Search results

Tourism may have important positive and negative economic, socio-cultural and environmental impacts. However, cultural and natural resources are also the base to the development of competitive destinations and changes in these resources can have an important impact on tourism development. Despite the considerable literature regarding the impacts of tourism, a limited number of studies examine the impact of the environment on tourism, specifically the impact of air quality (AQ). Therefore, this paper aims to review what is known about the impact of AQ on tourism demand, analysing the different methods and approaches used, as well as the results obtained.

A systematic literature review method was used to examine the state of the art in this topic and identify research gaps and new research directions. Only 26 papers were identified that examine the impact of AQ on tourism demand.

The majority of the studies were carried out in China and investigate the impact of AQ on tourism from the perspective of tourism demand. Both global (tourism demand) and individual (tourist perceptions) approaches have been used to investigate the impact of AQ on tourism.

This is the first systematic literature review on the impact of outdoor AQ on tourism demand. Moreover, this paper analyses the methods and approaches that have been used in the literature to examine the impact of outdoor AQ on tourism demand. The paper ends with a discussion on the identified research gaps concerning the influence of AQ on tourism development.

This article aims to verify if there are detectable barriers in price levels that are understood to be psychologically important (psychological barriers) in a set of hourly electricity prices. These barriers manifest themselves when the market struggles with a difficulty in crossing the barrier to a different level. Psychological barriers focus on directional price movements around regions of the barrier, thus the importance of understanding investor behavior. The authors intend to contribute empirically to the scarce literature on psychological influences in individuals trading in the energy market, hereby enhancing the knowledge concerning the behavior of investors in this market.

The present work aims to test psychological barriers in the Nord Pool electricity market. Through a sample of hourly data on the Elspot day-ahead market, from 2013 to 2017, three groups of tests were made, following the M-values methodology: (1) uniformity tests, which clearly rejected the uniformity in hourly prices; (2) barrier tests, which included the barrier proximity and barrier hump tests, evidencing psychological barriers and (3) conditional effects tests, which allowed us to conclude in favor of effects of positive returns after approaching a barrier on an upward movement, i.e. the barrier breaches due to the fact that increasing prices tend to lead to further price increases, on average.

Uniformity tests, rejected the uniformity in hourly prices; barrier tests, included the barrier proximity and barrier hump tests, evidencing psychological barriers and conditional effects tests, allowed us to conclude in favor of effects of positive returns after approaching a barrier on an upward movement, i.e. the barrier breaches due to the fact that increasing prices tend to lead to further price increases, on average. Another relevant conclusion is that the period from midnight to 9 a.m. is very sensitive, since there is evidence of return and variance effects simultaneously. The implications of these results are potentially relevant, since changes on the variance are usually perceived as a proxy for risk, with changes on the return. It was also concluded that with the increase of the time span from 5 to 10 days on the conditional effects difference tests, there were significant changes on the results, the variance effect is stronger, while the return effect weakens.

However, this research presents some limitations that result in representing opportunities for future research. The fact that there are reduced data available for other markets end up limiting the study of the global electricity market. Although Nord Pool is Europe's leading energy market and is seen as one of the most successful energy markets in the world, it would be interesting to do a study with more than one electricity market to make comparative considerations. Although the spot market is the main arena for energy trade, while the intraday market works as a compliment, it would be equally interesting to do a similar study for the intraday market and then compare conclusions. Moreover, in the present study, it was used standard methods in the literature on psychological barriers, but other methods could have been used–for example, those that assume that prices follow the Benford's distribution (Lu and Giles, 2010), which also present a path for future research and opportunity for confirming the robustness of the present results.

When the presence of psychological barriers is detected it means that the risk-return relationship becomes weaker around the psychological barrier (round numbers, meaning that electricity traders anchor). Identification of psychological barriers supports the claim that technical analysis strategies based on price support and resistance can be profitable. Therefore, more profitable strategies can be built by traders, but no reconciliation with the efficient market hypothesis (EMH) (provided that in inefficient markets prices should not exhibit any particular pattern). The finding of significant psychological barriers in specific hourly time intervals implies the need to address its practical implications in electricity markets, being so specific, namely, the possibility to earn extraordinarily profits exploiting this anomaly and who wins.

The electricity sector is a determinant sector in economic growth and a factor of development. Herein lies the importance of studying this market, which until now has not occurred in this subject, as far as it was possible to gauge. Are there barriers in the electricity market and should such a presence be taken into account? Investigating the existence of psychological barriers in the electric market becomes relevant, because knowing that investors are psychologically affected by a psychological barrier, can become a useful tool in negotiation, as it can function as another variable in the “equation” which is to trade in a complex market like this. Proving the potential presence of a psychological barrier may lead investors to believe in the idea of levels of resistance or levels of support, affecting their decision-making and price dynamics.