Higher education and unemployment in Europe : an analysis of the academic subject and national effects

This paper examines the impact of an academic degree and field of study on short and long-term unemployment across Europe (EU15). Labour Force Survey (LFS) data on over half a million individuals are utilised for that purpose. The harmonized LFS classification of level of education and field of study overcomes past problems of comparability across Europe. The study analyses (i) the effect of an academic degree at a European level, (ii) the specific effect of 14 academic subjects and (iii) country specific effects. The results indicate that an academic degree is more effective on reducing the likelihood of short-term than long-term unemployment. This general pattern even though it is observed for most of the academic subjects its levels show significant variation across disciplines and countries

The tourism and economic growth enigma: Examining an ambiguous relationship through multiple prisms

This paper revisits the ambiguous relationship between tourism and economic growth, providing a comprehensive study of destinations across the globe which takes into account the key dynamics that influence tourism and economic performance. We focus on 113 countries over the period 1995-2014, clustered, for the first time, around six criteria that reflect their economic, political and tourism dimensions. A Panel Vector Autoregressive model is employed which, in contrast to previous studies, allows the data to reveal any tourism-economy interdependencies across these clusters, without imposing a priori the direction of causality. Overall, the economic-driven tourism growth hypothesis seems to prevail in countries which are developing, non-democratic, highly bureaucratic and have low tourism specialization. Conversely, bidirectional relationships are established for economies which are stronger, democratic and with higher levels of government effectiveness. Thus, depending on the economic, political and tourism status of a destination, different policy implications apply

Export specialization and economic growth

Traditional economic wisdom claims that - while global economic integration is beneficial for economic performance - a country's trade specialization pattern has no impact on its economic performance. In this paper, we seek to cast doubt on this aspect of mainstream economics using a very traditional approach. We introduce a simple endogenous growth model that shows how governments can stimulate economic growth by implementing policies that successfully create competitive advantages in favourable sectors. According to new growth theory, favourable sectors inhibit technological spill-over effects to the non-tradable sector. The model is supported by the data. Using a standard augmented aggregate production function we run a series of growth regressions including technological change and a proxy for trade specialization. Our results indicate that contrary to conventional wisdom export specialization matters: sectors are not indistinguishable in their impact on economic performance. The paper concludes with a broader discussion of policy implications

Forming Cohesive Calcium Oxalate Layers on Marble Surfaces for Stone Conservation

Batch experiments were conducted with Carrara marble cubes to examine the replacement of calciteby calcium oxalate, a proposed method of protection for marble used as building stone. Coherent oxalate coatings formed on the marble surface during reactions with >10 mM oxalic acid. The replacement rim contained an inner layer that remained attached to the marble surface and was composed of submicron-sized, rounded grains of calcium oxalate with minimal interconnected porosity, although open fluid pathways (inherited grain boundaries from the underlying marble) were present. In contrast, the outer rim comprises large, individual crystals and is easily removed. Raman spectroscopyidentified the mineral in both layers as whewellite (CaC2O4·H2O). Raman mapping revealed that the rims have zones of different crystallographic orientations contributing to the friability of the outer layer. Mapping of 18O incorporation into the replacement rim indicates that the outer layer formed from the inner layer via a fluid-mediated dissolution-reprecipitation mechanism. This suggests that the textures of precipitated oxalates could be tailored to different marble protection applications through changes insolution chemistry