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This study assesses the change in states’ financial condition by examining their financial data in fiscal years (FY) 2003 and 2004. It explores and explains how much the change was, how it occurred, and whether and how closely the change might respond to states’ socioeconomic development. The study finds that states’ financial condition varied significantly from FY 2003 to FY 2004. Changes in different aspects of financial condition are interrelated, although these changes may not occur simultaneously at the same pace. The change in financial condition may result from the multi-year cumulative socioeconomic development in personal income and employment, but not in population. The impact of personal income and employment on financial condition of a government is likely long term; it may take 3-4 years for the growth in personal income and employment to benefit a government’s financial condition. The results also suggest that the cumulative improvement of personal income and employment for consecutive years prior to a fiscal year is more likely to improve the financial condition of that year than a personal income or employment increase that follows an up-and-down pattern of growth. These findings can be used to develop effective strategies to improve financial conditions in government.

Purpose – In this chapter, we advance research on the socioeconomic ranking of religious groups by using both income and wealth to document the rankings of the six major religious groups in the United States – Jews, Catholics, mainline Protestants, evangelical Protestants, black Protestants, and the religiously unaffiliated – during 2001–2007, a period marked by both catastrophic economic losses and widespread economic gain.

Design/Methodology/Approach – Drawing from the Panel Study on Income Dynamics (PSID), we provide descriptive statistics to explore the socioeconomic differences among the six major religious groups. In addition, we note their ownership rates and changes in wealth and income during 2001–2007.

Findings – Overall, these findings point to enduring stratification in the U.S. religious landscape. Based on median net worth, leading into the Great Recession, the six major religious groups ranked in the following order: Jews, Catholics, mainline Protestants, evangelical Protestants, the unaffiliated, and black Protestants. At the same time, these findings point to the upward mobility of white Catholics, who increased their income and made the greatest increase in net worth between 2001 and 2007. These data also suggest a decline in the socioeconomic status of the religiously unaffiliated as compared to previous studies.

Research implications – These findings illustrate the degree to which certain religious groups have access to wealth and other resources, and have implications for how the years leading into the Great Recession may have influenced households’ vulnerability to financial shocks.

Originality/Value – We use both income and wealth to examine whether different religious groups experienced any changes in income and wealth leading into the 2008 economic downturn.

This paper's objective is to provide improvement plans that take into account problems in the housing sector, as well as low fertility and demographic problems caused by aging, by suggesting long‐term policy directions considering all future possible changes in fertility and housing policies.

This research analyzes age specific fertility rates by socioeconomic index, composition of three scenarios about the total fertility rate, the forecast of the future population by the cohort component method, and the forecast of housing demand according to the Mankiw‐Weil (M‐W) model.

If the fertility rate increases through improvements in socioeconomic conditions, then we see that housing demand also increases. If the fertility rate level is higher than that of scenario 3, then a housing demand decrease comes later. However, even if the low fertility rate issue is addressed, the problem with the housing market due to the aging is expected to continue for the time being.

If the population decrease cohort is accumulated due to the continuously low fertility, then it will cause an increase in the reduction effect of housing demand. Considering housing spaces, the elderly require a relatively large amount of available space in Korea where the aged population is rapidly increasing. This increase in seniors could counterbalance the reduced demand for housing.

This is a long‐term‐oriented paper about housing demand and the changing trends in Korea, which is undergoing demographic changes due to low fertility and ongoing aging. We need to monitor fertility rates and the structure of population changes to achieve a stable housing market, and we should also recognize that these structural changes by age will have diverse ripple effects on housing demand.

The purpose of this paper is to present the changes in political and socioeconomic conditions after 25 years of transformation and how it provided to adopt new methodology in tourism planning. It shows the possibilities offered by the use of the foresight process in planning the development of tourism in Poland. Since one of the main foresight goals is to identify trends, the paper takes attempt to verify trends that occurred in Poland after 1989 and if they have now and will have in the near future influence on Polish tourism. Detailed objective is to characterize the systemic transformation and its impact on the tourism economy.

Paper is the review, which used literature, legislation and strategic documents query. It also includes comparative analysis.

The analysis of the political and economic changes that have taken place in Poland over the last 25 years shows that they were positive for the development of tourism base. The impact of globalization and global trends is now clearly noticeable also in Poland. Political and economic changes allow the use of foresight methodology in studies on the future of tourism while maintaining its main attributes: anticipation, participation, action, networking, vision.

The analysis included the impact of political changes and social trends on the tourist economy. Proposals that show the positive aspects of these changes relate to tourism and present extensive opportunities to create scenarios, both at the national and regional levels.

The analysis forms the basis for the activities of tourism entities in Poland. It shows the characteristics for the future of the tourism market particularly the demand side.

The analysis of changes in systemic and social trends enables anticipation of changes in tourism as a social phenomenon.

The paper presents the historical basis for the development of tourism in Poland after political changes in relation to the planning of tourism by using the methodology of foresight. It also presents these phenomena and social trends that have an impact on the development of tourism.

The socioeconomic as well as the political world has undergone significant changes, challenging the meaning and validity of economic and political paradigms. This treatise highlights that Eucken's paradigm of a “social market economy,” with its structural and regulating principles, needs to be modified to account for changing strategic factors.

No economic theories, however relevant in the past, hold true for all time. This is verified by the dynamics of change as indicated by Hegelian dialectics, functionalism and structuralism, as well as by quantum theory.

National economies have become linked in the widening web of the global economy, exemplified, for example, by the European Union, the Euro Bloc, NAFTA, WTO, as well as by other trading arrangements. Enterprises have developed a global orientation, internationalizing their products and services, encouraging labor and capital to move instantaneously among industrialized countries, affecting social, fiscal, and monetary policies. Furthermore, these developments have increased awareness, on a global scale, about human rights and dignity, a healthy environment, changing demographics, and of limited natural resources.

There is increasing awareness of contemporary challenges facing mankind and the environment, as well as the merging of national economies within a global framework. These challenges with their demands for modifications in socioeconomic as well as political policies may transform the paradigm of a “social market economy” into an “ecological social market economy”.

Traditional economic theories usually consider capital and labor as the primary factors of production. Nature (all natural resources), on the other hand, tends to be neglected as an economic good and as an essential third factor of production. A political economy is suggested which assigns equal importance to man and nature, the costs of which have to be fully accounted for, including those for the preservation and regeneration of natural resources.

In recent decades, processes of postindustrialization, economic restructuring, and globalization have been transforming the landscape of social and economic inequalities in general (Wade, 2003), and in urban settings in particular (Baum, 1997; Fainstein, 1990; Sassen, 1990a, 1991, 1998; Waldinger, 1996). The role of cities as strategic sites in the globalization process and as arenas of economic transformation is central in the literature of globalization and economic restructuring (Fainstein, 2000; Sassen, 1988, 1998).

This ethnographic study explores how local and global forces influence a unique set of self-employed people in Havana’s tourism industry – dance instructors – and how these circumstances drive the strategies and rationalities they use to navigate socioeconomic transformations. Cuba’s recent history of economic crises, the decline in welfare assistance, and an array of market-driven economic reforms have driven many Cubans to search for incomes in Havana’s lucrative tourism industry. Global circulations of people, wealth, and ideas shape the opportunities Cubans find in this type of work. Furthermore, strict state policies and regulations, in conjunction with underlying systems of oppression, hinder and constrain Cubans who work in tourism-based ventures. Building on theories of neoliberalism and tourism, we discuss how Cuban dance instructors develop professional skills, standardize their activities, and address global consumer desires/demands while simultaneously drawing from collectivized social norms cultivated under Cuban socialism. These hybridized formal/informal business tactics reveal how self-employed Cubans are positioned between socialist configurations and the capital-driven tourism industry. These innovative socioeconomic logics are also critical in understanding how people living in centrally planned economies, some of which are socially marginalized because of patterns of inequality, gain access to and participate with contemporary modalities of the global economy.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to extant literature on socioeconomic transition in Central and Eastern Europe through using a spatial lens in order to address, at the level of individual experience, some of the changes that have affected Polish society post‐1989.

This paper adopts Taylor and Spicer's three‐fold conceptualisation of organizational space as a framework to present and discuss qualitative data collected through interviews.

This paper finds that socioeconomic restructuring has brought about changes in space conceived of as distance, as materialisation of power relations and as experience. In the narratives of research participants, present experience of space within the city they live and work in is related to their past experience and to their movement in the space. Different spaces are interconnected to form the individual's “mental map” of the city. The spatial dimension of postsocialist transition has an important impact upon the identities of individuals, and an analysis of narratives allows for gaining rich insights into the ambiguities and contradictions involved in evaluating its significance.

An awareness of the link between the transformation of the city and social change contributes to the understanding of postsocialist transition.

By applying a spatial lens to analysis of the processes of social differentiation, as experienced at the micro‐level of individuals, this paper contributes to the literatures on organizational space and postsocialist transition.

Rural tourism facilities in Poland were very keen on amateur websites to promote their hospitality services from 2000 to 2018. In most cases, the websites were nonprofessional, hosted on free servers and made by family members or friends of the holding. After search engine algorithms changed in 2015–2019, the websites started to go extinct on a large scale; they were deleted and often replaced with a more modern design and a commercial domain. These resources offered a rare opportunity to gain insight into rural tourism, rural changes and socioeconomic and cultural phenomena.

The paper’s objective is to demonstrate with an analysis of archived Polish rural tourism websites that digital cultural artefacts are generated in rural areas. The study was an analysis of selected development attributes of rural tourism websites found in the Internet Archive. The analysis involved those attributes that are important for determining whether a website or content can be considered digital cultural heritage assets.

The conclusions demonstrate that rural digital cultural heritage is a set of digital artefacts created in rural areas with their characteristics. Rural digital artefacts are records of ICT, infrastructure, environmental, cultural and socioeconomic changes.

The “digital assets” of rural areas are yet to be discussed in the context of rural cultural heritage, as a set of artefacts created in these areas and characteristic of them.

In this chapter, the integrative methodological approach (IMA) of the research project GLOWA Elbe is introduced, which represents a scientific methodology to support water management under uncertainty regarding future paths of global change. The approach paves the way for integration of research work of many disciplines, of different assessment methods, of various policy fields, and the involvement of relevant stakeholders and decision makers. IMA can be roughly described by four research elements (scenario derivation, indicator and criteria identification, model-based impact analysis, and final scenario assessment based on combined benefit–cost and multi-criteria analysis), which lay the basis for the IMA activities of the global change research sequence. Its practical application is demonstrated by a case study on the Spree and Schwarze Elster river basins. Specific results of Chapter 4 (on scenario derivation) and Chapter 11 (on integrating economic evaluation into water management simulation) in this volume are picked up in order to focus on the illustration of the integrated assessment results for this German case study.