Economic Contributions of Visitor Spending in Ocean Recreation in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary

Understanding the economic value of marine sanctuaries such as the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS) is important to justify public and private investments and to provide information to support management activities and understand their role in the nation’s blue economy. Very few studies have employed economic contribution analysis in examining economic value, even though it is more useful in influencing the behaviors of decision makers. This study therefore employs such a methodology to determine the economic importance of tourism and visitor spending in the sanctuary to Monroe County, Florida’s economy. Visitors who came to the area for ocean recreation and tourism spent a total of USD 1.7 billion, which translates to a contribution of 19,688 total jobs, USD 752 million in total labor income, USD 1.2 billion in total value added, and USD 2 billion in total output to the region. With regard to the spending of snorkelers and divers only, total spending is about USD 1.07 billion, contributing about 12,441 total jobs, USD 466 million in total labor income, USD 767 million in total value added, and USD 1.2 billion in total output. Ocean recreation is therefore an important economic driver in the region and efforts should be directed at protecting the diverse and sensitive ecosystem of the sanctuary.

Labour Drivers in the Agricultural Sector of the European Union

The social role of the farms is, especially, relevant in the rural areas where the socioeconomic problems are, often, more visible. In this perspective, this study aims to investigate the interrelationships of the labour input with other variables inside the farms and assess how the sector may create more employment in a sustainable way. For that, the labour input was, first, correlated with other farm variables and after analysed through factor analysis approaches and cross-section econometric methodologies, considering as basis the Cobb-Douglas and Verdoorn-Kaldor models. The main findings highlight relevant insights to improve the social dimension of the European Union farms. The labour input growth rate is positively influenced by the total output growth rates and negatively impacted by the total productivity growth. The effects from the investment and from the subsidies are residual or not significant.

Empirical Analysis on Promoting Industrial Transformation and Upgrading in Zhejiang Province by Enhancing Intellectual Property Protection

This paper aims to reveal the relationship between intellectual property protection (IPP) and industrial transformation and upgrading (T&U) in southeastern China’s Zhejiang Province. Taking five representative industries as objects, the shift-share analysis was adopted to measure the T&U level of each industry, with the total output in 2004–2019 as the basis. The results show that wholesale and retail, lodging and catering, finance, and real estate are the four advantageous industries. Further, the authors calculated Pearson’s correlation coefficients between IPP intensity and the T&U levels of the four industries. By the coefficients, the four industries can be ranked in descending order as lodging and catering (0.8743), real estate (0.6908), wholesale and retail (0.5891), and finance (0.5468). In addition, the IPP was found to be positively correlated with total manufacturing output (0.8027). Hence, the IPP can significantly promote the development of these five industries.

Export Restrictions and COVID-19

As a result of COVID-19, the export of medical goods has been subject to various global restrictions. Consequently, several countries have increased the supply of medical goods to alleviate the effects of this health crisis. This study entails a theoretical and empirical analysis of the effects of such remedial measures. To this end, we have utilized a consistent conjectural variation in a three-country model entailing firms competing in two reciprocal markets in Cournot. When the restrictions are unilateral, the number of medical goods available in the exporting country tends to increase, culminating in better management of the pandemic. In contrast, bilateral restrictions typically reduce the total output of medical goods; therefore, they are inappropriate in a pandemic situation.

Impact of the agricultural technology transfer to the production of independent palm oil smallholders: a review

Oil palm is the most efficient oil crop that is vital to oil commodity due to its versatility for being a practical raw material in producing a number of commercial products globally. Therefore, the supply of palm oil is believed to increase in order to meet the growing demand of the world population. Malaysia is the second-largest palm oil exporter in South -East Asia after Indonesia with 40% of the total output is contributed by Malaysia’s smallholders. However, reports stated that the yield among smallholder’s plantations is low and eventually will affect the national Gross Domestic Products (GDP). In 2019, Malaysia’s palm oil total GDP was estimated to be 38.24 billion Malaysian Ringgit (MYR). In relation to the issue, low yield among the smallholders is believed to be caused by the lack of application and awareness of current technology available to aid plantation operation. Hence, agricultural technology transfer is the modern agricultural invention to improve oil palm production productivity. A review paper on the agricultural technology transfer was carried out to identify the impact of the technology transfer on palm oil smallholders' production. This approach encompassed the introduction of technology to smallholders, the technology transfer process and technology applications awareness for smallholders. The data was collected through reading on research papers, especially on productivity and engagement of smallholders on the understanding of the technology transfer through the questionnaire. The review concluded that smallholders had practised a good agricultural practice. However, low productivity was caused by the inadequate inputs among the farmers regarding the available technology, crop protection and management. Therefore, technology transfer and technology recommendation is proven to effectively help broaden smallholders’ inputs and knowledge to increase their socioeconomic status and plantation productivity.

A Review of the Unemployment - Economic Growth Nexus in Nigeria from 1980 to 2015: A Disaggregated Approach

The phenomenon of jobless growth in Nigeria in recent years has called to question the Okun’s law that the growth of gross domestic product (GDP) reduces unemployment. This study therefore, analyses the nexus between GDP growth and unemployment in Nigeria by disaggregating total output into its sectoral components to analyze the impact of sectoral output on unemployment using data from 1980 to-2015 employing the econometric technique of Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bound testing approach. Two ARDL models were specified. The first bound test revealed the existence of co integration between unemployment and GDP growth. The growth of GDP is positively related to unemployment in the long run but a negative relationship was found in the short run. The result of the disaggregated model (i.e the second ARDL model) found no long run relationship between unemployment and agriculture, industry, construction, trade, and services. We opined that the findings of the disaggregated model resulted from the disconnection between aggregate demand and aggregate supply of the productive sectors and the lack of direct linkages between the oil sector and other sectors of the economy. The study recommends that such linkages should be forged through enhanced funding of research and development, technological innovation and the development of value chain of agriculture and solid minerals output. Nigerians should be encouraged to consume locally made products. Efforts should be intensified to develop direct linkages between the oil sector and other sectors through input supply contracts and the development of downstream industries in the oil sector.

Efficiency Evaluation of Energy in Northeastern China Based on Data Envelopment Analysis

The development of the energy economy in Northeastern China is unbalanced. In this paper, some energy structures such as oil, coal, and electricity are chosen as input indexes, while per capita gross domestic product (GDP) and total retail sales of consumer goods are desirable output indexes. The main causes of haze are industrial waste gas emission, industrial wastewater discharge, and solid waste production, which are regarded as undesirable output indexes. Environmental variables include industrial structure, urbanization, per capita GDP, and government planning. The proportion of the tertiary industry’s output value to its total output value is one of the important indexes to measure economic development in one area. Therefore, industrial structure plays a vital role in a region’s economic development. The tertiary industry oriented by service sector is the main force to promote economic transformation. The development of the urban economy will change from high to low as the process of urbanization, which can be characterized by green coverage of the urban built-up area. The higher per capita GDP, the higher the economic development can be achieved. Government planning refers to the total number of construction projects and completed projects in the year the government takes measures to control pollution. It shows that the total factor productivity of energy green efficiency has been stable in the last decades but fluctuated wildly in special periods, in which technical progress has played a great role, as well as the increase of technical efficiency.

Improving the Methods of Assessing the Socio-Economic Potential of the Regions of the Republic of Uzbekistan on the Basis of Intellectual Mathematical Models

The article examines the investment potential of the territories of the Republic of Uzbekistan and the issues and investment distribution problems in them. Also, in the article predictions were made using programs of mathematical models of artificial neural networks in the analysis of distributions process problems,and the results were determined by comparing the results with trend and panel methods. Sustainable territorial socio-economic development is determined by general laws of country socio-economic development, the share of export products in the total output of the region, depending on the composition of the gross regional product, in key sectors of the economy is determined by features such as competitive product, scientific potential, population income. Therefore, the problems that arise in ensuring the socio-economic development of the region in modern conditions will have their own regional characteristics.Addressing the territorial socio-economic development problems require strengthening the regulatory role of the state in determining regional economic policy, governance, the development of effective systems, tools and methods of state regulation. Sustainable territorial socio-economic development also depends on the self-sufficiency level of resources and effective budget finance, credit, tax and price policies.

Daily Cortisol Total Output Mediated Sleep and Affect Among Dementia Family Caregivers

Cortisol is a primary stress hormone associated with sleep. We examined daily cortisol as the potential mechanism linking prior night’s sleep and daily mood among 173 dementia family caregivers (M (SD) age = 61.97 (10.66)) who used adult day services (ADS) at least two days a week. Caregivers self-reported sleep characteristics (bed and wake time, sleep quality, care receiver’s night-time problems) and affect (anxiety, depressive symptoms) across eight consecutive ADS/non-ADS days. Salivary cortisol was collected five times each day. Multilevel mediation analysis suggested that daily cortisol total output (assessed as “area under the curve”) mediated prior nights’ total time in bed and daily anxiety, but only on high-stress (non-ADS) days. Mediation was non-significant on low-stress (ADS) days, and at the between-person level. ADS use is respite from a chronically stressful role. Reducing exposure to stress via respite may protect against harmful processes related to sleep, cortisol reactivity, and daily anxiety.

The usefulness of extended input–output tables incorporating firm heterogeneity

This study examines the usefulness of an extended input–output table (EIOT) incorporating the heterogeneity of Japanese firms based on differences in ratios of imported intermediate goods to total output. Using an EIOT, the vertical specialization indicator of Japan was calculated, which corresponds to the foreign value added included in exports. In this process, differences in intermediate input ratios were measured examining different types of firms using firm-level microdata from the Basic Survey of Japanese Business Structure and Activities. The results indicate that distinguishing between exporting and non-exporting firms is relevant for assembly industries such as electronics and automobiles, as widely discussed in the literature. In contrast, for primary materials industries, such as paper, chemical, and metal industries, other distinctions appear to be more relevant. For example, for the chemical industry, wherein firms tend to have large, integrated manufacturing plants, the differences in intermediate import ratios are largest when distinguishing large firms from small and medium firms. For paper and metal industries, which rely on foreign raw materials, the difference is largest when distinguishing between firms with and without foreign affiliates. By incorporating such heterogeneity, the vertical specification indicator increases by 70%; thus, the EIOT captures the foreign value added more comprehensively.