Browsing by Author "Nijkamp, Peter"
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- An exploratory landscape metrics approach for agricultural sustainabilityPublication . Vaz, Eric; De Noronha, Maria Teresa; Nijkamp, PeterSocio-economic growth and urban change have been an increasing concern for decision makers in recent decades. Led by the creation of new infrastructures to support economic activity, periurban areas have mostly become adversely affected and the consequences for the ecological but also the rural landscape have become a lasting concern. The monitoring and mapping of 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 paper uses a combined Geographical Information System approach with remotesensing imagery and land cover databases to perform a Markov analysis for the purpose of quantifying changes in agricultural areas. The paper 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: (1) forest regions become transformed into agricultural areas and agricultural areas become urban; (2) areas which are initially agricultural become scattered residential regions created by economic investors; and (3) changes in the land-use have a cyclical nature in which in the course of the economic recession we may witness a shift in this effect brought about a decrease in tourism and focus on traditional sectors.
- Analysis of regional innovation performance in Portugal – results from an external logistic biplot methodPublication . Vicente Galindo, Purificación; Noronha, Teresa de; Nijkamp, Peter; Vaz, EricPortuguese strategic choices regarding innovation and R&D policy have, over the past two decades, produced various positive achievements, in which the regions of Lisbon and Algarve have taken the lead, and are the only ones in the country to converge towards the European average growth rate. Regarding the other Portuguese regions – despite significant national growth rates in the 1990s as well as a successful attempt to cope with the EMU –, these are lagging behind the EU average with respect to gross production, investment or employment generation. Meanwhile, one of the greatest public policy efforts was to diffuse much of the European funds across the entrepreneurial sector. After a long pathway, it is now timely to evaluate the firms‟ contribution to national and regional growth, their obstacles and impacts. For the purpose of this paper, innovation is used here as a major contributor to the policy evaluation process referred to above. Our investigation aims to explain the present performance of Portuguese firms located throughout the country and to explore those innovation determinants that have a region-specific connotation. To provide a thorough investigation, our analysis defines, on a regional basis, a set of firms‟ behavioural patterns regarding innovation. In our modelling, we employ a new methodology, viz. the External Logistic Biplot method, which is applied to an extensive sample of innovative institutions in Portugal. Variables such as „Promoting knowledge‟, „Management skills‟, „Promoting R&D‟, „Knowledge transfer‟, „Promoting partnership & cooperation‟, and „Orientation of public measures‟ have been identified as crucial determinants in earlier studies and are now used to describe regional institutional profiles. Such profiles exhibit a great variety in the way they combine these determinants to promote regional innovation. The creation of a gradient of capacity to dynamically innovate associated with each firm makes it possible to analyse the innovation gradient of each region in Portugal. Our paper presents and systematically investigates these findings and then reaches some policy conclusions.
- Business topographies. A spatiotemporal analysis of 150 years of Indian businessPublication . Vaz, Eric; Noronha, Teresa de; Shafizadeh, H.; Kumar, S.; Nijkamp, PeterOne of the most growing entrepreneurial landscapes has been without a doubt in the last decade India. India, with a total population of almost 1.2 billion inhabitants, is a land of immense business opportunity within a highly competitive market. Before the eighties however, India was mainly a rural country, with a large contrast of the nexus between city and periphery. With the emergence of young generation of entrepreneurs, the economy has been growing at a rate of 8-10% for the last 20 years.
- Cities as self-organizing innovative complexesPublication . Nijkamp, PeterCities are the seedbeds for creativeness, innovation and spatial competitiveness. They are characterized by product heterogeneity and behave according to the laws of monopolistic competition in economics (see Frenken et al. 2007). Modern cities try to offer the highest possible quality or image in terms of culture, arts, sports, innovativeness, entrepreneurship, financial markets, sustainability etc. Density and proximity are the key features of modern cities (or, in general, urban areas). The past centuries have been characterized by a structural trend towards urbanization. Some 200 years ago less than 20 percent of the world population lived in cities, whereas nowadays the urbanization degree is moving towards 80 percent. Not only has the number of cities increased rapidly, but also the size of cities.
- Cultural heritage appraisal by visitors to global cities: the use of social media and urban analytics in urban buzz researchPublication . Kourtit, Karima; Nijkamp, Peter; Romão, J.An attractive cultural heritage is an important magnet for visitors to many cities nowadays. The present paper aims to trace the constituents of the destination attractiveness of 40 global cities from the perspective of historical-cultural amenities, based on a merger of extensive systematic databases on these cities. The concept of cultural heritage buzz is introduced to highlight: (i) the importance of a varied collection of urban cultural amenities; (ii) the influence of urban cultural magnetism on foreign visitors, residents and artists; and (iii) the appreciation for a large set of local historical-cultural amenities by travelers collected from a systematic big data set (emerging from the global TripAdvisor platform). A multivariate and econometric analysis is undertaken to validate and test the quantitative picture of the above conceptual framework, with a view to assess the significance of historical-cultural assets and socio-cultural diversity in large urban agglomerations in the world as attraction factors for visitors. The results confirm our proposition on the significance of urban cultural heritage as a gravity factor for destination choices in international tourism in relation to a high appreciation for historical-cultural amenities.
- Exploratory landscape metrics for agricultural sustainabilityPublication . Vaz, Eric; Noronha, Teresa de; Nijkamp, PeterSocioeconomic 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 Shannon’s 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.
- Firm behaviour and town size: a comparison between firms in small and medium-sized towns in the Netherlands and PortugalPublication . Leeuwen, E. S.; Nijkamp, Peter; Noronha, Teresa de; Frankhouse, C. L.Nowadays, small and medium-sized towns in rural areas often are attractive tourist places. People enjoy the relative quietness and peacefulness together with the historical values present. The old market, church, and city hall remember us about earlier times. Among many stories, these old buildings tell us something about the importance and role of towns many years ago. It where places where products where sold and bought, deals were made, it were trading places. Residents from smaller towns or from the countryside regularly visited the place for business and pleasure.
- Impacts of innovation, productivity and specialization on tourism competitiveness - a spatial econometric analysis on European regionsPublication . Romão, J.; Nijkamp, PeterTourism is clearly a place-based activity, while in many advanced economies it is increasingly becoming a knowledge-based activity, with a high potential for the development of practice- and place-based innovation strategies. This study analyses whether and how regional systems of innovation influence the competiveness of tourism destinations in Europe. Impacts of both traditional production factors (physical and human capital), productivity, specialization and other contextual variables - related to the territorial capital of each region - on regional tourism performance of 237 European regions (NUTS 2) are analysed over a period of 8 years, using advanced techniques for spatial econometric analysis. The results reveal lower levels of productivity in those regions where tourism services are more labour intensive, while regions where education, innovation and productivity demonstrate higher levels are those where gross value added in tourism is less important for the regional economy. Policy implications are discussed, taking into consideration the principles for smart specialisation strategies in European regions and the possibility for cross-border regional cooperation. This work also confirms the research potential of spatial econometric analysis - and in particular spatial autocorrelation techniques - for tourism studies.
- Institutional capacity to dynamically innovate. An application to the Portuguese casePublication . Vicente Galindo, Purificación; Noronha, Teresa de; Nijkamp, PeterThe present paper addresses the dynamics of innovation, by extending the analysis beyond a static-economic perspective. It offers a dynamic-institutional mapping of relational capacities to dynamically innovate. Its main goal is to contribute to the above-mentioned research theme by presenting a new methodology able to pinpoint different trends in the relational capacities of institutions when they are innovative. Thereby, major characteristics in the networks of innovation are identified. This investigation uses an extended set of private institutions and public organizations located in Portugal, evaluated by their WebPage contents. To this data set a new combination ofmultivariate statistical methods is applied to detect group performances, to compare them, and to identify gradients of capacity to dynamically innovate. The results demonstrate that this method can provide extremely useful and tailor-made information for policy evaluation at regional or national levels.
- Knowledge and innovation: the strings between global and local dimensions of sustainable growthPublication . Noronha, Teresa de; Nijkamp, PeterThe modern growth literature pays much attention to innovation and knowledge as drivers of endogenous developments in a competitive open economic system. This paper reviews concisely the literature in this field and addresses in particular micro- and macro-economic interactions at local or regional levels, based on clustering and networking principles, in which sustainability conditions also play a core role. The paper then develops a so-called knowledge circuit model comprising the relevant stakeholders, which aims to offer a novel framework for applied policy research at the meso-economic level.
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