The aim of this study is to present a novel measure of which pairs of human-made factors are most threatening to a Cultural World Heritage Site when time as well as its characteristics, including location, are controlled for. A system of Probit equations is employed on information from the UNESCO State of Conservation and World Heritage databases on the nine most frequently reported external threats (housing, tourism, transportation, destruction, illegal activities, land conversion, accommodation supply, loss of identity and war and civil unrest). This allows an analysis that covers all sites, with 22,190 observations over a time period of 45 years. Threats from war and civil unrest, destruction of heritage and illegal activities all appear in pairs and are strongly correlated with each other. There are also high positive correlations between threats from housing and land conversion, tourism and housing, accommodation and transportation as well as tourism and accommodation. Until 2009, there is an increase in the probability of threats, after that, stagnation is observed. Cultural World Heritage Sites in Africa and the Arab countries face the highest risk of a reported threat. Based on the novel measure, a second step of the analysis employing fixed-effects Logit estimations reveals that threats from tourism, housing and transportation are more seldom identified if the site in question has a management plan.

This study investigates the interdependencies of commitments to Sustainable Development Goals as reported by travel and leisure firms active in the United Nations Global Compact Programme. Descriptive statistics reveal that SDG 8 ‘economic growth and decent jobs’ (88%), SDG 13 ‘climate action’ and SDG 5 ‘gender equality’ (SDG 5) (78% each) as well as SDG 12 sustainable production and consumption (75%) are the goals most commonly committed to. Estimation results from the multivariate probit model show that a firm committing to one SDG will likely also dedicate itself to another. Thus, there is a strong positive correlation between the commitments to SDGs 8 and 13, as well as between the SDGs 5 and 8. This indicates that SDG 8 and SDG 13, on the one hand and SDG 5 and SDG 8, on the other, are not seen as contradictory by the firms.

In this study, a novel measure of interest in all (264) natural or mixed World Heritage sites sourced from an online platform is contrasted with the degree and number of threats as formally identified by the UNESCO (in its State of Conservation database) and the IUCN (in its Conservation Outlook Assessment reporting), when typical site characteristics are accounted for. Information on TripAdvisor reviews is the digitally sourced measure, and the site characteristics originate from the UNESCO World Heritage database including size, year of inscription, kind of site as well as a distinction between mixed and fully natural sites. Results reveal that the number of reviews and threats both relate to years of inscription, kind of site and to a certain extent continent. The degree of threat reacts to all site characteristics except continent. The analysis reveals that TripAdvisor measures the popularity of the site, although this does not automatically mean that it is also threatened.

This study investigates the characteristics and patterns of various kinds of threats to Intangible Cultural Heritage. Data originate from the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage database, which, besides the 796 inscriptions, holds 863 threats across the world since 2008. One out of five Intangible Heritage elements is identified as threatened, most commonly due to a lack of practice or transmission across generations or socioeconomic aspects. Environmental hazards are seldom identified as threats. Based on Probit and count data models, the results reveal that the likelihood and number of threats are mainly associated with geographic location and the year of inscription. Intangible Heritage in Europe and North America is the least exposed, while the opposite situation prevails in Africa. Early additions to the safeguarding list are more threatened. Once a threat has been identified, it rarely occurs in isolation, with internal and socio-economic threats being the most common pairings.

This study investigates empirically if access to high-speed broadband infrastructure is of importance for the supply of accommodation establishments across all 290 municipalities in Sweden. Control factors include time, population growth and road density. Disaggregated data from several official registers are linked together for the analysis covering the years 2011-2023. Results from the fixed effects Poisson estimations with spatial lags show that there is a significant and positive relationship between the number of hotels and cottage villages on the one hand and the high-speed broadband access on the other, although no associations are found with hostels, conference facilities or camping sites. The significant relationship is nonlinear, indicating increasing returns above a certain threshold. Strongest effects appear for cottage villages, as well as municipalities close to ski resorts or in decline. A spatial dependency exists for the hotels and high-speed broadband access.

This study examines the membership duration of travel and leisure (tourism) firms in the United Nations Global Compact Sustainability Reporting Programme between 2007 and 2020. Important factors of duration include firm characteristics (such as size and ownership) as well as contextual country-specific elements relating to environmental progress and control of corruption. Data originate from 693 member firms entering the programme at any point during the analysis period. Estimation results, based on the Cox proportional hazard model, show that tourism firms in countries that decouple emissions from economic growth are more likely to endure in the programme. A high level of corruption control in the home country is also associated with a significantly higher probability of membership duration. Larger firms, publicly listed firms and members of local Global Compact networks are also more likely to remain in the programme. Control of corruption is only important for duration outside the OECD; meanwhile, environmental performance at the country level is crucial independent of location. Environmental performance is particularly significant in more recent years, in parallel with an accelerated green transition in many countries.

Since 2012, there are four different electricity price zones in Sweden, although not until 2021 a clear deviating development can be identified. The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of the regional electricity price divergence starting in 2021 on the demand for solar photovoltaic installations in municipalities in the Southern and Central parts of Sweden. Methodologically, the analysis employs a panel Poisson estimator that accounts for the skewed distribution of the dependent variables including zero values. Data include all 290 municipalities from 2016 to 2023. Estimation results show that the increase in electricity prices in the South of Sweden leads to a surge in the number of solar photovoltaic (PV) installations of 25 % per year from 2021 onwards on average relative to the low-price zone in the North of Sweden and the base period 2016 to 2020. In the case of Central Sweden which is also in the high price zone, the estimates show an increase of 15 % per year on average. Thus, the findings suggest that households react to price incentives by trying to be independent of the electricity market and its fluctuating prices. Similar results are achieved when the installed capacity in megawatts is used as a dependent variable instead of the number of installations. Rising electricity prices explain less than half of the increase in demand for solar photovoltaics over time. A vast majority is related to the time effects.

This study contributes an empirical investigation of the likelihood that different external threats to a UNESCO Natural World Heritage Site occur in combination with each other when site characteristics and location are controlled for. For the purpose of the analysis, the World Heritage database and the UNESCO State of Conservation Reports are used and the nine most frequently appearing external threats are identified. These databases include 6852 site-year observations and 3316 threats over the period 1979–2023. The most commonly identified external threats are illegal activities, with eleven percent of all observations and mining with six percent. Transport infrastructure, tourism and visitor pressure are also common threats. Estimation results based on the multivariate Probit (equation system) model demonstrate that there are strong positive correlations between many pairs of the nine external threats. Most apparent are the links between illegal activities and loss of identity, social cohesion, changes in local population and community, water infrastructure (dams) and farming, as well as illegal activities and land conversion. There are also clear links between tourism and infrastructure. This emphasises that the various threats seldom appear in isolation from each other. Results also highlight that the threats have different drivers. Among the determinants, site characteristics and location are the most important ones. The likelihood of threats is highest for Natural Heritage Sites covered by forests or those in marine and coastal areas, Africa as well as the Arab region. It is also possible to identify a general increase in threats over time, although with a diminishing rate of growth towards the period 2015–2019. Contrary to this development and the general downturn in threats during the Covid-19 pandemic period of 2020–2023, pressure from tourism continues to grow. Methodologically, the results emphasize the need for multivariate Probit models when research goes beyond analyses of descriptive statistics and single equation approaches.

This study on regional development investigates if digital transformation is a means to attract innovative establishments to municipalities. By doing so, the relationship between the availability of high-speed broadband close by and the number of innovative establishments (workplaces) across all 290 municipalities in Sweden is explored. Panel data for eleven years (2010-2021) originate from official registers. Results based on Fixed Effects Poisson estimations including spatially weighted variables indicate that the digital transformation in the guise of high-speed broadband access is important for ICT (micro) establishments and those in declining municipalities, although the proportion of highly skilled inhabitants renders stronger estimates. For high technology and R&D establishments, access to high-speed broadband is not a relevant location factor. The estimates are robust to endogeneity as tested by the control function approach.