows from residential migration to labor migration as distance increases. Finally, the spatial distribution of the net pull effects of unobserved factors seem to coincide with proximity to major roads and railway stations.

The changing pattern in international trade and capital flows of the Gulf cooperation council countries in comparison with other oil-exporting countries

During the past decade the Gulf cooperation council countries have achieved a remarkably high degree of trade and financial integration in the world economy. Before the global crisis began, they invested their abundant oil income which resulted from high energy prices and high world demand, in return abundantly abroad. Thanks to policies that are geared towards opening up borders, the Gulf cooperation council countries have imparted a significant stimulus to the world economy, to a much greater extent than other oil exporting countries in similar conditions. The development of the gross capital flows in view of the recent global crisis and their composition are the main focus of this study. It aims at providing a comprehensive overview of the pattern of the current and capital account of the balance of payments of the group of six Gulf cooperation council countries, and benchmarks this group with the other OPEC countries that have a comparable size of natural resources. Aspects of globalization, trade and financial integration, such as the dependence on oil, “Dutch disease”, regional integration, foreign direct investment and cross-border assets and loans are addressed. The impact of the crisis is found to have reverted international capital flows of the GCC, in particular cross-border bank loans and deposits.Gulf countries; trade; capital flows; balance of payments; oil-exports;

Modelling unemployment in the presence of excess labour supply

Due to its pyramid population structure, Egypt needs to create jobs at a high pace to absorb the many new entrants at its labour market. This article structurally models and quantifies the impact of these demographic shocks and the shedding of public sector jobs on unemployment. The findings indicate that Egypt needs to grow at 5% for many years to come. Job creation better occurs in the private than in the public sector. Egypt’s public sector has been driving up government expenditures disproportionably, not only because of the numerous public sector employees but also because of high public wage growth.Demography, labour supply, employment, public sector employment, public finance.