Bayesian Spatial Filtering for Hedonic Models: An Application for the Real Estate Market

This article presents a Bayesian method based on spatial filtering to estimate hedonic models for dwelling prices with geographically varying coefficients. A Bayesian Adaptive Sampling algorithm for variable selection is used, which makes it possible to select the most appropriate filters for each hedonic coefficient. This approach explores the model space more systematically and takes into account the uncertainty associated with model estimation and selection processes. The methodology is illustrated with an application for the real estate market in the Spanish city of Zaragoza and with simulated data. In addition, an exhaustive comparison study with a set of alternatives strategies used in the literature is carried out. Our results show that the proposed Bayesian procedures are competitive in terms of prediction; more accurate results are obtained in the estimation of the regression coefficients of the model, and the multicollinearity problems associated with the estimation of the regression coefficients are solved.     

Re-evaluating the Neolithic: The Impact and the Consolidation of Farming Practices in the Cantabrian Region (Northern Spain)

Research projects undertaken in the Cantabrian region since 1980 have produced new, high-quality information about the neolithisation process(es) in this area. It is now necessary to review this archaeological information and test the main hypotheses put forward to explain it. This paper presents an update on the archaeological evidence (sites, chronological dates, archaeozoological, archaeobotanical and technological information) for the early Neolithic in the Cantabrian region. It summarizes recent research on neolithisation in the region, and assesses the impact of this process during the early Neolithic, and its later consolidation. Although the available information is still incomplete, it is now possible to identify the focal point of the introduction of elements characteristic of the Neolithic way of life in the region. Current evidence suggests that it is in the eastern sector, where the earliest arrival of domesticates and new technologies such as pottery has been attested. The existence of continuities—such as sustained reliance on hunting and gathering and the coexistence of old and new funerary rites—suggests the persistence of native populations, which gradually participated in the neolithisation process after an ‘availability phase’.     

Late Holocene Historical Ecology: The Timing of Vertebrate Extirpation on Crooked Island,Commonwealth of The Bahamas

We report eight new accelerator-mass spectrometer (AMS) radiocarbon (¹⁴C) dates performed directly on individual bones of extirpated species from Crooked Island, The Bahamas. Three dates from the hutia (Geocapromys ingrahami), recovered from a culturally derived bone assemblage in McKay's Bluff Cave (site CR-5), all broadly overlap from AD 1450 to 1620, which encompasses the time of first European contact with the Lucayan on Crooked Island (AD 1492). Marine fish and hutia dominate the bone assemblage at McKay's Bluff Cave, shedding light on vertebrate consumption by the Lucayans just before their demise. A fourth AMS ¹⁴C date on a hutia bone, from a non-cultural surface context in Crossbed Cave (site CR-25), is similar (AD 1465 to 1645) to those from McKay's Bluff Cave. From Pittstown Landing (site CR-14), an open coastal archaeological site, a femur of the Cuban crocodile (Crocodylus rhombifer) yielded an AMS ¹⁴C date of AD ～1050–1250, which is early in the Lucayan cultural sequence. From a humerus in a non-cultural surface context in 1702 Cave (site CR-26), we document survival of the Cuban crocodile on Crooked Island until AD ～1300–1400, which is several hundred years later than the well-documented extinction of Cuban crocodiles on Abaco in the northern Bahamas. We lack a clear explanation of why Cuban crocodiles likely survived longer on Crooked Island than on a larger Bahamian island such as Abaco. One AMS ¹⁴C date on Crooked Island's extinct, undescribed species of tortoise (Chelonoidis sp.) from 1702 Cave is BC 790 to 540 (2740 to 2490 cal BP), which is ～1500–1700 years prior to human arrival. A second AMS ¹⁴C date, on a fibula of this tortoise from McKay's Bluff Cave, is AD 1025 to 1165, thereby demonstrating survival of this extinct species into the period of human occupation.     

The Spanish telephone sector (1876-1924): A case of technological backwardness

This article explains the often neglected history of the Spanish telephone sector. Its main purpose is to examine the factors that determined the technological choices that were made in this sector, and to describe and analyze the growth of telephone networks in Spain and the rest of Europe between 1876 and 1924, a period marked by the internationalization of technology. It concludes that a complex range of factors, varying in their specific importance over the period, determined the pattern of technological diffusion in this sector. In the period dominated by Bell's patents, the sector was characterized by a high degree of technological homogeneity. However, once the licenses on these patents expired, a greater variety of technological devices were adopted in the sector, although this variety was limited by the control that the larger firms wielded over the market and policies of international cooperation. Spain, unable to keep pace with technological developments elsewhere in Europe, failed to establish its own national industry of telephone materials and equipment.     

Economic and Environmental Policy Analysis of the Flumen‐Monegros Irrigation System in Huesca,Spain

This article describes a behavioral model of the Flumen‐Monegros irrigation area (Spain) and presents the results from the model simulation under various policy scenarios. The model combines agronomic, economic and policy information in a framework built using linear programming and crop growth simulation techniques. An important feature of the model is the classification of crop acreage in various types of soils which have different productive potential. The objective function maximizes net margins of crops and includes direct payments of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The crop activities covered in the model are the main crops cultivated in the area (fallow, wheat, barley, corn, sunflower, alfalfa, rice, other crops, and CAP set‐aside). To validate the model, the results on cropland utilization obtained from the model have been compared with actual cropland utilization, concluding that the model closely approximates the actual data. The model is used to characterize the behavior of the irrigation area under three scenarios which reflect likely changes in agricultural and environmental policies: removal of direct payments, increase in water prices, and reduction of fertilizer use. The results show the large impact of these three scenarios on farmers' production decisions: the elimination of direct payment reduces net margin almost by half; prices corresponding to full recovery of water costs reduce significantly the cultivated acreage; and the reduction in fertilizer use causes a fall of 23 percent in net margins.     

The Effects of Localization on Economic Performance: Analysis of Spanish Tourism Clusters

The sun, sea and sand model that has characterized the Spanish tourism sector and has caused Spain's tourist sector to become a world-class industry is actually undergoing drastic changes. This model is based on the existence of major tourism destinations characterized by high levels of industry specialisation, which makes them a target of analysis as tourism clusters in which the geographic concentration of synergies reinforces the competitive position. In this study, Spanish tourism clusters are identified using quantitative methods and the current validity of the economies of location that have made them possible are also analysed. Although all the identified clusters can be defined as mature and became less significant during the last decade in Spanish tourism, according to the results the creation of externalities measured in terms of higher generation of profit is higher in companies belonging to the tourism clusters than in those outside of them.     

Assessment of the Programme of Measures for Coastal Lagoon Environmental Restoration Using Cost–Benefit Analysis

The degradation of marine and coastal ecosystems has given rise to the creation of specific protection rules. The Marine Strategy Framework Directive and the Water Framework Directive are the standards agreed in the European Union with the aim of obtaining a good ecological status in marine and coastal waters by applying a programme of measures, if necessary. These measures must be technical, social and economically feasible, in such a way that costs do not exceed benefits. This work expounds the implementation of two economic tools to assess the programme of measures intended for the environmental restoration of one of the most important coastal ecosystems in Europe, the Mar Menor coastal lagoon (SE Spain). Thus, the cost–benefit analysis (CBA) (and its extensions) and the contingent valuation method are used to assess the aforementioned programme in terms of economic and environmental profitability. Results prove the socioeconomic and environmental profitability of the actions due to be undertaken, with rates of return of around 10%. From a methodological point of view, there is a clear need to widen the classic CBA scheme by using the extended CBA and the dual CBA to gauge this type of environmental restoration actions.