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A sustainable use of active heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems is crucial for minimum energy consumption. Currently, research studies are increasingly applying adaptive setpoint temperatures, thus reducing considerably the energy consumption without influencing comfort levels excessively. Most of them, however, are focused on the limit values of adaptive comfort standards without considering the tolerance in users' adaptation capacity. This research study analyzed various tolerance ranges in the recent adaptive thermal comfort model from EN 16798-1:2019 used in setpoint temperatures. The study focused on the south of Europe, considering 47 cities in Spain, 18 cities in Portugal, 13 cities in Greece, and 20 cities in Italy. In addition, such cities were analyzed in three climate scenarios: present time, 2050, and 2100. The results showed that values prefixed by EN 16798-1:2019 for new buildings (tolerance of 0.00 °C) produced significant savings with respect to the static model and that each progressive improvement in users' thermal expectations in 0.25 °C increased the energy consumption between 6.57 and 9.31% in all scenarios analyzed. Even applying a thermal tolerance of 1.50 °C, energy savings are currently produced with respect to the static model. This tendency increases in future scenarios until a thermal tolerance of 1.75 °C. The results of this paper provide greater knowledge about the possible energy increase that the improvement in users' expectations would produce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the ultimate aim of the dominant heritage discourse and practice is to preserve culture in a way that contributes to peace and human prosperity, its paradoxical outcome has been to erase the variety of ways that people can relate to the past and to normalize ethnic and religious conflicts as well as globally deepening inequalities of class, race and gender. In this context, searching for civilization in the past has become an increasingly irrational activity, specifically in geopolitically important zones such as the Middle East and Turkey, where millions of immigrants, along with numerous minorities and economically impoverished populations, are currently denied access to the living standards of modern civilization. This paper aims to highlight these paradoxes inherent in the dominant heritage discourse and practice through the example of a recent heritage awareness-raising and capacity-building project, Safeguarding Archaeological Assets of Turkey (SARAT). Furthermore, based on two ethnographic case studies of treasure hunting from Turkey and Greece, it is also argued that the past is embodied in our questions of who we are and in our difficulties of belonging in today's social landscape. Heritage, therefore, will continue to be in conflict and danger, unless people come to understand that they relate to the past in a variety of ways as regards the very core of the thick history of world politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the importance of peri-urban forests to the process of urban growth. The article aims at providing a brief description of peri-urban forests' contribution to the improvement of people's prosperity in urban centres by means of reducing the negative effects due to urbanisation and improving the standard of living. Design/methodology/approach - The article adopts a descriptive approach and not a specific methodology. It focuses on providing a general review about the usefulness of peri-urban forests in relation to urban development. In addition, there are presented figures about the number of peri-urban forests in Greece as well as forest management issues. Findings - The environmental importance of peri-urban forests is highlighted as well as their contribution to the reduction of soil erosion and the protection of inhabited areas. It also presents their importance to social growth and to the change in land prices in areas adjacent to peri-urban forests. Practical implications - The appointment of the usefulness of peri-urban forests for the improvement of the standard of living in urban regions can influence peri-urban forests' preservation and protection perspectives. Originality/value - This paper provides a general review of the points of view concerning the importance of peri-urban forests for urban development and the difficulties in managing and protecting them related to administrative and institutional issues in Greece. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a heterodox analytical framework of wage determination and a new method of decomposition of the gender pay gap drawing on Marxian and feminist theories. The proposed framework utilizes two wage equations for the analysis of the gender gap: the first equation refers to average occupational wages and the second to individual wages as deviations from occupational wages. Using a data set for wages from industries in Greece, this paper demonstrates and explains differences in results between this proposed decomposition of the gender pay gap and that of Oaxaca-Blinder, and discusses the merits of this new technique compared to the Brown-Moon-Zoloth method. The authors argue that the main advantage of this proposed method of decomposition over the other two methods is that the proposed method allows for separate estimates of the impact of social and individual gender wage discrimination on the gender pay gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modelling consumption patterns is of interest for both theoretical and policy reasons. This paper presents a methodology for modelling consumption patterns combining a theory-based with a data-based approach and it continues with an application to Greek data. Tile adopted AIDS-ECM quantitative methodology aims to estimate tile expected trends ill consumption patterns ill Greece following an increase in available income over tile 2001–2010 period. Three scenarios are examined: the first scenario considers the EU projections for private consumption expenditure, 3% per annum, the second scenario assumes a higher growth of 5% per annum and tile third scenario a 1% increase. Tile results of tile first stage expenditure aggregation show a decrease ill tile budget share for the food group ill all scenarios under consideration while tile opposite is true for ‘transportation and communication’ and ‘others’. Finally, the second stage expenditure aggregation estimates show an increase ill tile budget share for meat, fruits and vegetables and oils and fats, while the opposite is true for bread and cereals and other food. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the distributional impact of public education in Greece using the micro-data of the 1993/94 Household Budget Survey. The aggregate distributional impact of public education is found to be progressive although the incidence varies according to the level of education under examination. In-kind transfers of education services in the fields of primary and secondary education lead to a considerable decline in inequality, whereas the distributional impact of tertiary education transfers is found to be regressive. The overall progressivity of public education transfers declined between 1988 and 1994, and almost the entire decline is driven by changes in the progressivity of tertiary education transfers. The main policy implications of the findings are outlined in the concluding section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The €110 billion bailout offered to the Greek government in May 2010 by the so-called troika (comprising of the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Union) was not only the largest of its kind in Western history to date, it also marked the entrance of Greek society into a period of extreme turmoil, with profound changes in the standard of living and the everyday reality of large segments of the population. The country's extensive public sector saw wage reductions, pension decreases and tax rises. In the private sector mass lay-offs and redundancies became widespread, as did wage reductions and renegotiations of labour contracts. Against this turbulent backdrop an extraordinary event would soon take place in the cities of Athens and Thessaloniki. In early 2011, the beginning of the largest mass hunger strike on European soil saw 300 undocumented migrants, mostly of Maghrebi origin, demand the legalisation of all undocumented migrants in the country. Regina Mantanika and Hara Kouki, Athens-based researchers and activists, trace the chronology of the strike in the city by looking at the series of different spaces—both public and private—that took turns in hosting it: the Law Faculty of the University of Athens, in which the migrants were quickly made unwelcome; the private mansion in which they found shelter and finally, the public hospitals to which many of them were transferred and in which they ended their strike. Mantanika and Kouki offer us the preliminary findings of their research on these spaces' dynamics, the way in which they interacted with the strike and how the strike itself transformed some of these spaces in return. I can hardly think of a more appropriate topic and paper with which to launch my term as editor of the Alternatives section of City, a section set to engage and discuss ‘with groups and individuals who are developing alternative urban visions and practices’. Here we have an extraordinary such example: the practice of a small number of people who nevertheless forced us to rethink the distinctions between private and public, between local and foreign, between a struggle for life and for death. In a historical conjuncture where alternatives are desperately sought but seldom found, where the public retreats in the face of the private, tracing the spatiality of this newly encountered social struggle is a much needed and rewarding exercise. Antonis Vradis, Alternatives Editor [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the long- and short-run determinants of aggregate private savings in Greece employing data over the period 1961-2000. The long-run savings function is estimated based on an extended life-cycle hypothesis taking into account the economic and demographic developments during this period. A long-run saving function sensitive to fertility changes, old dependency ratio, real interest rate, liquidity and public finances is found to exist and the importance of short-run deviations is presented using vector error-correction model estimation. The empirical evidence suggests the existence of a stable long-run savings function in Greece both in the long- and short-run periods and the policy implications of such a relationship are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides estimates of participation and expenditure in the market for food away from home (FAFH) in Greece using data from the 1993–1994 Household Budget Survey. Statistical tests indicate that the appropriate vehicle for analysing Greek household FAFH consumption is the double‐hurdle participation model, adjusted for non‐normality and heteroscedasticity. Participation in the FAFH market is found to be determined by household income, household size and place of residence. The level of FAFH expenditure is also affected by certain characteristics of the meal planner (age, education, marital and employment status). Given current socio‐demographic trends, FAFH consumption in Greece is likely to increase. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The inflation rate is one of the main economic indicators encountered in papers on economic issues. This does not mean that households are all affected by inflation to the same degree. Price changes in commodities and services affect different households in different ways. These differences arise from variations in observed expenditure patterns, which in turn are due to differences in household needs and tastes. As a result, each household has its own cost of living index and its own inflation rate during any time period. But it is required to find out whether these differences in inflation rates persistent and systematic. The evidence on the distributional impact of household inflation differences presented in a number of studies is conflicting. Some studies carried out in the great Britain, the U.S. and Canada found substantial differences between the price indices of various households and suggested the existence of a sizeable inflation bias against households which were poorer, larger or had aged heads.

Poverty in Greece is measured and decomposed using the primary consumption expenditure data of two Greek Household Expenditure Surveys (1974, 1981/82). Poverty is found to be associated with particular characteristics of the household or the household head. These characteristics are residence in rural areas, large household size, low educational level and old age of the household head. Poverty is also very high among members of households headed by farmers and retired persons. Both absolute and relative poverty declined substantially between 1974 and 1982. Changes in the structure of the population had a positive effect on poverty alleviation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: Several studies have been performed on the relationship between working conditions and health. Numerous parameters still require further study, including working hours and obesity among different groups, specifically older workers in national, regional, and international levels. OBJECTIVE: Working hours have considerable effects on the socio-cultural, psychological, and economic aspects of people's lives and health. While long working hours increases income level and raises living standards, it increases the risk of certain health problems. This study investigated whether working hours are associated with obesity in upper-middle-aged workers. METHODS: The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) dataset was used for the analyses. Analyses were carried out by means of a Cox regression of the panel dataset created with the data in question, surveyed by European Commission to 12,000 participants. RESULTS: The survey was performed in Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Spain, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Ireland. We found that in most countries, especially Sweden and the Netherlands, upper-middle-aged employees working > 59 hours per week are more likely to gain weight than their counterparts working < 59 hours. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings raise awareness of obesity in older workers, and highlight the need to regulate working conditions and hours in the European Union and other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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To measure the debt crisis in Europe in general, and in Greece in particular, there are different levels of analysis, rarely examined together: at the global, EU and the national levels. The global level involves the origins of the crisis in the infra-regulated practices of financial entities worldwide, whereas the EU level reflects architectural weaknesses of the European Monetary Union. The national level entails specific vulnerabilities of the national economy. Underlying all this, there has been a total (public+private) debt bubble that has been growing since the 1980s, and an implicit promise of higher standards of living through large market deregulation experiments (chief among them are capital markets and capital mobility deregulation). Delivering on this implicit promise called for an increasing assumption of debt. This was based on the hope that growth in the real economy would justify increasing debt--in a sense outrunning debt growth. Unfortunately, not only did debt growth prove to be too rapid, the growth of finance ended up attracting grey matter away from science and technology, the ultimate productivity-growth booster, and giving finance the grey matter to engineer ever-cleverer ways to raise debt. In some countries, debt growth could be reflected more on the side of private debt (Spain, UK, US, Ireland, etc.) or public debt (Greece, Italy, Portugal), or both, but that distinction is secondary. The key point when it comes to the global level of analysis is that incomes and consumption growth ended up being achieved through practically continuous debt (public and/or public) growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses the 2005 Albanian Living Standards Measurement Study Survey and estimates the impact of international migration experience on the occupational mobility of return migrants vis-a-vis working-age Albanian residents that never migrated. Controlling for the non-random nature of international migration and return, the results show that past migration experience increases the likelihood of upward occupational mobility. Since such impact is likely to depend on differences in earning potentials and opportunities for skill acquisition across destination countries, we explore the heterogeneity of impact by host country. The results indicate that the positive effect of past migration experience on upward occupational mobility is driven by past migration experience in Italy and countries further afield, while past migration experience in Greece does not exert any significant impact on mobility outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Major factors affecting Greek household budget flows to mutual fund classes with different risk-return profiles are studied, applying the flexible functional form of the Almost Ideal Demand System to analyse allocation to equity, bond, balanced, and money market funds. An increase in household expenditure can have a positive impact; an adverse price change may erode budget benefits for a class. Volatility in possible "mispricings" in the underlying market valuation, with risk aversion attitudes, can result in asset reallocation. Cross-price effects provide insight on complementarity and substitutability between classes. Conclusions have useful policy implications for asset management and portfolio allocation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the effects of 16 food items on the overall food expenditure inequality in Greece using the raw data of Family Budget Surveys conducted during 1987/88 and 1993/94. Decomposition of the extended Gini coefficient; Improvement of the distribution of food expenditure equality and progressivity of tax system.