The paper discusses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on rural tourism in Czechia. It points out that the catastrophic scenarios of the decline in tourism mainly concern urban destinations focused ...on foreign tourism. In contrast, rural destinations create an alternative. Some of them have even shown an increase in tourism in the 2020 summer season as compared to 2019. However, this new orientation requires investing in infrastructure, marketing and regional cooperation.
Highlights
Paper investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on rural tourism in Czechia.
The decline in tourism mainly affected destinations focused on foreign tourists.
Czech countryside gained domestic tourists due to natural, gastronomic and local attractions.
The specificity of COVID 19 new outbreaks is its local or regional limitation.
The COVID-19 epidemy has created an opportunity for the development of rural tourism.
Over the last two decades, the notion of institutional thickness has become a key reference for a large body of work that has sought to provide profound insights into the link between institutions ...and regional development. However, only few attempts have been made to reassess the concept, to improve its methodology, and to reflect on its empirical application. The aim of this article is to revise the original concept of institutional thickness. We draw on and seek to contribute to current work in economic geography and related disciplines on the role of organizations and institutions in regional development. We identify some crucial limitations and provide suggestions for how they can be addressed. It is argued that much can be gained by (1) explicitly elaborating on the relation between the organizational and institutional dimensions of thickness, (2) moving beyond overly static views on thickness, (3) developing a multiscalar approach to thickness, and (4) identifying features for assessing thickness in absolute and relative terms.
The Regional Development Trap in Europe Diemer, Andreas; Iammarino, Simona; Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés ...
Economic geography,
10/2022, Letnik:
98, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The concept of regional development trap refers to regions that face significant structural challenges in retrieving past dynamism or improving prosperity for their residents. This article introduces ...and measures the concept of the regional development trap for regions in Europe. The concept draws inspiration from the middle-income trap in international development theory but widens it to shed light on traps in higher-income countries and at the regional scale. We propose indicators-involving the economic, productivity, and employment performance of regions relative to themselves in the immediate past, and to other regions in their respective countries and elsewhere in Europe-to identify regions either in a development trap or at significant near-term risk of falling into it. Regions facing development traps generate economic, social, and political risks at the national scale but also for Europe as a whole.
Realizing the coordinated development of regional emission reduction and low-carbon transportation has become a hot issue concerned by governments worldwide. Using data from 30 provinces of China’s ...transport sector, this paper investigates and evaluates the regional differences of carbon emission intensity (CEI). Additionally, we employ the extended STIRPAT (stochastic impacts by regression on population, affluence and technology) and GTWR (geographically and temporally weighted regression) model to reveal the influence of driving factors on CEI from spatial-temporal perspectives. The results indicate the following: (1) CEI tends to decrease and presents a pattern of low in the southeast and high in the northwest in space. (2) The eastern region has the greatest degree of regional difference, and the central region has the smallest. The major reason for the widening of the overall differences in China is the within-group differences in the three geographical regions. (3) CEI in China’s transport sector has regional characteristics, and the effect of urbanization, energy structure, population scale and industrial structure on CEI vary among the regions. Energy intensity occupies a pivotal position among all the driving factors and poses a positive impact on the CEI of transport sector.
•Transport sector’s carbon emission intensity in China is calculated.•Characteristics of regional disparity in carbon emission intensity is analyzed.•Main reasons for this regional imbalance are revealed.•Extended STIRPAT and GTWR models are applied to identify the driving forces.•Spatial variations of the driving forces in multi-aspects are observed.
Summary
Understanding the drivers and dynamics of global ultra‐processed food (UPF) consumption is essential, given the evidence linking these foods with adverse health outcomes. In this synthesis ...review, we take two steps. First, we quantify per capita volumes and trends in UPF sales, and ingredients (sweeteners, fats, sodium and cosmetic additives) supplied by these foods, in countries classified by income and region. Second, we review the literature on food systems and political economy factors that likely explain the observed changes. We find evidence for a substantial expansion in the types and quantities of UPFs sold worldwide, representing a transition towards a more processed global diet but with wide variations between regions and countries. As countries grow richer, higher volumes and a wider variety of UPFs are sold. Sales are highest in Australasia, North America, Europe and Latin America but growing rapidly in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. These developments are closely linked with the industrialization of food systems, technological change and globalization, including growth in the market and political activities of transnational food corporations and inadequate policies to protect nutrition in these new contexts. The scale of dietary change underway, especially in highly populated middle‐income countries, raises serious concern for global health.
China has entered the economic transition in the post-financial crisis era, with unprecedented new features that significantly lead to a decline in its carbon emissions. However, regional disparity ...implies different trajectories in regional decarbonisation. Here, we construct multi-regional input-output tables (MRIO) for 2012 and 2015 and quantitatively evaluate the regional disparity in decarbonisation and the driving forces during 2012-2015. We found China's consumption-based emissions peaked in 2013, largely driven by a peak in consumption-based emissions from developing regions. Declined intensity and industrial structures are determinants due to the economic transition. The rise of the Southwest and Central regions of China have become a new feature, driving up emissions embodied in trade and have reinforced the pattern of carbon flows in the post-financial crisis period. Export-related emissions have bounced up after years of decline, attributed to soaring export volume and export structure in the Southeast and North of the country. The disparity in developing regions has become the new feature in shaping China's economy and decarbonisation.
Despite increasing interest in energy transitions in the European Union, little attention has been paid conceptually to regional energy transitions in terms of development nor to the potential ...regional impacts of cumulative policies. A contextual understanding of regional energy transitions in Europe is therefore lacking. To address this gap, this paper considers regional energy transitions from a political economy perspective, using an institutional lens and critical varieties of capitalism approach to examine European Union policy responses within the scope of innovation driven and growth based regional development. Policy responses for regional energy transitions are first structured using crises as turning points and then explored in three themes: an energy transition with roots in coal regions; an energy transition that harnesses the green growth agenda; and an energy transition intensified by multiple crises. Going beyond the traditional economic aspects of regional policy and acknowledging the contradictions of green growth, critical reflection on these themes calls into question the extent of policy responses to address the potentially diverse regional futures enabled through the energy transition. Considering the aim of territorial cohesion, renewable energy resources and green innovation capacities can be seen as either sources of prosperity or aggravators of existing inequalities. Further attention is therefore needed toward current understandings of regional development in light of policy objectives and the sustainability ambitions of regional transitions. While limiting this analysis to the green growth logic, the arguments acknowledge critical perspectives that can potentially be brought into European policy perspectives for sustainable regional development.
Regional development in Latin America Aroca, Patricio; Azzoni, Carlos
Regional science policy & practice,
August 2021, 2021-08-00, 20210801, Letnik:
13, Številka:
4
Journal Article
PDF
