José-Miguel Giner Pérez (p), Juan-Carlos Vicedo Beltrán

Vicente Royuela

Funded by the European Structural Funds (EFF in 2007-2013, EMFF in 2014-2020 and EMFAF in 2021-2027), Fisheries Local Action Groups (FLAGs) help fisheries and coastal communities identify and prioritize the challenges they should tackle, and the opportunities they should seize, to make their area a better place to live and work.
FLAGs are partnerships between fisheries actors and other local private and public stakeholders. They design and implement a local development strategy to address their area´s needs, be they economic, social and/or environmental. Based on their strategy, the FLAGs select and provide funding to local projects that contribute to local development in their areas. The themes addressed by these projects include adding value to fisheries, diversification, environment, governance, and society and culture.
Literature on FLAGs and their impact on fisheries areas has grown in recent years. For example, studies have focused on the role of FLAGs in establishing co-management models, the possibility of establishing links between professional and recreational fishing through FLAGs and how FLAGs have cooperated on specific issues in the Baltic. Some studies have focused on specific FLAGs in Italy, France and the UK, while others have analyzed the impact of the program at a national level, i.e. Poland and Spain. At European level, research has focused on the impact of FLAGs in specific contexts such as how FLAGs support small-scale coastal fisheries and the role of women in fisheries communities identify the ways in which FLAGs support women in fisheries. While the literature on FLAGs is broad, they are largely qualitative, and focus on only one aspect; for example, the conflict of natural resources management, governance, diversification, gender or case specific local development strategies.
The purpose of this paper is to quantitatively evaluate the impact of the FLAGs policy on the development of coastal economies in Spain. Therefore, the influence of FLAGs on employment dynamics and on sectoral structure change (specialization versus diversification) of these areas is analyzed. Based on the construction of a geo-referenced database for the Spanish FLAGs, statistical tests are used to identify differences in the dynamics (FLAGs versus Non-FLAGs areas). Positive employment growth and higher productive specialization-diversification would confirm the impact of the FLAGs policy for blue local development. Furthermore, a multivariate model is used to analyze the contextual conditions that can explain better local dynamics in FLAGs areas.

Yuval Arbel (p)

José-Miguel Giner Pérez

Population growth, urban densification and shortage of available land make the construction of tall buildings increasingly prevalent. Given the world population growth, the volume of high-rise construction is steadily rising. Previous literature identifies skyscrapers as a potential source of negative externalities due to their high carbon footprints, and negative environmental features (reduction of sun light and wind-tunnel effects). The current study is the first to provide evidence supporting the notion that skyscrapers may also be considered a source of a positive externality. Based on data from 50 US states over a 19-year period (1999–2017), we demonstrate projected connection between the prevalence of melanoma and high-rise construction per state.
This result might be attributed to the shadier environment created by these structures. Findings suggest that the annual projected increase in melanoma cases may be offset by approximately 53 additional high-rise buildings per state. Research findings may be of assistance to city planner. Potential saving associated with reduction of melanoma prevalence in terms of lost productivity and life lost should be considered. In addition, Caucasians
with above 50 nevi as well as those with a personal or family history of melanoma should be encouraged to live in urban environments with tall buildings.

Simón Sánchez-Moral (p), Alfonso Arellano (p), Pablo Ramirez, Roberto Diez-Pisonero

Yuval Arbel

Exploring telework options and changes in place of residence in the region of Madrid during the pandemic. Recent studies have confirmed that the pandemic caused significant changes in internal migration patterns around large urban areas in different geographic contexts. In the case of Madrid, an increase in the negative net balance of the central city has been documented, with a decrease in arrivals from other urban areas of the country and an increase in emigration flows to the suburbs and especially to rural areas (thus reinforcing counter-urbanization trends). As in other large urban areas, the temporal condition of these alterations is being discussed. In this context, this research aims to contribute in two directions. First, it studies the changes of residence in the Madrid region during the pandemic and its permanence, with special attention to the migration patterns from/to the central city of Madrid. Second, the role of distance to the core city of Madrid and the population density of the destinations is explored, also incorporating the propensity to telework as an explanatory factor. The study is based on the analysis of changes in place of residence between 2019 and 2021, collected by the Residential Variation Statistics compiled by the National Statistics Institute (INE). Additional information from Madrid city council has been also examined. This information is used to calculate out-migration, in-migration and net-migration rates. On the other hand, information on workers' affiliation statistics collected from the Social Security is used to estimate the population's propensity to telework.

Alessia Matano, Moisés Obaco, Vicente Royuela (p)

Alfonso Arellano

Slums represent one of the challenges of urbanization in developing economies. This paper analyzes the relationship between slums, urban population, and city expansion in Ecuadorian cities between 1990 and 2010. In particular, we define a slum severity index based on a set of household characteristics such as housing material, basic services, and overcrowding rate and we focus on the growth of territorial extension of cities occurred between the 1990-2001-2010 censuses using historical maps to define the territorial extension of urban areas across periods. We use a two step-methodology to analyze this relationship and perform IV estimates to handle the endogeneity of the relationship. Our results point out that, while in general terms larger cities present a lower level of deprivation with respect to smaller cities, in newly created areas it happens the opposite, i.e. newly created areas present higher slum characteristics in larger cities. The analysis of the drivers suggests urban poverty as the main determinant behind the detected results, while both rural-urban migration and faster urban population growth seems to play a minor role.