Jerome Massiani (p)

Mega events are increasingly perceived as an opportunity to foster regional development. Yet existing methods exhibit strong limitations. The most influential method, IO appears based on discussible implicit assumptions like the assumed additionality of the financial flows related to the event, or the lack of constraints on resources. In this context, CGE methods experience a growing popularity in the evaluation of mega event impacts.
In this paper we present a systematic and critical review of more than 20 papers in the field. We examine the main conceptual issues of these papers and set up a simulation model where we propose to correct each issue individually. Specifically, we consider the following issues
• A package rather than as a tourism manna. In many applications, mega events are represented through a costless tourism flow increase. This is not conforming to reality where the potential tourism benefits are part of a wider package that entails rights and obligations.
• Substitution effects of private consumption should be considered cautiously. In most situations, the expenditure of local population on the mega event good is measured, with some degrees of certainty, from external data sources. The important question is which alternative consumption do these expenditures substitute.
• A potentially negative impact of the mega event on public capital. Mega events require the provision of infrastructures, some of which of dubious interest for the hosting community. Additionally, such infrastructures are provided at increased costs compared with regular infrastructure provision. So elaborating on this stream of research, CGE analysis of mega events could, with due reconnaissance for the specificities of a given situation, consider how such events affect public capital.
• A strong sectorial concentration. The initial mega event shock concentrates its direct impacts on a limited number of sectors, typically, construction lodging and other tourism related goods. A model that does not provide sufficient sectorial decomposition may provide wrong estimates.
• A peculiar time pattern: event visitors. As far as tourism impacts are considered it could be misguiding to deny its peculiar time concentration. The general annual periodicity used by typical CGE are not suitable to represent phenomenon with such a time patter.
Based on these calculations we provide suggestions on where CGE analysts should concentrate their efforts to better estimate the real economic impacts of mega events.

Raquel Langarita (p), Geoffrey Hewings, Rosa Duarte, Julio Sánchez-Chóliz

Given the importance of the electricity for the functioning of any economy as well as concerns about the energy dependence, traditional issues in the Spanish electricity system, such as the low competition among the firms in this sector, the tariff deficit or several changes in the legal framework, become critical in the current raising competitive world. In combination, analysts have shown that they have resulted in high prices of electricity, higher than the average of the European Union. In addition, another important characteristic of the electricity sector in Spain is that imports and exports are really low.
In terms of these challenges, the European Commission has stated several objectives for the next years as part of its strategy of sustainable growth in countries, also in line with other international commitments (for instance, the Paris Agreements, 2015). These objectives represent important challenges for the Spanish electricity system. In this context, this paper addresses the economic and environmental effects of three scenarios: (1) regarding the low trade with the rest of Europe, increasing the integration with the European network; (2) taking into account the environmental sustainability, increasing the use of renewable energy sources, while decreasing the use of brown energy sources; (3) increasing the competitiveness of the Spanish electricity sector.
For that, we develop a computable general equilibrium model, with 72 productive sectors, ten of which are energy sectors, three consumers and two productive factors. Using a nested production function, we distinguish between electricity and non-electric energy. Electricity is divided into generation from wind, nuclear, conventional thermal, solar and other types and hydropower, transmission, distribution, commercialization and related activities. The non-electric energy is divided into gas and coke and petroleum. Demand is also separated into energy and non-energy commodities, as well as energy for households, for transport and electricity. The model is calibrated on a previously developed social accounting matrix with this detailed disaggregation for Spain for 2013.
Preliminary results suggest that the electricity subsectors are heterogeneous because not all the sectors are affected in the same way nor in the same sense. Preliminary results also suggest that there exists a great interaction between imports and exports and total production, potential increases in welfare and reduction in prices. Environmental effects of moving in that direction are also evaluated.

Tom McDermott (p), Guy Michaels , Yatang Lin

In this paper we study how much construction has taken place on coastal flood plains in the US in recent decades, in which locations, and why. Coastal areas offer many advantages and attract concentrations of economic activity, but some parts of the coast are particularly prone to flooding, and as sea levels rise so too will the flood risk. As Kydland and Prescott (1977) discuss in their Nobel Prize winning contribution, this flood risk is partly borne by taxpayers. In recent years the Federal government has paid tens of billions of dollars of subsidies, in the form of investment in flood defenses, subsidized insurance, and recovery assistance in the aftermath of floods. These costs are likely to increase further over time; the US Atlantic and Gulf coasts experienced some of the fastest rates of local sea level rise in the world during the 20th century, and this trend is expected to significantly raise the frequency and severity of floods. To make matters worse, the National Flood Insurance Program suffers from a number of deficiencies, and is widely thought to underestimate flood risk, with the result that payouts have exceeded premiums and large debts have accumulated. Of particular concern is the flood risk mapping process, which affects flood insurance premiums, and does not account for anticipated future changes in risk. To study these issues, we use high resolution data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. These include data on land cover change from 1996-2010, based on satellite imagery, combined with official maps of current flood risk and detailed maps showing areas expected to be inundated for various levels of future sea level rise. These allow us to study the rates of development in particularly risky parts of the US coast across time and space, and to investigate some of their causes.

Kasturi Mukherjee (p), Pannalal Das

In the process of rapid land use change, the city compels the urbanized area to sprawl and engulf the surrounding landscape. Therefore, a region which was once rural gets converted into fringe and ultimately incorporated within the urban built-up. Uncontrolled structural change of a city by inclusion of non urban landscape within the urban areas is responsible for environmental degradation. Prevention of environmental dilapidation, demands the proper demarcation of fringe. The concept of ‘fringe’ suffers from a problem of not having any universally accepted definition and methodology of demarcation.
In this study attempts have been made to delineate the fringe, happens to develop within the administrative boundary of a mono centric city, based on i) land use diversity and ii) social behaviour of the populace. Application is demonstrated in a case study area of Barasat Municipality, West Bengal, India.
Land use pattern and its quantified evenness in distribution within a landscape can be an indicative factor of fringe identification. Both rural and urban core will have homogenous nature of land use. As the transitional area encompasses mixed fragmented land use, there always will be an increasing tendency of heterogeneity. In this paper, the land use diversity is mapped by using Shannon Diversity Index (SDI). For this purpose on the optimal scale obtained, total of 186 cells covering the entire study area is created. If a cell crosses the expert defined diversity threshold value then only it will be labeled as fringe, else will be counted in core.
Social behavior of the residents of the sample cells has been used for estimating accuracy of this crisp classification of core and fringe. Significant differences found in dress, habits, literacy and livelihood earning of the residents, indicates various degree of urbanism in the study area. It has been observed that the result derived from the study of behavioral pattern presents some false positive and false negative errors along the edges of fringe. Two different cells can be discernible in diversity context but indiscernible in social framework. Therefore, rough set theory is used to express the imprecision in boundary region by constructing the upper and lower approximations.
The upper segment of the upper boundary is certainly classified as fringe and the lower segment of the lower boundary is certainly classified as core. The unclassified cells are considered as “possible fringe”.