Eric Vaz

Spatial Heterogeneity in Hedonic House Price Models: The Case of Austria

Modelling spatial heterogeneity (SH) is a controversial subject in real estate economics. Single-family-home prices in Austria are explored to investigate the capability of global and locally weighted hedonic models. Even if regional indicators are not fully capable to model SH and technical amendments are required to account for unmodelled SH, the results emphasise their importance to achieve a well-specified model. Due to SH beyond the level of regional indicators, locally weighted regressions are proposed. Mixed geographically weighted regression (MGWR) prevents the limitations of fixed effects by exploring spatially stationary and non-stationary price effects. Besides reducing prediction errors, it is concluded that global model misspecifications arise from improper selected fixed effects. Reported findings provide evidence that the SH of implicit prices is more complex than can be modelled by regional indicators or purely local models. The existence of both stationary and non-stationary effects implies that the Austrian housing market is economically connected.

Modelling innovation support systems for regional development – analysis of cluster structures in innovation in Portugal

The present article offers a concise theoretical conceptualization and operational analysis of the contribution of innovation to regional development. The latter concepts are closely related to geographical proximity, knowledge diffusion and filters and clustering. Institutional innovation profiles and regional patterns of innovation are two mutually linked, novel conceptual elements in this article. Next to a theoretical framing, the article employs the regional innovation systems concept as a vehicle to analyse institutional innovation profiles. Our case study addresses three Portuguese regions and their institutions, included in a web-based inventory of innovation agencies which offered the foundation for an extensive database. This data-set was analysed by means of a recently developed principal coordinates analysis followed by a Logistic Biplot approach (leading to a Voronoi mapping) to design a systemic typology of innovation structures where each institution is individually represented. There appears to be a significant difference in the regional innovation patterns resulting from the diverse institutional innovation profiles concerned. These profiles appear to be region specific. Our conclusion highlights the main advantages in the use of the method used for policy-makers and business companies.

Exploratory Landscape Metrics for Agricultural Sustainability

Socioeconomic growth and urban change have been an increasing concern for decision makers in recent decades. The monitoring, mapping, and analysis of agricultural land use change, especially in areas where urban change has been high, is crucial. The collision between traditional economic activities related to agriculture in tourist areas such as the Algarve and current demand for tourism infrastructures in urban regions is also leading to loss of economic activity. This article uses a combined geographical information system approach with CORINE land cover datasets to perform a Shannons diversity index quantifying changes in agricultural areas. The article then expands on the nature of the agricultural changes observed, and offers a multi-temporal assessment by means of landscape metrics in order to understand the shifting land use patterns for the Algarve in land use planning and regional economic equilibrium: a) forest regions become transformed into agricultural areas and agricultural areas become urban; b) areas that are initially agricultural become scattered residential regions created by economic investors; and c) agricultural land use changes have a cyclical nature in which—in the course of the economic recession—such dynamic effects brought about a decrease in tourism and focus on traditional sectors.

Trapped between antiquity and urbanism – a multi-criteria assessment model of the greater Cairo Metropolitan area

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions. Naguib Mahfouz This article attempts to provide systematic policy information regarding land use/land cover change in the vicinity of the Giza Pyramids in Egypt. As a result of the rapid urban growth Cairo has experienced in the past couple of decades, a surrounding enclave of urban development seems to be forming around the Pyramids and the highly valued historical legacy of the area, designated in 1979 as a World Heritage site. Hence, assessing land use changes and future urban sprawl prediction is of major importance for strategic planning and avoiding further endangerment. The data used in this study are derived from remote sensing imagery, taken by Landsat MSS satellite on 31 August 1972 and on 20 September 1984 by Landsat TM as well as Landsat ETM + imagery from 11 November 2000. The use of the different bands of that imagery allowed the classification of the land cover classes: urban, vegetation, desert and water. A temporal comparison of the different types of land cover indicates which land use changes that have occurred over the years considered are associated with the potential for endangering the Giza complex in the study area.

Linking Agricultural Policies with Decision-Making: A Spatial Approach

Abstract The loss of agricultural land and its implications have been of great concern in the last decade. By undertaking a spatial analysis of the appropriation of agricultural land for urban use with an overlay of population and urban data, a focus on the consequences of certain regulations on the dynamics of land-use change is explored. This is achieved by integration of data inventories of agricultural land use for Portugal, and linking this information with CORINE Land Cover data as to assess change in the Algarve. An integrated assessment of agricultural land loss follows, undermined by the consequences of urban sprawl. In this sense, this paper expands on the currently existing decrees which provide support to sustainable development in the region while providing a qualitative assessment of future roles based on ethical values and economic efficiency and offering a feasible framework for policy-makers regarding the trends of urban/agricultural dichotomy in a planning and decision-making context.

How Corporations Deal with Reporting Sustainability: Assessment Using the Multicriteria Logistic Biplot Approach

This paper suggests a new methodology capable of accessing in detail the contribution of companies to countries’ sustainability related to economic performance. The concept of sustainability has been brought up in several debates, leading to a clearer understanding of its progress in recent decades. The most adequate indicators to achieve a unique value to define sustainability have been identified. However, specific behaviors of economic agents such as exist in particularly large organizations, have rarely been exposed and evaluated regarding their positive or negative contribution to the increase of sustainability throughout the world. This paper proposes an integrated approach incorporating an evaluation of the positive and negative contributions to sustainability by means of a logistic biplot application. This allows the creation of a summarized index that combines all single sustainability indicators. These synthetic indices allow the positioning of each of the companies in a geometric representation for an original exploration of the sustainability paradigm. The supplied method permits accessing and evaluating information concerning specific behaviors of economic agents such as big companies. In our paper, we have followed the engagements towards sustainability of big corporations, individually or as groups, across the different activity sectors in Portugal and Spain.

Sustainability in the trans-border regions? The case of Andalusia-Algarve.

The goal of this work is to detect the basic characteristics of the development of the southern border between Spain and Portugal. This trans-border area is described and analysed comparing the region of Algarve, in Portugal and the region of the County, in Huelva, Spain. The method used 15 quantitative indicators, desegregated at municipal level, obtained from different official sources and applied to 30 municipalities. The analysis includes multivariate statistic methods. The conclusions show that those indicators related to national governance systems are of utmost importance in the cluster classification. Furthermore, those municipalities with higher development levels are also less sustainable from the environmental point of view - this is probably due to the fact that tourism supports the fragile socio-economic systems in many of such regions. Significantly, the clustering tendencies show that the Portuguese municipalities are tourism oriented (or less tourism oriented) and the Spanish ones are agri-business (or less agribusiness oriented). Lastly, such geographic structures seem to have its roots in long term paths of development.

The Firms behind the Regions: Analysis of Regional Innovation Performance in Portugal by External Logistic Biplots

The strategic choices regarding innovation and research and development (R&D) policy in Portugal have, over the past two decades, produced various positive benefits, in which the regions of Lisbon and Algarve, in particular, have taken the lead. These are the only regions in Portugal which converge towards the European average growth rate with respect to gross production, investment and employment creation. It is now timely to evaluate firms’ contributions to national and regional growth, their obstacles, and impacts. After a conceptualization of innovation policy in Portugal, the present paper treats innovation as a major criterion for the policy evaluation process referred to above. Our empirical investigation aims to explain the innovation performance of Portuguese firms throughout the country, and to explore those determinants of innovation which are region-specific. Therefore, the analysis addresses a set of firms’ achievement patterns, by focusing on ways in which institutions interact in the process of innovation at the regional level. In our modelling study, we employ a new methodology, viz. the external logistic biplot method, which is applied to an extensive sample of innovative institutions in Portugal. Variables identified as crucial determinants in earlier studies are used to describe regional institutional profiles. Such profiles exhibit a great variety of ways in which these determinants are able to promote regional innovation. The creation of a Gradient of Capacity to Dynamically Innovate associated with each firm enables an analysis of the innovation gradient of each region in Portugal. Our paper presents and investigates these findings, and offers some policy lessons.

Crossroads of tourism: a complex spatial systems analysis of tourism and urban sprawl in the Algarve

Urban development combined with city expansion, has brought irreversible consequences for land use and environmental degradation. The balance between stability in urban areas and biodiversity, relates in essence to sustainability and economic development. This economic development in southern Europe is especially affected by service industries such as tourism. Preventing future damage is particularly necessary in coastal zones, where contributing factors of a human or natural nature require important strategies to be designed for regional and urban planning. The application of the spatial realities of land use within temporal dynamics allows the ex-ante assessment of spatial planning policies. The combination of economic, social, and natural consequences questions the application of complex system theory within spatio-temporal dynamics supporting regional decision making. In this context, geographic information systems, combined with spatial data inventories, are used for a systemic analysis of the dynamics of urban change within land-use dynamics and complex systems.

Historico-Cultural Sustainability and Urban Dynamics

Over the past decades, the history of human geography in many countries has shown a tendency towards more urban patterns of living accompanied by an extension of people’s action radius. Urbanization has become a worldwide phenomenon. This is exemplified in Europe, with an average urbanization rate of 70–80%. We observe not only a rise in “urbanity”, seen from the perspective of urban or metropolitan population densities, but also new tendencies towards more distant suburbanization or deurbanization patterns. Even rural areas are increasingly being turned into accessible areas that are well connected to urban centres and also display urban lifestyles. “Accessibility” and “mobility” are key words in a modern dynamic space-economy, not only at intraregional scales but also at interregional and even international scales.