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The purpose of this paper is to analyse, from an empirical point of view, the importance of each of the main sources of funding in developing countries (foreign direct investment, official development assistance, external debt and remittances) in achieving sustainable, social and inclusive development.

The methodology followed to achieve this purpose is the construction of three econometric models. The general model incorporates as a dependent variable the Human Development Index (HDI) and, as explanatory variables, the four sources of funding indicated above, as well as three exogenous variables (human capital, corruption and natural resources). This model is complemented by two extensions that aim to analyse the behaviour of explanatory variables in reducing inequalities and improving each of the HDI components.

The results of the estimations of the econometric models show that foreign direct investment and remittances are the sources of funding with the greatest impact on achieving development. Moreover, official development assistance while not making a positive contribution to the achievement of development as a whole, could be adequate to reduce inequalities.

The added value of this paper consists in carrying out a joint analysis of these four sources of funding because previous researches focussed the attention on some of them, drawing partial conclusions. The conclusion of this study is that the four sources of funding analysed can be considered complementary to promote sustainable and inclusive development, although foreign direct investment has a much more important role.

This paper aims to empirically analyse the relationship between the business model and the evolution of employment during the Great Recession, based on data from 75 industrial companies in the Corredor del Henares in Guadalajara, a reference area for being one of the fastest growing economic and business areas in Spain in recent decades.

The concept of the business model has been incorporated into organizational theory and practice over the last 25 years and continues to attract the interest of the academic and business community. The most recent research found in the literature has confirmed the relationship between business model and business performance, being directly connected to business performance and, therefore, to the creation of employment. However, the conclusions of the available studies are not directly scalable, as they refer to a specific sector or market.

The result confirms the positive impact of the business model on results and specifically, that talent management, through the value proposition and technology, has an impact on improving business performance. The study specifically confirms that talent integrated in organizations has an impact on the performance through a solid value proposition, scalable and adaptable to changes in the environment and whose transformation must be led by the top management. Talent integrates key partners and considers corporate social responsibility, sustainability, security and transparency as key factors in its management.

Thus, providing new and relevant information for research and business practice, and its conclusions are generalisable thanks to the multi-sector and multi-territorial nature of the sample selected.

The research steam on tourism destination image, begun in the late 1960s, has been essentially operational in its approach, and only occasionally strategic. Aspects relating to the image of tourism destinations still constitute a relatively unexplored line of research. This paper, first establishes specific conceptual and methodological approaches, to enable us to rigorously study and evaluate the image of what we understand as a tourism destination characterized by “sun and beach”. It then applies this methodological proposition to a number of destinations in the Caribbean, focusing on the case of Cuba from an important tourist‐origin market for this destination, Spain.

In a period of political change in the European Union, when the European Constitution is in the centre of the debate, the social convergence among European Union countries is a crucial issue. However, the measurement of welfare, inequality and poverty and the comparisons among countries are issues of great controversy. One of the main reasons for this is that implicit or explicit value judgements have to be made, and it is not easy to determine which of these value judgements are the most appropriate ones. In this paper we apply inference-based stochastic dominance methods to study welfare, inequality and poverty in European Union countries in 2000, applying purchasing power parities from the OECD. There are two main advantages of the methods and data used in this work: on the one hand, the stochastic method uses explicit and widely, though not universally, accepted assumptions, and if this small number of assumptions is accepted, the welfare and poverty ranking that the method provides is unambiguous. On the other hand, the use of the European Community Household Panel permits the comparisons in welfare, inequality and poverty among different countries using harmonised data. In addition, the use of inference tests permits a more precise ranking.

This volume is the outgrowth of the first meeting of the Society for the Study of Economic Inequality (ECINEQ). The Society's aims are to “provide an international forum for all researchers interested in the study of economic inequality and related fields, bringing together the diversity of perspectives.”

This paper aims to explore how destination image can be shaped, created and crafted, from an induced-source, supply-side perspective to better cater to Arab visitors, drawing on empirical research conducted on the Gold Coast, Australia.

Two sequential stages of research were implemented. The first stage conducted an analysis of websites to compare and contrast the image of the Gold Coast projected with the image perceived by Arab visitors. The second stage conducted semi-structured interviews with professionals from two destination marketing organisations (DMOs) directly responsible for marketing the Gold Coast to Arab visitors.

Key findings indicate that the DMOs sought to portray a strong destination brand to Arab visitors, specifically around its current branding of “Gold Coast: Famous for Fun”. The Gold Coast has highly evolved strategies to target Arab visitors, including productive working relationships between DMOs and strategic partnerships with tourism organisations in the Arab world. However, analysis of websites revealed some incongruence between core attractions. Arab websites emphasise the beach more than do the Australian, state and local DMOs, and entertainment did not rate as highly as the need for beaches, shopping and accommodation.

Importantly, this research highlights the need for DMOs to clearly understand the needs of Arab visitors and integrating such information into targeted marketing campaigns aligned with the core destination brand.

The contribution of this research is in providing a more nuanced understanding of the importance of using culture as a key segmentation tool not only to help attract more tourists but to assist DMOs to understand the special needs of various cultures in the destination.

The purpose of this paper was to detect the most significant factors associated with each living alternative to improve socialization and mental health of the elderly. The measurements included affective evaluation, cognitive assessment, anxiety level, physical functionality, quality of life and social relationships. Individuals in home nursing residences were older and had worse affective status, functionality, cognitive state and quality of life. Social relationships in community people were better than in the institutionalized condition, particularly for less aged people.

Comparative descriptive study realized in 200 people older than 70 years in home nursing placement versus community dwelling conditions.

Multivariate analysis and logistic regression indicated that greater disability and poorer quality of social relationships were the main factors influencing the institutionalization process. Specifically, the Sociotype Questionnaire appeared as an efficient tool concerning the detection of social isolation effects as well as an acceptable integrator of prosocial information about home nursing placement.

The Geriatric Sociotype survey has shown usefulness in the evaluation of the social network of elderly people, both from the point of view of assessment and prognosis. In this sense it is considered that one of the main contributions of this study is to have included the qualitative evaluation of social relations, and to observe the differences according to the place of residence.

This chapter reflects upon the trajectory of research in the geography of tourism in Spain. It begins with a review, including the evolution of the main topics present in the subdiscipline, with a special focus on developments since the 1990s. This is followed by an analysis of the current role and potential impact of academic tourism geography and a discussion on the recent growth in the publication of research results in international journals. Of importance are the institutional factors that explain the increasing recognition of research on the geography of tourism in Spain. Finally, the chapter discusses the hegemony of positivist approaches pivoting on land use, local and regional development, impact analysis, and landscape transformation, as well as the emerging links between Spanish tourism geography and the international mainstream schools of thought.