Search results

This chapter focuses on the Pueblos Mágicos (Magic Towns) Program to determine the social and economic benefits of a public tourism intervention with governance characteristics in small towns with cultural and natural resources. The chapter examines the evolution of social development through indicators that measures the lack of this development, and also analyzes information collected from the residents about their perceptions. At first glance, there are elements to affirm with the insights from final beneficiaries, that the governance action really improves their living conditions.

According to the Government of India 2015 report on millennium development goal (MDG), India is yet to achieve almost 50 per cent of the goals set by UN. Characterized by its diversity, India’s progress in terms of the indicators of MDGs for the country as a whole averages out the prevailing state level variations. The purpose of this paper is to explore the status of these goals during 1993-1994-2013-2014 at state level using 12 targets and 35 indicators relevant for India along with an attempt to explain inter-state variations in this regard.

Using the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution method, a multiple criteria decision making method, the states have been ranked in terms of all the indicators of MDGs. These ranks were then analysed using socio-economic and political factors to understand the root cause of variation.

Ranking of the states considering all the indicators reveals the actual scenario in an effective way. The factors like state domestic product, state-wise standard of education level, social backwardness and political leadership help in finding the link between the derived ranks and these socio-economic and political factors.

Previous studies in this area have been carried out taking the indicators separately. However, without a comprehensive idea with all the indicators, the overall impact cannot be understood effectively. This study is novel since it takes into account each state with respect to all the indicators taken together thereby providing a comprehensive view on the variation in the achievement of MDG goals.

Technological progress in recent decades has driven a true digital revolution. The promise of greater efficiency, immediacy, and effectiveness of processes accompany this digital transition. However, to prove effective, it needs the development of quantitative instruments to assess the quality and competitiveness of the national and international digital strategies. Under this perspective, the study proposes the construction of a statistical index in the Italian context built on the five digital development dimensions of the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), that is, connectivity, human capital, use of Internet services, integration of digital technologies and digital public services. The elaboration of a DESI at a regional level (NUTS-2) allows to identify more precisely the possible digital gaps existing in the national territory. The findings make it possible to explain Italy's extreme backwardness within the European rankings. The study identifies the strong digital gap between the northern regions and the southern area of the country as one of the main criticalities, as well as human capital and integration of digital technologies.

“It should also be noted that the objective of convergence and equal distribution, including across under-performing areas, can hinder efforts to generate growth. Contrariwise, the objective of competitiveness can exacerbate regional and social inequalities, by targeting efforts on zones of excellence where projects achieve greater returns (dynamic major cities, higher levels of general education, the most advanced projects, infrastructures with the heaviest traffic, and so on). If cohesion policy and the Lisbon Strategy come into conflict, it must be borne in mind that the former, for the moment, is founded on a rather more solid legal foundation than the latter” European Commission (2005, p. 9)Adaptation of Cohesion Policy to the Enlarged Europe and the Lisbon and Gothenburg Objectives.

Globalization has contributed to unprecedented economic growth but with some criticalities such as increasing inequality, growing environmental degradation, and uncertainty about the future of new generations. In order to remedy this difficult situation, over the years the United Nations (UN) have outlined several sustainable development goals (SDGs) to be achieved at the global level. Given the many facets of the international framework, it can be useful to assess national progress by paying attention to the regional specificities. The Italian case is particularly delicate, since it is characterized by a large gap between the North-Center regions – among the most developed in Europe – and the South – with an economy mainly based on agriculture. Our work aims at quantifying the sustainable development level achieved by the Italian regions. Starting from the theoretical framework of Salvati and Carlucci, we build a composite index to measure the regional sustainable development performance. The method adopted to construct the index is the Pena's distance (DP2). The results confirm the existence of a gap, splitting the country into two parts. The regions of the North and Center-North stand out as the most virtuous, while the Southern regions show a state of backwardness in achieving the SDGs. In addition, we find that where the sustainable development levels are higher, there are higher levels of gross domestic product per capita and less inequality.

In this paper we show that the neo-transitional economies are less neoliberal than could be expected given their 25-years long transition towards building market environment, supporting entrepreneurship and restoring capitalism in general. According to factor analysis results based on a cross-sectional sample of 134 countries during the period of 2010–2012 we find that the neo-transitional economies are characterised by relatively restrictive trade and capital regulations, average level of labour protection and low activity of state in terms of tax-based redistribution and social cohesion support. We briefly review several theoretical frameworks, such as the World System Theory, Commodity Chain and Global Capital theory, and Varieties of Capitalism framework, and point towards their limitations in explaining these transitional outcomes. We conclude that these frameworks are not capable of providing the explanations mainly because of their limited or no concern for labour and capital, and their interactions with the national institutions. We conclude that the history of industrialisation and path dependence provides a more plausible framework for explaining the neo-transitional outcomes. Furthermore, the consideration of the ‘resource curse’ and authoritarian regimes in many CIS countries can explain their neglect for tax-based redistribution and the high degree of government interventions in trade and capital regulations.

In many cross‐cultural management studies, culture and cultural differences across nations typically are assumed to be constant. The focus is on the impact of culture on other variables, such as the performance of multinational enterprises. However, is it possible that economic globalization results in cultural globalization? If yes, by how much? The purpose of this paper is to provide some evidence through studying the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the Chinese culture.

An observable social indicator to represent each dimension of cultural value is chosen and statistical models are used to test whether FDI has significant impact on these indicators, after controlling for economic development level. Also this paper investigates whether FDI from a different cultural background has different effects on the Chinese culture.

Using data from major Chinese cities, it is found that FDI has significant effects on the degree of future orientation, performance orientation and in‐group collectivism. Also this paper found that FDI from the USA and the UK has a significant and negative effect on the degree of assertiveness; FDI from Japan, and Singapore, and the USA, and the UK has significantly negative effects on the degree of performance orientation; FDI from Japan and Singapore has a significantly positive effect on the degree of in‐group collectivism.

Unlike the traditional method of measuring culture values through what people say (interview or survey), this approach relies on what people do. This method helps avoid the measurement distortions caused by self‐deception and impression management problems with survey approach. In addition, this is believed to be the first study to test the impact of FDI on the change of culture values through econometric models.