The ripple effects of large-scale transport infrastructure investment

We analyze the general equilibrium effects of an asymmetric decrease in transport costs, combining a large-scale spatial dynamic general equilibrium model for 267 European NUTS-2 regions with a detailed transport model at the level of individual road segments. As a case study, we consider the impact of the road infrastructure investments in Central and Eastern Europe of the European Cohesion Policy. Our analysis suggests that the decrease in transportation costs benefits the targeted regions via substantial increases in gross domestic product (GDP) and welfare compared to the baseline, and a small increase in population. The geographic information embedded in the transport model leads to relatively large predicted benefits in peripheral countries such as Greece and Finland, which hardly receive funds, but whose trade links cross Central and Eastern Europe, generating profit from the investments there. The richer, Western European nontargeted regions also enjoy a higher GDP after the investment in the East, but these effects are smaller. Thus, the policy reduces interregional disparities. There are rippled patterns in the predicted policy spillovers. In nontargeted countries, regions trading more intensely with regions where the investment is taking place on average benefit more compared to other regions within the same country, but also compared to neighboring regions across an international border. We uncover that regions importing goods from Central and Eastern Europe enjoy the largest spillovers. These regions become more competitive and expand exports, to the detriment of other regions in the same country.     

Tek Down Nelson! The Struggle for Repair in Barbados

In this article I explore how the decommissioning of the statue of Lord Horatio Nelson captures some of the ways justice is envisioned within Barbados. I ask: How does the decommissioning generate more attention to the reparations question? How is repair and sovereignty conceptualised through the performances that animated and structured the event? What do these performances suggest about the Barbadian geographic-historical foundation? I engage theorists of Black geographies and Black studies to work through the above questions. I do close readings of the performances featured in the ceremony, to illuminate how the decommissioning gestured to a range of histories and struggles that are punctuated by political transformation. My reading draws attention to how the statue's removal builds on regional demands for reparations and Barbadian struggles for sovereignty, which I argue are complementary aims.     

Barcelona—fast forward? City entrepreneurialism in the 1980s and 1990s

Since 1979 the city council of Barcelona has sought to guide the city's destiny by a variety of methods, most powerfully by securing the 1992 Olympic Games candidacy, but also by means of two strategic planning exercises, begun in 1988 and 1992. These strategies are examined within their political and economic contexts in order to understand how they relate to changes in Spanish and Catalan politics, in global/local economic shifts and in thinking on city guidance. Significant differences in the three phases of city promotion are identified. It is concluded that strategic planning within the context of the intense spatial economic competition of the late 1990s may be even more difficult for Barcelona than was its drive up to 1992.     

The Pyramids—Cement or Stone?

Several samples of pyramids from Giza were obtained. The samples were analysed by scanning electron microscopy, electron diffraction by X-rays, powder X-ray diffraction, inductively coupled plasmography, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and other techniques. Some scientists who have recently studied the pyramids have suggested that the pyramids were poured into place, stone by stone. The prevailing theory among Egyptologists is, of course, that the pyramids were built from blocks of natural stone. All of the results obtained during this study directly support the concept that the pyramids are made of limestone and are not cementitious in nature.