Economic effects of recent experiences of federalism: Analysis of the regionalization process in Spain

Setting limits on government action is critical to economic development. Some forms of government organization, such as market-preserving federalism, seem effective to protect property rights in the long term with good results for economic efficiency. Spain endowed its regions with “Statutes of Autonomy” in the 1980s thus moving from a centralized to a decentralized form of government. It renewed and expanded some of the statutes in the 2000s. This article investigates whether these two waves of regionalization, which had their own characteristics in each region, had led to positive effects on economic performance. Using a novel autonomous region/country-matched balanced sample for the period 1950–2016, we apply the synthetic control method and compare the economic growth trajectories of Spanish regions with their synthetic control groups not affected by the regionalization process. We show that the first wave of “Statutes of Autonomy” had a positive but temporary economic growth impact. By contrast, the second wave of regionalization of the 2000s is associated with a negative growth impact.     

Shifting narrative strategies: How monument advocates change their stories in response to conflict over time

This paper expands the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) by employing an exploratory case study approach to examine the construction of narratives temporally. A large-N Twitter dataset concerning the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments controversy is utilized to examine the question: how does the use of narrative strategies change over time? Through the application of change-point analysis, we determine time points of significant shifts towards use of the devil-angel shift, scope of the conflict, and causal mechanism strategies. Overall, we find that organizations do not vary their use of narrative strategies over the course of a policy conflict but instead demonstrate discrete changes in response to certain policy events. Based on our findings, we conclude with suggestions for refining and expanding NPF hypotheses. Specifically, we recommend a more contextual analysis of shifts in narrative strategy use in response to specific events over time.     

中国自然保护区生态旅游开发研究刍议

本文从生态旅游的角度的出发,阐述了自然保护区生态旅游开发的意义,分析了自然保护区生态旅游资源的特点和开发限制因素,初步探讨了我国自然保护区生态旅游开发原则。     

Has the Income Share of the Middle and Upper‐middle Been Stable around the ‘50/50 Rule’, or Has it Converged towards that Level? The ‘Palma Ratio’ Revisited

In an article published in this journal in 2011, an alternative measure of inequality was suggested, which has subsequently become known as ‘the Palma Ratio’. In this new article, the author of the original proposal revisits the argument for such a measure. Using new data, he examines whether the current remarkable homogeneity in the income share of the middle and upper‐middle around the world — the foundation of the so‐called ‘Palma Ratio’ — is an historically stable stylized fact, or whether it is a new phenomenon, the outcome of a process of convergence towards the current ‘50/50 Rule’ (in which half of the population in each country located within deciles 5 to 9 tends to appropriate about 50 per cent of the national income, or just above). Although partly written in response to a comment on the 2011 paper (published in this issue), the article also makes a substantive further contribution to the literature on inequality and the statistics to measure it.     

The Neolithic Transition in the Iberian Peninsula: Data Analysis and Modeling

We apply GIS techniques to analyze a carefully selected database of 93 Early Neolithic sites in the Iberian Peninsula. This allows us to study the spatial dynamics of the Neolithic transition in Iberia. We study how the Neolithic was introduced into the peninsula in order to test the hypothesis that the Neolithic was introduced almost simultaneously from two sources: one at the northeast (via the Mediterranean coast) and another one at the south (possibly from Northern Africa). We also analyze how the expansion of the Neolithic transition took place within the Iberian Peninsula and measure local rates of spread in order to identify regions with fast and slow rates (such as the slowdown at the Cantabrian coast). In addition, we attempt to reproduce the main results obtained from the GIS analysis by applying reaction–dispersal models to the expansion of the Neolithic transition in the Iberian Peninsula. We conclude that a model with two sources is a reasonable assumption that agrees better with the archaeological data available at present than a model with a single source.     

IF ALONSO WAS RIGHT: MODELING ACCESSIBILITY AND EXPLAINING THE RESIDENTIAL LAND GRADIENT

ABSTRACT This study provides an empirical evaluation of employment accessibility as a determinant of urban land price. We find that the monocentric model, despite recent criticism, can perform satisfyingly if the hedonic value of land is identified in an account of structural and neighborhood characteristics. Gravity employment accessibility measures, however, can explain the residential land gradient entirely and disentangle positive accessibility effects from negative congestion effects related to transport infrastructure. They can therefore be recommended as an appropriate mean to account for labor market accessibility in an environment of dispersed employment, at least if the transport geography is accounted for.