Attractive Policy Research Articles

Incentives for the development of industrial parks (on the example of the border regions of Poland)

In the search for efficient decisions directed at the stimulation of regional development and improvement of regions’ innovativeness and investment attractiveness, the EU regions have long ago started paying attention to local communities. In particular, Polish local governments are granted an opportunity to conduct an active spatial policy of investment attraction using various instruments. In this context, the industrial parks play an important role among the created institutes of the business environment, because they create advantages for local communities and businesses. In particular, they promote investment attraction, entrepreneurship activation, employment and jobs increase, material cost minimization, etc. At the same time, the development of entrepreneurship environment institutes requires support at national, regional, and local levels. The development will be almost impossible without the creation of proper legal, political, economic, and social conditions for their activity. The paper aims to define major stimuli of industrial park development based on the Polish experience, the economic structure of which is similar to the Ukrainian one. This will contribute to the development of the ways to boost industrial park development in Ukraine, especially in the border areas. For the matter, the author outlines the major instruments used by Polish local communities to boost investment and entrepreneurship activity in the framework of industrial park development. The scientific paper emphasizes the analysis of legislation on creation, functioning, and support of Polish industrial park development, and further perspectives of their activity. Special attention is paid to general characteristics of the condition of industrial parks located in Polish border regions. The advantages of each of them are determined and examples of their creation and development are given. The research resulted in the allocation of two groups of stimuli of industrial parks development which are the precondition, according to the author, of industrial parks becoming the instrument of investment attraction, economic boost of the territories, and entrepreneurship activity growth: the stimuli of development of industrial parks’ organizational structure (public financial assistance; information and advisory support; grans of European funds; international cooperation / partnership; independent spatial policy at the local level) and the stimuli of entrepreneurship development in industrial parks (infrastructure (physical and soft); public financial assistance; tax incentives; investment grants; financial loans).

Comparative Advantages in Attracting Investments - Contemporary View

Knowledge of the comparative advantages of territorial units and their proper use to attract investments is important for the development of all countries. The specific comparative advantages that underpin investment attraction policies need to be clearly articulated and communicated. Integrated policies at the territorial unit level can be used as a tool in the effort to overcome the territorial and sectoral imbalance of investment activity and socio-economic development. The focus of the study is on the comparative advantages in attracting investments and their recognition by municipal administrations in Bulgaria. Specific recommendations are proposed to improve the balance of investments and the mechanisms for their management.

Intersectoral and eco-nutritional approaches to resolve persistent anemia in Indonesia.

Anemia in Indonesia has been of concerning persistence in all age groups for some 75 years since independence. The relationships between anemia and nutrition are complex being evident with compromised general health and nutrition. Increased micronutrient intakes, especially iron and folic acid, has alleviated the problem, but encouraged nutrient-specific micronutrient interventions as attractive policy directions as if anemia were a stand-alone disease irrespective of associated disorder. Concerted action to deal with the fundamental causality has been missing. Much of the pathogenetic pathway may be nutritional, but its multifactoriality is ultimately socioecological. Given the intransigence and progression of societal and ecosystem dysfunction, it can be expected that failure to recognize their causal importance will further entrench endemic anemia. This review deliberates the practical measures taken to recognize anemia by symptomatology, food and nutrition surveys, screening (fingerpick blood), nutrition assessment, and blood loss (menstrual and faecal). It identifies vulnerable groups including premenopausal and pregnant women, children and adolescents, unwell adults, and the dependent aged. Risk settings include food insecurity, infectious disease, non-communicable disease, inheritance and epigenetics, and socioeconomic disadvantage. Underlying socio-ecological problems are livelihood, food systems, cultural habits, belief systems, and social networks and activities. With this framework, policy directions could deal more comprehensively and effectively with the socioecological complexity which underpins and limits progress towards anemia eradication at a time of intense global food and health insecurity. It will require co-operative intersectoral and eco-nutritional approaches which take into account the need for universal, sustainable livelihoods. Recommendations have been made accordingly.

Principais fatores responsáveis pela expansão da soja no Brasil

Este artigo tem como objetivo identificar os fatos históricos e econômicos que explicam as razões que levaram o complexo soja, produto de baixo consumo no país, a ser o carro-chefe das exportações agrícolas brasileiras. O cultivo de commodities de maior valor agregado no Brasil resulta da inserção do país na ordem econômica internacional estabelecida em Bretton Woods. A introdução da produção da soja no país foi um dos instrumentos de geração de divisas, de modo a financiar políticas para o desenvolvimento do país, como a política de substituição de importações. A produção de soja encontrou apoio, nas décadas de 60 e 70, no desenvolvimentismo e, a partir da década de 80, na atração de divisas estrangeiras para o equilíbrio do balanço de pagamentos. Destaca-se que a produção nacional tende, apesar da concorrência norte-americana, a se beneficiar do crescimento econômico de países populosos, como China e Índia e da abertura comercial de países do Leste Europeu.
 
 
 Abstract: This article has as objective to identify the historical and economic facts that explain the reasons that had taken the soy industry – a good of low consumption in Brazil – to be the principal item in the Brazilian agricultural exports. The policy of producing commodities with more aggregated value in Brazil is a result of the country’s insertion in the international economic order established in Breton Woods. The soy production in Brazil was one instrument of foreign money attraction, in order to raise funds to policies fighting the points of Brazil’s development strangulation - such as the policy for import substitution. The soy production was supported, in the decades of 60 and 70, by the “desenvolvimentismo” policy, and, in the 80’s, by the foreign money attraction policy keeping the balance of payments. Despite the North American competition, it is distinguished that the Brazilian production tends to benefit from the economic growth of countries such as China and India; and from the East Europe trade openness. 
 Key words: Brazilian Economy, Soy, Commodities, Trade.
 
 
 Recebido em: março/2019.
 Aprovado em: novembro/2019.

A Study of Impact of Tourism Direct Employment Trends on Tourism Arrivals: An Empirical Analysis of Sri Lankan Context

Sri Lanka is one of the major tourist attraction destinations in South Asian region. After the economic reforms in 1977, the successive governments implemented various attractive policies and programmes to promote tourism in pursuing economic growth and development. The government further employed a number of initiatives to encourage and attract tourism arrival in the country. In this backdrop, this study is to analyze the impacts of the tourism direct employment trend on tourism arrivals in Sri Lankan context by using the time series data from year 1978 to 2017. The dependent variable used in this study is tourism arrivals. The independent variables are tourism direct employment and tourism Earnings. The tools used to achieve the objective of this study are Correlation Analysis, Multiple Regression, and Residual test. In this study, it is found that the correlation relationship between the variables is very strong. tourism direct employment and Tourism Earnings are directly related with tourists’ arrivals. The data collected have analyzed by using the econometrics software EViews 10. Based on the result recommended that to increase the magnitude of the direction tourism arrival in Sri Lanka, the factors such tourism direct employment and tourism Earnings should play statistically significant roles. This significant role should be considered by the relent authorities in Sri Lanka.

Impact of regulatory framework on bidding behavior of firms: Policy implications for the oil & gas sector

India's economy is heavily dependent on foreign oil with the country importing nearly 80% of its crude requirement. Consequently, government of India has been keen to encourage private investment in this sector through attractive policy frameworks. The earlier New Exploration Licensing Policy (1999–2015) has met with limited success, especially in the context of attracting multinational firms, necessitating its replacement with Open Acreage Licensing Policy. The factors that resulted in the limited success of a regulatory framework are not fully understood, especially the impact of firms bidding behavior. This paper adopts a qualitative approach to examine bidding decisions of four petroleum exploration firms across several bidding rounds from a resource picking mechanism perspective. Our findings suggest that uncertainties in the regulatory framework were exploited by the firms resulting in policy inefficacy. Our research identifies four variants of uncertainties and three types of aggressive bidding behavior. We recommend that in order to increase policy efficacy, there is a need to decrease stance uncertainty. Further adoption of a behavioral strategy lens to examine regulatory policy can inform the extant literature.

КИЇВСЬКІ ГРОМАДСЬКІ ВЕГЕТАРІАНСЬКІ ЇДАЛЬНІ НА ПОЧАТКУ ХХ СТ.

For the first time the article reflects a research on the launch of public vegetarian canteens by Kyiv Vegetarian Society in the beginning of the 20th century. For now, there are no particular researches on this topic. Having used chronological, statistical, deductive and system analysis methods, we believe, that the launching of the First Vegetarian Canteen in Kyiv was proved to be inextricably linked to the foundation of Kyiv Vegetarian Society. Moreover, the fact of opening the canteen is a history of this Society. It has been discovered, that considering the inertness of the vegetarian community, this project succeeded solely due to the efforts of true enthusiasts of the vegetarian idea, M. Pudavov and his wife K. Kondrakovska. They united Kyiv supporters of the vegetarian idea into the Society and became both founders and main investors of the First Vegetarian Canteen in Kyiv, which gained an official name ‘the Canteen of Kyiv Vegetarian Society Council’. Unfortunately, their efforts weren’t evaluated properly, but even were generally subjected to contempt. M. Pudavov, who was a Head of Kyiv Vegetarian Society, was accused of the fact, that he actually established a private canteen, abusing official authority. Although, there are no doubts, that M. Pudavov acted in the interests of the Society and suggested to transfer the canteen to the Society’s property. But members of the Society expressed their interest only when the canteen became profitable. As a result of long debates, Kyiv Vegetarian Society got profitable the First Canteen for free and enjoyed benefits. The Canteen became the main funds provider. This money allowed the Society, as a collective owner, to open a chain of successful canteens. The premises of the foundation and stages of canteens’ development were traced. Thus, in two years from its opening, the First Canteen served 700 people every day. Such success prompted the Society to open the second canteen in 1911. Very soon it started to show similar to the First Canteen growth rate. In 1914 the third canteen was opened. Later on the Society opened the fourth canteen, but due to occupation of Kyiv in 1916, it had to suspend its functioning. Concerning other three canteens, they proceeded even in such harsh conditions and showed quite good results. The addresses of these canteens were discovered. Based on discovered and reflected in the article statistical data, the dynamics of visiting and profitability growth were analyzed. They didn’t slow down neither in the conditions of high competition, nor during World War I crisis. Moreover, during the War there was an increase in the attendance of public vegetarian canteens. General crisis of food supply heavily affected prices. Vegetables and greens were usually cheaper than meet products and this fact increased popularity of vegetarian places. In these canteens people could get lunch for lower price than in a traditional one. The commercial success of the Kyiv public vegetarian canteens had no analogues on the territory of the Russian Empire. It was caused by constant attention of the Society members to canteens, properly organized supply (even in conditions of war), control, good location and attractive pricing policy. There was a special Commercial Commission, which took care of all business. At the same time, famous connoisseurs of vegetarian cuisine worked on receipts and assortment. The daily maintenance of more than 1,000 people per day gives every reason to believe, that it was a large and exemplary enterprise. At the same time, popularity of vegetarian canteens during the whole assessed period can’t be equated with the proliferation of vegetarian ideas. It was primarily economic in nature, thanks to relatively low prices for vegetarian dishes that attracted poor clients, first and foremost students, who traditionally were accounted for more than 50% of visitors. At the same time the effect of popularization of vegetarianism can’t be completely rejected.

Effects of export and technology on economic growth: Selected emerging Asian economies

Recent studies regarding the impacts of technology spillover and international trade have gained momentum in the emerging economies. Empirical evidences show that some countries gain and other loss to grasp the opportunities of international trade and technological innovation to compete in the global market. This paper examines the effect of export and technology on the economic performance of emerging Asian countries, using the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) model between the periods 2000–2016. Following the Solow economic growth model, the result identifies a positive and significant effect of export and technology on the economic growth of the emerging Asian economies. Similarly, the long-run estimation ascertains the significant and positive impacts of trade and technology on the economic growth of the countries. The results are robust using alternative dynamic panel models, representing the pivotal role of export and technology to the economic growth of the countries. Thus, we recommend policymakers to device attractive policies that can enhance the advancement of technology and trade to maintain sustained economic growth. This would also fasten the internationalisation process and enable to compete efficiently in the global markets in terms of quality of exports and standardisation.

Attraction Tactics and Management Features of New York State Transport Museums in the Aspect of Related Institutions Work in Ukraine

The purpose of the research . Important conditions for success of a museum are a competently built-up management system and consistent attraction activities designed for different types of target audience. The article analyses the structure of attraction activities in Ukraine’s transport museums compared to that of New York State museums. The methodology of the research . The museum visitors were interviewed, the content of the museums’ websites and testimonials was analyzed. The focus was on the description of the museums’ exposition, dramaturgy, types of attraction policy and activities for various types of target audience. Comparison of opportunities for actualizing the attraction potential of transport museums in Ukraine and New York State was made. Based on the analysis, a method of increasing their popularity was deduced. The scientific novelty lies in adaptation of attraction strategies of the US transport museums to Ukraine’s realia. For the first time, the factors of influence on the audience from attraction events in transport museums in Ukraine and the US (on the example of the state of New York) have been systematized. Conclusions . Methods of museum space theatricalization and animation in transport museums of the US have been analyzed. Based on that, an algorithm of actions for Ukraine transport museums have been deduced. There is a need to consider means of attracting financial resources and museum volunteering to the museum space. The issue of practical realization of this task by museum workers in the realia of post-soviet cultural space has been raised. Experimental modelling of an attraction events program in Ukraine’s existing transport museums may approbate the results of the research.

A Tale of Should Be but Is Not: the Political and Economic Drivers of Limited Chinese Investments in Colombia

Chinese outward foreign direct investment (FDI) has been one of the economic tools China has used to engage South America. Although Colombia has been attracting inward FDI in quantities similar to other key regional states, its macroeconomic and sectoral features and investment attraction policies positively correlate with many of the factors known to attract Chinese outward FDI (OFDI), and both the Colombia and Chinese governments are committed to increasing Chinese OFDI (COFDI) flows to Colombia, COFDI volumes to the Andean nation have yet to live up to expectations. This puzzling case highlights the need for a better understanding of the political-economic factors that drive COFDI. My case study show that Colombia’s political and economic traits have been hindering COFDI. Regarding the former, Colombia’s local politics regarding extractive activities and bidding on infrastructure projects and its close relations with the United States function to create an adverse environment for increased COFDI. With respect to the latter, the international economic environment, especially regarding commodities’ prices, has impaired Chinese investment in Colombia. Overall, Colombia’s case underscores the delicate interplay of international, national, and subnational factors on COFDI flows.

Impacts of Climate Change in Nepalese Agriculture

This paper presents impact of climate change in agriculture and adaptation strategies applying by the farmers. In doing so, secondary data and information as well as document review methods are applied. The study found that climate change has affected the different sectors such as agriculture and non-agriculture. Especially agriculture is the more affected than non- agricultural sector. The major crops production trend is gradually decreasing due to the negative impact of climate change. Comparatively, climate change has more affected in the Himalayas and hilly region than Tarai. Owing to that farmers are applying different adaptation strategies for minimizing the climate change impact on productions. However, federal governments must prepare and implement the attractive affirmative policies that are needed to motivate small farmers living in Mountain, Hill and Tarai region.

Political Statement Cycle

Elected politicians may engage in opportunistic behavior for private benefits, which is a central problem in democratic societies. While re-election incentives can mitigate this problem, they may also induce words without actions: politicians pander to voters right before elections by proposing attractive policies but without actually implementing them. Using the minutes from assembly meetings, we find that politicians' statements follow election cycles: in election years, politicians temporarily change their statements (e.g., increasing amounts of money specified) during the budget-making process, and their contents become less consistent with the realized budget. The effects are larger for politicians whose previous electoral victories were narrower and these changes are associated with a higher probability of being re-elected. We find little evidence that politicians put more efforts to realize their policies when re-election incentives increase. These results imply a failure of the delegation system between voters and politicians, a key element of representative democracy.

Multi-Objective Approach for Optimal DGPV Location and Sizing

The advancement of renewable technology has attracted utility and company to integrate and produce energy for a cleaner environment. The attractive policy from the government also gave the opportunity to adopt the technology recently. The Distributed Generation Photovoltaic (DGPV) integration into the grid is an advanced technology to produce electricity without polluting the environment. Besides providing the green technology, it can also enhance the voltage profile and minimise the transmission losses. However, this depends on the location and the sizing of the DGPV. In this paper, the location and sizing of DGPV are deduced using multi-objective Chaotic Mutation Immune Evolutionary Technique (MOCMIEP) technique. The proposed method determines the optimal location and sizing of DGPV and to improve the losses and FVSI simultaneously. FVSI is a pre-developed voltage stability index based on the line in the power system. The method was tested on the power transmission system of IEEE 30-Bus and IEEE 57 -Bus Reliability Test System (RTS). The results demonstrate the ability of the proposed method to generate the Pareto optimal solutions of the multi-objective problems and come out with the best compromise solution.

Mobilizing domestic resources for the Agenda 2030 via carbon pricing

The twenty-first century is characterized by an underprovision of basic public goods, such as public health, education, infrastructure and so on, and an overuse of the atmosphere as disposal space for greenhouse gases. Carbon pricing could address both problems simultaneously: a transition from negative carbon prices (fossil fuel subsidies) to positive levels could generate revenues to finance progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Given the scarcity of private sources of finance in many lower-income countries, carbon pricing could be a particularly attractive policy option. Our analysis identifies countries where domestic revenues from carbon pricing consistent with the 2 °C target could contribute substantially to financing the Sustainable Development Goals. A shift away from fossil fuel subsidies to carbon pricing could generate revenues to finance progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. This Perspective shows that in many low-income countries, as private sources of finance are limited, revenues from carbon taxes could be a particularly attractive policy option for financing the SDGs.

Renewable energy projections for climate change mitigation: An analysis of uncertainty and errors

Failures of countries to set and achieve renewable energy targets are prevalent, producing uncertainty as to the possibility of renewable energy contributing to a reduction in global emissions. Lack of policy and incorrect modelling analyses are among the sources of these failures and understanding these two sources is crucial for improving confidence in renewables. We assess errors in projections pertaining to the capacity and production of renewable energy in the United States and those countries of the European Union that have strong commitments to green energy supply. Our results show that solar energy has the lowest level of uncertainty as it has the most achievable capacity projections. However, other renewables entail more attractive policies and further research is needed for the advancement of reliable technology and accurate weather predictions. Our findings also provide ranges for the projection uncertainties for six renewable energy technologies, drawing attentions to ways that the dominant errors in these renewable energy projections may be rectified.

Organ donation and nudging

For many, receiving an organ transplantation is the only viable way to prolong their lives and increase their quality of life. However, the demand for organs exceeds supply. Are there efficient and ethically acceptable ways of increasing the number of organ donors? Recently, nudging has been proposed as an attractive policy instrument. Nudging eschews coercing people. It affects instead the choice architecture within which people make their choices. Still, autonomy concerns arise. Accordingly, we have to make a difficult trade-off between augmenting people’s welfare, on the one hand, and respecting their autonomy on the other. An opt-out system in which people count as donors unless they state otherwise is, however, likely to increase donations considerably, and to do so at acceptable costs in terms of infringements on autonomy.

GIS-based approach for assessing the energy potential and the financial feasibility of run-off-river hydro-power in Alpine valleys

In the last decade, European attractive policies are favoring the construction of new run-off hydro-power plants. The realization cost of these plants is quite low in mountain areas thanks to small water discharges and high gross heads. For this reason, small rivers have been strongly exploited without considering an optimal use of the resource. Nowadays, available sites are often in areas with low accessibility and a greater specific cost of civil engineering works. However, during the planning of new small hydro-power plants, the dependency of physical, technical, legal and financial variable on space is often not assessed. The tool presented in this paper addresses this gap to support the planning of run-off-river plants. The method improves on previous approaches by (1) integrating all the legal, technical and financial analysis in a GIS tool, and (2) trying to validate the site-specific model with local knowledge. The tool is applied to the Gesso and Vermenagna valleys in the Alps. Information and data were collected and discussed with local stakeholders in order to improve the model results.

Emissions and production penalties/bonuses associated with non-standard earthmoving loading policies

PurposeThe performance of earthmoving operations, in terms of emissions, production and cost, is dependent on many variables and has been the study of a number of publications. Such publications look at typical operation design and management, without establishing what the penalties or bonuses might be for non-standard, but still observed, practices. To fill this gap in knowledge, this paper examines alternative loading policies of zero waiting-time loading, fractional loading and double-sided loading, and compares the performance of these with standard single-sided loading.Design/methodology/approachOriginal recursive relationships, that are amenable to Monte Carlo simulation, are derived. Case study data are used to illustrate the emissions, production and cost penalties or bonuses.FindingsDouble-sided loading contributes the least impact to the environment and is the most cost effective. Zero waiting-time loading performs the worst in terms of environmental impact and cost. Minimizing truck waiting times through using fractional loading is generally not an attractive policy because it leads to an increase in unit emissions and unit costs. The consequences of adopting fractional loading are detailed. Optimum unit emissions and optimum unit cost are coincident with respect to fleet size for single- and double-sided loading policies. That is, by minimizing unit cost, as in traditional practice, then least impact on the environment is obtained. Not minimizing unit cost will lead to unnecessary emissions.Practical implicationsThe results of this paper will be of interest to those designing and managing earthmoving operations.Originality/valueAll modeling and results presented in the paper do not exist elsewhere in the literature.

УПРАВЛЕНИЕ ОТНОШЕНИЯМИ С ИНВЕСТОРАМИ В УСЛОВИЯХ ЭКОНОМИЧЕСКИХ САНКЦИЙ

The article considers investor relations’ management in Russian companies under the economic sanctions imposed in 2014-2016 against the Russian Federation by the governments of the USA, EU and some other countries. Those sanctions limit or ban access of some Russian companies and industries to the Western capital markets and technologies. Not only the companies included into the sanctions lists suffer, but also other Russian companies face negative consequences as far as loan costs have grown, overall perception of Russian economy and its agents has become negative and the national economy fell into recession. Sanctions are not the only reason for this situation. The decrease in oil prices, structural problems and depreciation of the Rble play the major role. Nevertheless, sanctions undermine the ability of Russian companies to cope with the crisis. The market capitalization of Russian companies decreased dramatically and they are traded at huge discounts to international peers. New Eurobonds issues during the period of sanctions fell by four times and the credit ratings of the country were reduced to speculative level. Under such circumstances, investor relations (IR) management is not an easy task. The author elaborates an in-depth analysis of the practice of some Russian companies in this sphere underlining their strengths and weaknesses. First of all, the necessity of IR conducting is undisputable, otherwise the company’s shares will continue to be deeply undervalued due to investors’ unawareness. The leading Russian companies in the sphere of IR understand that a crisis is not only a tough time, but also a period when the relations with shareholders and investors can be developed and advanced. The IR managers visit more international investment conferences than before and arrange more roadshows to strengthen the investment brand and promote the company. Another tendency is to turn to Asian and Middle East capital markets for expanding the investor base and supporting liquidity. In order to underpin shareholder’s returns the companies opt for more attractive dividend policy and repurchase shares on the open market. Particular attention is paid to stricter financial discipline in order to attract attention of the potential and existing investors, thus demonstrating the ability of the company to operate without easily accessible external financing. It is concluded that companies deeply involved into IR will gain most benefits in case of sanctions’ lifting, as their investment brands will be highly credible and recognizable by the investors.

Optimal windy sites in Algeria: Potential and perspectives

The Algerian government has established an attractive policy to encourage investment in the wind energy by installing 5 GW of wind power by 2030. It has focused on collaborations and calls for investment from outside wind energy companies. However, this energy sector development requires the identification of potentially windy sites. This study was performed in order to determine new optimal sites in Algeria that may be eligible to receive the wind farm projects. Therefore, data from about 74 new sites were identified and assimilated to verify and update the wind resource estimates. Hourly wind speeds data were used for the establishment of the annual and seasonal wind maps at 10 m and 80 m a.g.l. As the wind map updates highlighted important changes in the wind resource, the wind potential sensitivity to the data time period was evaluated. The windy sites were classed on the basis of the NREL international standards. However, In order to ensure an adequate return on investment, the other objective of this study was to identify the optimal sites using a multi-criteria analysis based on the GIS method. Considering additional factors as network availability and wind energy previsions, different strategic scenarios of wind farms planning were proposed.