Explaining COVID-19 vaccine uptake: A spatial sociodemographic study in Turkey

COVID-19 vaccines have so far been the most powerful weapon in the current pandemic, yet many people still show hesitancy towards them. This paper is one of the first studies that examine the factors affecting the COVID-19 vaccine uptake decision from a spatial perspective in Turkey. The study setting allows us to specify the spatial effects that are influential in this decision without which the true nature of the association between vaccination rates and various socio-economic factors can be determined. Our findings reveal the existence of global spatial interactions in vaccination rates. In addition, age, the level of conservatism, and low education levels show spillovers that amplify their total effects on vaccination rates. © 2023 The Authors. Papers in Regional Science © 2023 Regional Science Association International.

Tendency of older adults to leave big cities in the COVID‐19 pandemic: A qualitative regional analysis in Turkey

This study investigates how territorial and age group disparities in implementing COVID‐19 measures in Turkey triggered some of the older adults living in those regions to move to rural settlements and small towns. The direction of this mobility was from urbanized regions to rural regions. Data is collected from 201 older adult participants nationwide through longitudinal qualitative research. A combination of purposive and snowball sampling techniques was used to form the sampling of the research. Chi‐squared test was applied to the collected data and significant correlation values are found between the age groups and the main motives for them leaving the big cities. Findings show that this mobility caused unexpected problems for older adults and contributed to the spread of the virus, but represents a counter‐urbanization tendency in Turkey.Alternate :Este estudio investiga cómo las disparidades territoriales y por grupos de edad en la aplicación de las medidas para COVID‐19 en Turquía provocaron que algunos de los adultos mayores que vivían en esas regiones se trasladaran a asentamientos rurales y pequeñas ciudades. La dirección de esta movilidad fue de las regiones urbanizadas a las rurales. Se recogieron datos de 201 participantes adultos mayores de todo el país a través de una investigación cualitativa longitudinal. Para obtener la muestra de la investigación se utilizó una combinación de técnicas de muestreo intencional y de bola de nieve. Se usó el test estadístico de Chi‐cuadrado con los datos recogidos y se hallaron valores de correlación significativos entre los grupos de edad y los principales motivos de abandono de las grandes ciudades. Los resultados muestran que esta movilidad causó problemas inesperados a los adultos mayores y contribuyó a la propagación del virus, lo que representa una tendencia contraria a la urbanización en Turquía.Alternate :抄録本研究では、トルコにおける新型コロナウイルス感染症対策の実施における、地域や年齢層による相違が、どのように当該地域に住む高齢者の一部が農村集落や小さな町に移住するきっかけとなったのかを検討する。この移動は、都市化された地域が起点で農村地域が終点であった。データは、縦断的な定性的研究において、全国の201名の高齢者の参加者から収集されたものであった。本研究のサンプリングは、目的のあるサンプリングとスノーボールサンプリングの方法を組み合わせて実施した。収集したデータを、カイ二乗検定により分析したところ、年齢層と大都市を離れる主な動機との間に有意な相関を示す値が認められた。知見から、この移動が高齢者に予期せぬ問題を引き起こし、ウイルスの拡散の一因となったことが示されるが、これはトルコにおける反都市化の傾向を表している。

Promotion of entrepreneurship through business incubators: Regional analysis in Spain

This study focuses on business incubators in Spain, which helps compare regions within Spain. This study has four goals: to shape taxonomy of the Spanish business incubator system, to compare between regions, to identify the factors affecting incubators' success, and to analyse during the COVID pandemic. Of the 478 business incubators registered in Spain, 89 were selected as the sample for study. Business incubators provide office space, equipment and mentoring services, as well as financial, legal and administrative support for entrepreneurs and start-up companies. Non-parametric statistical techniques are used to compare between regions, considering each regional business incubator as an ecosystem. The study focuses on six Spanish regions: Madrid, Catalonia, Castile-Leon, Aragon, Basque Country and Galicia. © 2023 Elsevier Inc.

Spatio-temporal evolution of the COVID-19 across African countries.

The aim of this study is to make a comparative study on the reproduction number R 0 computed at the beginning of each wave for African countries and to understand the reasons for the disparities between them. The study covers the two first years of the COVID-19 pandemic and for 30 African countries. It links pandemic variables, reproduction number R 0, demographic variable, median age of the population, economic variables, GDP and CHE per capita, and climatic variables, mean temperature at the beginning of each waves. The results show that the diffusion of COVID-19 in Africa was heterogeneous even between geographical proximal countries. The difference of the basic reproduction number R 0 values is very large between countries and is significantly correlated with economic and climatic variables GDP and temperature and to a less extent with the mean age of the population.

Assessing excess mortality in Vienna and Austria after the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic

In Austria, the first confirmed COVID-19 death occurred in early March 2020. Since then, the question as to whether and, if so, to what extent the COVID-19 pandemic has increased overall mortality has been raised in the public and academic discourse. In an effort to answer this question, Statistics Vienna (City of Vienna, Department for Economic Affairs, Labour and Statistics) has evaluated the weekly mortality trends in Vienna, and compared them to the trends in other Austrian provinces. For our analysis, we draw on data from Statistics Austria and the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES), which are published along with data on the actual and the expected weekly numbers of deaths via the Vienna Mortality Monitoring website. Based on the definition of excess mortality as the actual number of reported deaths from all causes minus the expected number of deaths, we calculate the weekly prediction intervals of the expected number of deaths for two age groups (0 to 64 years and 65 years and older). The temporal scope of the analysis covers not only the current COVID-19 pandemic, but also previous flu seasons and summer heat waves. The results show the actual weekly numbers of deaths and the corresponding prediction intervals for Vienna and the other Austrian provinces since 2007. Our analysis underlines the importance of comparing time series of COVID-19-related excess deaths at the sub-national level in order to highlight within-country heterogeneities. © 2022. All Rights Reserved.

Potential for increasing the efficiency of public administration in municipal institutions based on the relationship between the unemployment rate and the shadow economy

Effective regulation of the labour market depends to a large extent on the quality of public administration. The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the problem of unemployment in regions, which led to the spread of the shadow economy. The article aims to research the relationship between the unemployment rate and the shadow economy in Lithuanian regions over the period 2000-2019, to reveal the regional disparities in terms of the above-mentioned economic variables and submit recommendations to municipal authorities on how to reduce the strength of the relationship under consideration. Pearson and MCD correlation coefficients revealed that the relationship between the unemployment rate and the shadow economy is negative in all Lithuanian regions. An increase/decrease in the unemployment rate leads to a decrease/increase in the size of the shadow economy. The hypothesis proposing that “the municipalities with a high unemployment rate tend to have a stronger relationship with the size of the shadow economy” was only partly confirmed. The strongest relationships between the unemployment rate and the size of the shadow economy were found in Visaginas and Marijampolė municipalities, meanwhile only the calculated median values indicated that the unemployment rate in Visaginas amounted to 11.8 percent, and in Marijampolė – to 11.2 percent over the period under consideration. The two above-mentioned municipalities are among the municipalities with the highest unemployment rate, but lag behind Lazdynai (15 percent), Ignalina (14.9 percent.), Kalvarija (14.6 percent), Akmenė (14.5 percent), Jurbarkas (14 percent), and Zarasai (14 percent) municipalities. Considering the results, cooperation between the Employment Service and Lithuanian municipalities should be improved with a view to identifying whether a person registered with the Employment Service has applied to a municipality for social support;the State Labour Inspectorate, the Employment Service and the State Tax Inspectorate should also improve their cooperation to establish the principles for exchange of the data on the activities of the labour force assigned to risk groups. © 2022, Bucharest University of Economic Studies Publishing House. All rights reserved.

IMPLICATIONS OF DIGITAL WORK ON EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY AND THEIR DIGITAL EMPATHY

Digital empathy is a concept that did not originate during the Covid-19 pandemic, but as such existed several years ago and reached its peak during the Covid-19 pandemic, when millions of people around the world communicated exclusively electronically. The purpose of this paper is to determine the level of understanding other people when mutual communication takes place on-line. Digital empathy is a new segment of the business world that needs to be continuously built and developed. The aim of the research is to establish that electronic communication affects the lack of empathy, which is primarily built through physical contact with verbal and non-verbal communication. The extent to which frequent electronic communication affects reduced productivity, coldness, and lack of empathy. Is the necessary business information provided on time, to what extent is there a lack of face-to-face communication and did the employees of the regional self-government cope with the feeling of loneliness and isolation? Employees of the regional self-government who worked from home during the pandemic were selected for the research sample. The research was conducted using the questionnaire method in a way that explores the opinion of self-assessment of regional self-government employees who worked from home, and related to their productivity, flexibility in working from home, and digital empathy. Based on the results of the survey questionnaires, it was determined that electronic communication affects reduced productivity, coldness and lack of empathy. This paper provides an overview of the disadvantages of electronic communication, which is impossible to avoid in the digital age. Building digital empathy is important in creating the competencies of digital citizens and contributes to increasing digital intelligence. The pandemic catalyzed the digitalization of society and the implications of digital empathy will be further explored in future periods.

European Food Systems in a Regional Perspective: A Comparative Study of the Effect of COVID-19 on Households and City-Region Food Systems

The concept of the city-region food system is gaining attention due to the need to improve food availability, quality and environmental benefits, for example through sustainable agri-food strategies. The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the importance of coherent and inclusive food governance, especially regarding food resilience, vulnerability and justice. Given that evidence from good practices is relatively sparse, it is important to better understand the role of different types of cities, regions and household characteristics. The paper's aim is to describe, analyze and attempt to explain (sub-national) regional variations of household food behavior before and during the first wave of COVID-19 in 2020 using a city-region food system perspective. Informed by the literature, comprehensive survey data from 12 countries across Europe is used to describe the pre-pandemic landscape of different household food behaviors across comparable regional types. We examine how a specific economic and social shock can disrupt this behavior and the implications for city-region food systems and policies. Conclusions include the huge disruptions imposed on income-weak households and that the small city scale is the most resilient. Proposals are made that can strengthen European city-region food system resilience and sustainability, especially given that future shocks are highly likely.

Monetary Policy, External Shocks and Economic Growth Dynamics in East Africa: An S-VAR Model

Resulting from the incessant political and economic uncertainty that bedevils the EAC region in the recent past, the various governments have used monetary policy changes in response to shocks from macroeconomic variables. However, the available literature shows a non-agreement by scholars as far as the dynamics in monetary policy, external shocks and macroeconomic activity connections are concerned, for both country-by-country analyses and regional assessments. This article widens the frontiers of knowledge about how the dynamics of monetary policy, external shocks and macroeconomic performance interact within the EAC economic region. We adopted the S-VAR method because of its contemporary nature as far as a transmission of monetary policy approach is concerned. The interconnectivity among the countries of EAC is an indication that any shock to the price of commodities (non-oil commodities) has significant implication on the exchange rate, which will be channelled through the supply of money and monetary policy to the GDP. The need to diversify the productive and export base of member countries, compared to the continuous dependence on one or a few products as the major source of income, is hereby advocated.

A novel regional collision risk assessment method considering aggregation density under multi-ship encounter situations

The regional ship collision risk assessment for multiple ships in restricted waters is of great significance to the early warning of ship collision risk and the intelligent supervision of maritime traffic. Given the existed method of regional ship collision risk assessment without considering the impact of ship aggregation density, this paper proposes a novel regional ship collision risk assessment method that considers the aggregation density (AD) of the clusters of encounter ships (CES) for intelligent surveillance and navigation. The effectiveness of the proposed method has been examined by the experimental case study in the waters of Xiamen, China, and analysis has been compared with other existed studies to show the advantages of the new proposed algorithm. The results show that the study method can more intuitively and effectively quantify the temporal and spatial distribution of regional collision risks in the restricted sea area. The proposed method can improve the efficiency of traffic management when monitoring the ship collision risks in macroscopic view, and assist the safety of manned and unmanned ship navigation.

The potential effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on learnings.

In this paper, we use a new database for Mexico to model the possible long-run effects of the pandemic on learning. First, based on the framework of Neidhöffer et al. (2021), we estimate the loss of schooling due to the transition from in-person to remote learning using data from the National Survey on Social Mobility (ESRU-EMOVI-2017), census data, and national statistics of COVID-19 incidence. In this estimation, we account for the attenuation capacity of households by econsidering the parental educational attainment and the economic resources available to the household in the calculation of the short-run cost. Secondly, we estimate the potential long-run consequences of this shock through a calibrated learning profile for five Mexican regions following Kaffenberger and Pritchett (2020a, 2020b). Assuming the distance learning policy adopted by the Mexican government is entirely effective, our results indicate that a learning loss equivalent to the learning during a third of a school year in the short run translates into a learning loss equivalent to an entire school year further up the educational career of students. On the other hand, if the policy was ineffective, the short-run loss increases to an entire school year and becomes a loss of two years of learning in the long run. Our results suggest substantial variation at the regional level, with the most affected region, the South experiencing a loss thrice as large as that of the least affected region, the Centre region.

Regional Disparities and Influencing Factors of Eco-Efficiency of Arable Land Utilization in China

Eco-efficiency of arable land utilization (EALU) emphasizes efficient coordination between land use systems and ecosystems. It is therefore of great significance for agricultural sustainability based on the systematic assessment of EALU. This study took carbon emissions and non-point source pollution resulting from arable land utilization into the measurement system of EALU, and a super-SBM model, kernel density estimation and Tobit regression model were used to analyze regional differences and influencing factors of EALU for 31 provinces in China from 2000 to 2019. The results showed that there was an upward trend in EALU in China from 0.4393 in 2000 to 0.8929 in 2019, with an average annual growth rate of 4.01%. At the regional level, the EALU of three categories of grain functional areas generally maintains an increasing trend, with the highest average value of EALU in main grain marketing areas (MGMAs), followed by grain producing and marketing balance areas (GPMBAs) and main grain producing areas (MGPAs). There are obvious differences in EALU among provinces, and the number of provinces with high eco-efficiency has increased significantly, showing a spatial distribution pattern of “block” clustering. In terms of dynamic evolution, kernel density curves reflect the evolution of EALU in China and grain functional areas with different degrees of polarization characteristics. The results of Tobit regression show that natural conditions, financial support for agriculture, science and technology inputs, level of industrialization, agricultural mechanization, and the living standards of farmers are significant factors resulting in regional disparities of EALU. Therefore, this study proposes the implementation of differentiated arable land use/agricultural management strategies to improve the sustainable utilization of arable land.

Study on the Agricultural Air Pollution Aggravated by the Rural Labor Migration

In recent years, air pollution has received serious concerns from researchers, media, and the public sectors, but air pollution from agricultural production activities has not received enough attention. This paper focuses on agricultural air pollution in central China, which is aggravated by the ongoing rural labor migration trend. With a set of panel data released from Hubei and Hunan provinces in China, we adopt the mediating effect model to explore the relationship between rural labor migration and air pollution caused by agricultural activity in China. First, we use the inventory analysis method and principal component analysis method to calculate the comprehensive index of the air pollution of agriculture in 152 counties and districts from Hubei and Hunan provinces, and we empirically test the impact of labor migration on air pollution with a mediating effect model as well as carry out regional heterogeneity analysis on the pollution effect of these two provinces mentioned above. The analysis above indicates that the increase of labor migration has intensified the comprehensive index of air pollution caused by agricultural activity by changing the supply of labor force in the agricultural sector, the budget line of rural residents, and the scale of agricultural production and crop planting structure, but there is a difference in the indirect total effect between the two provinces mentioned above according to our regional heterogeneity analysis. This study is a necessary extension to studies on alleviating and controlling air pollution in China.

TOURISM IN COVID-19 PANDEMIC: CONSEQUENCES AND THE WAY FORWARD3

COVID-19 pandemic emerged as a shock to the world, leading it towards an unprecedented socioeconomic crisis. Amongst all the sectors of the global economy, tourism was hit the hardest. Non-pharmaceutical interventions put in place to curb the spread of the disease, deeply impacted the activities in the global tourism community. Owing to the pandemic, the global community is being pushed into a recession. Tourism is crucial to the economic recovery of the world. Therefore, this study focuses on examining the consequences of the pandemic on the global tourism sector. Since tourism does not work in isolation and is intertwined with its associated sectors, the study considers the impact of the pandemic on aviation, hotel and accommodation and MSMEs in tourism. For this purpose, a regional analysis has been conducted. The findings reveal that the Asia-Pacific region has been consistently performing poorly in terms of tourism-related indicators. Europe stood second in place. However, during the resurgence of the second wave and new variants of the virus, it kept on switching places with the Asia-Pacific region. Tourism is considered to be a resilient sector as it bounces back to the pre-crisis levels eventually. However, the evolving nature of the pandemic has created huge difficulties for the sector to start its recovery. Hence the paper also discusses the future of travel in the next normal. © 2022, Bulgarska Akademiya na Naukite. All rights reserved.

Business formation during the coronavirus pandemic. A regional analysis considering knowledge and technological intensity

The topic of business formation is especially relevant today when humankind faces the biggest global crisis since World War II. The protection of jobs and workers is vital, and a plethora of measures have been implemented since the outburst of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Remote activity interactions, whether forced or voluntary, shaped the economic landscape, restructured organizations, and reallocated the workforce across industries. In such context, this study investigates the dynamics of business formation in Romania throughout the first year of the coronavirus pandemic. Business formation registered significant growth in the second half of 2020, surpassing the level of the previous year. The analysis is performed at regional level, for 42 administrative regions, considering the intensity of knowledge and technology levels of industries in which new business was formed, according to the Eurostat classification of industries. The score of Knowledge and Technology Intensity (KTIRS) is calculated at regional level. The clustering of regions resulted in 6 cluster templates, given the industrial structure of new business formation. © 2021, Bucharest University of Economic Studies. All rights reserved.

Assessing the impact of COVID-19 on major industries in Japan: A dynamic conditional correlation approach.

This study assesses the impact of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases on the Japanese stock market. As of October 30, 2020, the cumulative number of cases in Japan has reached over one hundred thousand. COVID-19 has significantly affected both the lifestyle and the economy in Japan. First, this study develops composite stock indices by industry sector and prefecture, taking into consideration the effects of the increase in infections on industries and firms in the core prefectures. Second, this study investigates the dynamic conditional correlations between the composite stock index returns and the increment in COVID-19 cases using dynamic conditional correlation multivariate GARCH models. Finally, it can contribute to financial research in terms of coexistence of regional business economies with COVID-19.