Tourism Economics: Life after Death?

1995 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 329-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Tribe

Paul Omerod's recent book, The Death of Economics, provides the background to this paper. As Omerod's book laments the state of mainstream economics it seems an appropriate time to subject economics for tourism degrees to similar critical scrutiny. There has been a rapid growth in institutions offering degrees in tourism, from none in 1985 to 40 and rising by 1995, and economics has generally been part of the package on offer to students. This paper starts by outlining three serious challenges to economics both as a discipline and as educational knowledge for tourism students. It then examines how the educational package of economics is framed, and from this concludes that economics courses may arise more from accident (or inertia) than design, or that the design may not be appropriate for current needs. It therefore suggests that there is considerable scope for the re-framing of introductory economics for tourism students. In the light of the criticisms of economics expressed in the first section, a model curriculum for tourism economics is proposed, and ways in which such a model might be promoted and developed are explored.

2013 ◽  
pp. 108-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Grebnev

The paper provides a justification of the laws of supply and demand using the concept of a marginal firm (technology) for the case of perfect competition.The ideological factor of excessive attention to the analysis of marginal parameters at the firm level in the introductory economics courses is discussed. The author connects these issues to the ideas of J. B. Clark and gives an alternative treatment of exploitation.


Author(s):  
Tom L. Green

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to explore sustainability commitments’ potential implications for the curriculum of introductory economics courses. Universities have signed the Talloires Declaration, committing themselves to promoting students’ environmental literacy and ecological citizenship, thereby creating pressure to integrate sustainability across the curriculum. Design/methodology/approach – A case study approach involving qualitative research methods and the three largest public universities in British Columbia, Canada, was used. As one component of a larger study, 11 of the 19 economists who delivered the course over the study period were interviewed. The theoretical framework was informed by ecological economics scholarship on how mainstream economic thought represents environment-economy linkages. Findings – Findings suggest that universities’ sustainability commitments have not influenced principles of economics curriculum. Sustainability is not salient to lecturers; prospects that mainstream economics departments will integrate sustainability into curriculum in a timely manner without external pressure appear limited. Practical implications – While institutions often enthusiastically report on courses that contribute to students’ ecological literacy, identifying curriculum that may confound student understanding of sustainability receives less emphasis. Introductory economics courses appear to merit scrutiny from this perspective. Originality/value – About 40 per cent of North American university students take an introductory economics course, relatively few take more advanced economics courses. This course, thus, teaches many students economic theory and the economics profession’s approach to evaluating public policy, and has potential to contribute to knowledge of sustainability. Few studies examine how undergraduate economics curriculum addresses sustainability.


2014 ◽  
Vol 60 ◽  
pp. 50-54
Author(s):  
Chryssanthi Papadopoulou

In his recent book The Ancient Harbours of the Piraeus I.1, Bjorn Lovén notes that archaeological investigation of the Classical naval installations in the Piraeus goes back almost as far as the discipline of archaeology in the modern Greek state (Lovén 2011: 15). This enduring archaeological interest in the Piraeus installations is not some ungrounded fascination, but rests on the importance of these facilities not only for the Piraeus, but for the whole of Classical Athens. The commission of these installations was an integral part of a Classical building programme that saw the construction of triremes and the fortification of the Piraeus peninsula. As Vincent Gabrielsen (2007: 256–57) has shown, the building of warships is not necessarily synonymous with the construction of a navy. The latter implies the centralization of war reserves by the city-state and the provision of infrastructure (naval facilities and walls to protect both these facilities and the ships stationed in them), and it would be essential for the state to maintain and operate these resources. Investigations of the Piraeus shipsheds therefore shed light not only on the size of Athenian triremes, but also on the overall planning and works undertaken by the Athenian state in Classical times, in order to command and sustain a large navy.


2006 ◽  
pp. 13-19
Author(s):  
A.T. Schedrin

Philosophical and anthropological explorations of the state of modern culture testify to its crisis nature, connected with the acceleration of the processes of radical change of civilizational type of development. The need for a radical reform of the foundations of the future existence of society becomes evident. Lack of understanding of the real means of such reformation leads to the total disregard for the possibilities of the mind. One of its manifestations is the rapid growth of new and unconventional religions and occult-mystical currents; significant revival of the "secondary" myth-making (in particular, naturalistic, socio-technical); the spread of quasi-religious beliefs and infidelities; overall growth of mystical moods. The study of this aspect of the crisis of modern civilization is an urgent philosophical, religious, cultural and cultural problem.


2021 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-324
Author(s):  
Sergei J. Maslikov

Experts studying antique astronomic instruments are well aware of a small class of so-called portable sundials from the Roman Empire. Over the past few decades, they have been considered in several important publications, including a recent book by Richard J. A. Talbert, in which he systematized the available information. Talbert and earlier J. V. Field described eight portable sundials of a “geographical” type, dating from about 2nd–4th centuries. Five are inscribed in Greek, the other three in Latin. The list of Greek dials also contains a dial from Memphis, information about which has been very scarce so far. Some authors even considered it lost. Fortunately, this instrument is stored in the collection of the State Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg) and now we have an opportunity to study it more closely.


Author(s):  
Mark Whitehead ◽  
Rhys Jones ◽  
Martin Jones

To talk about technology when exploring the relationship between states and nature may seem paradoxical. The paradoxical nature of this assignment is twofold. First, many argue that to speak of the technological is to speak of the anti-political—here technology is understood not as something of the state, but as an external arena that can simultaneously be used by the government to verify its policies, or, if unchecked, undermine the governing capacities of politicians (Barry 2001: ch. 1). Others claim that technology is the antithesis of nature—if nature is the un-produced eternal substratum of existence, technology is a socio-cultural artefact, a fragment of produced nature and a mechanism for ecological transformation (Luke 1996). Despite this apparent conundrum, this chapter argues that technology provides a crucial basis upon which many of the interplays between the state and nature continue to be expressed. Within his recent book on the links between states, government, and technologies—Political Machines—Andrew Barry (2001: 9) suggests that we need to think of technologies in two related but distinct ways. He argues that our first recourse when considering technologies is often to technological devices—or those labour-saving and labour-enhancing gadgets, tools, instruments, and gizmos that make new socio-economic practices possible and speed-up existing exercises (see also Harvey 2002). Secondly, Barry discerns a broader understanding of technology, which incorporates a wider set of procedures, rules, and calculations in and through which a technological device is animated and put to use. In this chapter we explore the technological devices and supporting technological infrastructures through which the contemporary politics of state– nature relations are being played out. We interpret the role of technology within state–nature relations in two main ways. First, we explore the ways in which various technologies have been synthesized with and within the state apparatuses in order to enhance governments’ capacities to manage nature. The role of technology in facilitating the governance of nature can be conceived of at a number of levels. It can, for example, be related to a Marxist reading of technologies as tools/machines deployed in the physical transformation of the natural world (Harvey 2002: 534).


1984 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. H. Port

‘The rapid growth of wealth, especially among the classes of the greatest activity and enterprise, has led, for a number of years past, to a diminished watchfulness, outside the walls of Parliament, respecting the great and cardinal subject of economy in the public charges, and the relation between the income of the State and its expenditure. I earnesdy desire that the paramount interest of the lately enfranchised classes in thrifty administration may operate powerfully to bring about a change.’ So Gladstone trumpeted the leitmotif of his administration, at the outset of the general election campaign in October 1868. The fundamental importance of fiscal strategy in Gladstone's politics has recently been emphasized. Faced with an ineluctable increase in civil expenditure and rising expectations of governmental contributions to the public weal – what he termed ‘scattering grants at the solicitation of individuals and classes’, the system of ‘making things pleasant all round’ and stimulating ‘local cupidity to feed upon the public purse’ – Gladstone was determined that his ministry, backed as he believed by the votes of the thrifty working classes, should reduce such expectations. ‘I t is the special duty of public men’, he told his constituents soon after taking office, ‘to watch the very beginnings of evil’ in regard to any relaxing of the general principles of economy and thrift; and he promised to reduce expenditure in the coming year.


2016 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 300-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Happ ◽  
Olga Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia ◽  
Susanne Schmidt

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