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This paper draws inference on the effect of changes in indirect taxation on household spending on cinema and performing arts using data from the Spanish household expenditure survey. As of September 2012, value-added tax (VAT) on cinema and performing arts in Spain was raised 13 percent points, with the exception of the Canary Islands which are not part of the Spanish VAT territory. Indirect taxation levied on cinema and performing arts through the General Indirect Tax of Canary Islands (Impuesto General Indirecto de Canarias, IGIC) had changed in July 2012 by only 2 percent points. Such an uneven raise in the tax rates is the source of exogenous variation used for identification in this paper. As the sample of treated households (exposed to the VAT rise) is much larger than the sample of untreated households (exposed to the IGIC rise), we use causal inference methods to estimate the average treatment effect of the VAT rise on the untreated households. We find that the average household expenditure on cinema and performing arts of the untreated households would not have changed significantly, had untreated households been exposed to the VAT rise. However, this average treatment effect would not have been homogeneous, as we identify an average treatment effect conditional on participation of 52.37 euros. Thus, the tax rise would have increased the annual expenditure of those households that spend on cinema and performing arts regularly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The location, size, and structure of the farmlands and hydraulic systems built by the Indigenous inhabitants of Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain, remain unknown. This hampers our ability to understand how they organized agricultural production and how European settlers transformed local landscapes to build commercial plantations in the late fifteenth century. This paper combines an analysis of archival sources with the study of agricultural landscapes and practices to identify and describe the fields that were employed by the first colonists of Agüimes and Temisas, and to derive information about the location, design, and management of the pre-Hispanic farmlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent eruption of the Cumbre Vieja Volcanic Ridge in La Palma started on September 19, 2021, after a series of seismic swarms and lasted 85 days. Seismic swarms showed a large variability but could be grouped in two categories: long-term swarms located at subcrustal depth, showing b-values close to 2.2 and low rates (from 4.1 to 56 events/hour) and short-term swarms located at very shallow depths, showing moderate b-values [0.9, 1.6] and high rates (from 58 to 460 events/hour). Magma ascent velocity within the 0–10 km depth range varied between 0.03 and 0.21 km/h. Spatial and temporal characterization of the b-values for the entire magmatic process during the selected study period also indicated three distinct dynamics during a preparation phase starting from at least October 2017–August 2021, the eruptive phase from September 2021–December 2021 and a post-eruption process from the end of the eruption in December 2021–May 2022. These stages with clearly different values reflect two scenarios: one corresponding to the time before the eruption with magma ascending from a 39-km depth to the surface, and a second stage corresponding to the eruption itself which includes two seismicity concentrations within the 30–40 km depth interval and a shallow concentration from 0–20 km, corresponding to the crustal reservoir and movement towards the surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coastal geomorphological systems have undergone major changes in recent decades as a result of both natural and anthropic phenomena, with the growth of urban tourism having one of the biggest impacts. This has been the case of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria city (Canary Islands, Spain), which has expanded considerably since the late nineteenth century. The objective of this work is to identify the coastal landforms that existed in the city environment before 1879 and evaluate the extent to which they have been preserved or lost because of urban expansion on five dates (1879, 1954, 1966, 1981 and 2018). This evaluation was made possible through the integration, in a geographic information system, of information from historical and current documents, both cartographic and photographic, and from oral sources and field data. The results of the study reveal that 848.1 ha of the initial coastal landforms have been lost, with only 16.7% of the area they occupied remaining. The landforms that have experienced the most losses have been the aeolian sedimentary systems, which have totally disappeared since 1981. The least altered have been calcarenitic reefs, coastal active cliffs and sandy beaches. The land uses of the occupied coastal landforms, from highest to lowest, are: residential and tourist, road infrastructure, public spaces and green areas, port, facilities and industrial. The academic, social, educational and urban planning interests of this research are addressed in the discussion. Highlights • Identification of the coastal landforms that existed in LPGC city before 1879. • Evaluation of preserved vs. lost landforms areas because of urban expansion. • Loss of 848.1 ha (83.2%) of the initial coastal landforms. • Preservation of 170.2 ha (16.7%) of the original landforms. • Results of interest for academic, social, educational and urban planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]