https://hdl.handle.net/10481/30110 2026-04-20T07:51:47Z https://hdl.handle.net/10481/112718 Agricultural Entrepreneurship Among Rural Youth in Europe: A Pathway to Resilience in Times of Crisis Rodríguez Molina, Mercedes; Molina Belmonte, Jesús; Camacho Ballesta, José Antonio; Navarro Valverde, Francisco Antonio; Cejudo García, Eugenio Rural youth are increasingly seen as crucial actors in addressing the structural challenges that European agriculture currently faces. This study explores agricultural entrepreneurship among young people aged 15 to 30 living in rural areas as a possible route towards resilience and rural revitalisation. Drawing on harmonised microdata from Flash Eurobarometer 513, we combine a territorial comparison with an ordered logistic regression to analyse both sectoral preferences and the individual drivers of agricultural entrepreneurship. The results reveal that rural youth tend to show stronger entrepreneurial aspirations and a more pronounced interest in the agrarian sector than their peers in urban areas or towns. Gender, employment status, and national context emerge as significant determinants of their involvement in agricultural entrepreneurship. Taken together, these findings underline the importance of inclusive and place-sensitive policies capable of enabling rural youth to shape sustainable futures within their own communities. https://hdl.handle.net/10481/109651 Blockchain and other determinants of the financial attractiveness of tourism enterprises at the regional level: a proposal for a synthetic fundraising indicator Prados Castillo, Juan Francisco; Salinas Fernández, José Antonio; Casas Jurado, Amalia Cristina This study evaluates the key factors influencing non-traditional financing in the tourism industry as an alternative to traditional bank financing. It explores whether companies using Blockchain technology or integrating it into their processes are more likely to secure investments. Two significant contributions are made: proposing variables that enhance financial attractiveness in tourism and examining whether companies adopting Blockchain attract more investment. Using a sample of 1,327 tourism companies from Crunchbase, this study develops five indicators and constructs a synthetic indicator using the P2 distance method. The results reveal that tourism companies incorporating Blockchain are more likely to secure financing, influencing regional financing capabilities, and enhancing appeal to private investors. The Synthetic Indicator of Fund Raising offers a novel tool for assessing investment potential globally, providing insights into financial attractiveness across regions and highlighting the role of advanced technologies, such as Blockchain, in securing private investments. https://hdl.handle.net/10481/109329 Individual, household and institutional level predictors of waste sorting: Evidence for Ecuador Toledo, Elisa; Camacho, José Antonio; Rodríguez Molina, Mercedes; Alvarado, Rafael The rapid increase in waste generation in developing countries presents significant challenges, necessitating effective waste management strategies. This study examines the influence of individual, household and institutional factors on waste sorting behaviours in Ecuador, employing an ordered logistic regression model. Data were sourced from the 2019 National Multipurpose Household Survey (NMHS) and the Census of Economic Environmental Information in Decentralised Autonomous Governments (CEEIGAD). The NMHS uses a two-stage probabilistic sampling methodology, with census sectors as the primary sampling units and households as the secondary units. After excluding outliers and selecting individuals aged 15–65 years, the final sample consisted of 8601 households, including 26,175 individuals. The findings reveal that personal attributes such as gender, ethnicity, age, marital status and environmental concern significantly influence waste sorting behaviours. Household characteristics, including urban or rural location, are also critical. Institutional factors, such as municipal regulations, waste collection fees and waste separation at source, play essential roles in promoting waste separation. The study highlights the necessity for targeted governmental policies. Recommendations include improving environmental education, increasing sorting infrastructure in urban areas and ensuring waste collection systems maintain the separation of waste streams. https://hdl.handle.net/10481/108504 Quantifying service sector waste: insights from the Spanish economy Rodríguez Molina, Mercedes; Camacho Ballesta, José Antonio Global waste generation is projected to rise significantly in the coming decades, with high-income countries contributing disproportionately to per capita waste production. While the European Union’s Circular Economy Action Plans prioritize resource-intensive sectors, the service sector’s contributions to waste generation remain underexplored. This study offers a detailed assessment of waste generation in Spain, distinguishing between direct and indirect contributions as well as their domestic and foreign origins, with a particular focus on disaggregated data for service activities. By employing environmentally extended input–output modeling, this study quantifies not only the direct waste produced by service industries but also the substantial indirect waste embedded in their supply chains, thereby revealing the full extent of the sector’s contribution to national waste generation. While service industries generate relatively low levels of direct waste, the results reveal a substantial indirect footprint driven by upstream supply chains. These findings underscore the need to integrate disaggregated service sector data into waste accounting systems and to align circular economy policies with the sector’s full environmental impact. Building on these findings, this study contributes valuable knowledge of the service sector’s role in waste generation and highlights key areas for future research aimed at fostering sustainable economic practices. Funding for open access publishing: Universidad de Granada/CBUA. https://hdl.handle.net/10481/107698 Dynamic spatio-temporal modelling of tourism impact on income inequality and polarization: Inbound and domestic flows in the EU Llorca Rodríguez, Carmen María; Casas Jurado, Amalia Cristina; García Fernández, Rosa María; Chica-Olmo, Jorge Concern about income distribution has spread worldwide owing to its connections with social unrest and conflict. For this reason, the European Union (EU) pays special attention to its Cohesion Policy, thus fulfilling its commitment to equity and ensuring its own economic, social and political sustainability. This paper aims to assess the impact of tourism on income inequality and polarization with a view to guiding income distribution policies, particularly the EU Cohesion Policy. Specifically, we control for spatial dependence to determine the impact of tourism both in destinations and their neighbouring regions. We also consider non-linear relationships to detect possible changes over time in the effects of tourism on income distribution. Additionally, we contrast inbound and domestic tourism since the characteristics of these flows can have differential effects on the results. Dynamic Spatio-temporal estimations are applied to EU NUTS-1 data using spatial lag of X (SLX) models. Our estimations indicate that total tourism hinders income distribution in destinations showing an inverted-U-shaped relationship with income inequality and polarization. We find that inequality and polarization increase with inbound tourism but decrease with domestic tourism. Moreover, the two typologies improve income distribution in regions neighbouring tourism destinations. Both types of tourism cause direct, indirect and induced effects of different intensity. Policy actions applicable to other geographical contexts are proposed targeting the tourism supply structure, labour market regulation and structural competitiveness jointly with measures to effectively manage the transition to a knowledge-based economy and strengthen social protection systems, particularly in education, health, unemployment and retirement.