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on Economic Geography |
| By: | Psycharis, Yannis; Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés; Tselios, Vassilis |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the impact of public investment on regional economic growth and convergence at the NUTS III level in Greece. Using a new database of public expenditure per region for the period 1978-2007, it proposes a model which captures not just the impact of public investment in Greek prefectures, but also the spillover effects related to the existence of externalities from neighbouring regions. The results point to a positive long-run impact of public investment per capita on regional economic growth – but not on convergence – which also generates considerable spillover effects. However, the returns vary according to different types of public investment, with education and infrastructure spillovers having the highest impact. In general, public investment externalities seem to be more relevant for regional growth than direct public investment in each region. Finally, the impact of different types of public investment in Greece is mediated by politics and political factors, but the effect of politics disappears once we control for political-period-specific spatial-invariant variables. |
| Keywords: | convergence; economic growth; Greece; public investment; regional economics; regional policy; spatial econometrics; spillover effects |
| JEL: | R11 R12 R53 R58 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9011&r=geo |
| By: | Giorgio Fazio; Luciano Lavecchia |
| Abstract: | An extensive economics and regional science literature has discussed the importance of social capital for economic growth and development. Yet, what social capital is and how it is formed are elusive issues, which require further investigation. Here, we refer to social capital in terms of “civic capital” and “good culture” as rephrased by Guiso, Sapienza and Zingales (2010) and Tabellini (2010). The accumulation of this kind of capital allows the emerging of regional informal institutions, which may help explaining differences in regional development. In this paper, we take a regional perspective and use exploratory space and space-time methods to assess whether geography, via proximity, contributes to the formation of social capital across European regions. In particular, we ask whether generalized trust, a fundamental constituent of social capital and an ingredient of economic development, tends to be clustered across space and over time. From the policy standpoint, the spatial “hysteresis” of regional trust may contribute to the formation of “spatial traps” of social capital and act as a further barrier to regional economic development and convergence. |
| Keywords: | Social Capital; Generalized Trust; European Social Survey; Spatial Dynamics; ESTDA |
| JEL: | R1 Z13 C31 F02 |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gla:glaewp:2012_07&r=geo |
| By: | Matías Mayor-Fernández (Department of Applied Economics, University of Oviedo, Spain); Roberto Patuelli (Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics-Rimini, University of Bologna, Italy; The Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis (RCEA), Italy) |
| Abstract: | In any economic analysis, regions or municipalities should not be regarded as isolated spatial units, but rather as highly interrelated small open economies. These spatial interrelations must be considered also when the aim is to forecast economic variables. For example, policy makers need accurate forecasts of the unemployment evolution in order to design short- or long-run local welfare policies. These predictions should then consider the spatial interrelations and dynamics of regional unemployment. In addition, a number of papers have demonstrated the improvement in the reliability of long-run forecasts when spatial dependence is accounted for. We estimate a heterogeneouscoefficients dynamic panel model employing a spatial filter in order to account for spatial heterogeneity and/or spatial autocorrelation in both the levels and the dynamics of unemployment, as well as a spatial vector-autoregressive (SVAR) model. We compare the short-run forecasting performance of these methods, and in particular, we carry out a sensitivity analysis in order to investigate if different number and size of the administrative regions influence their relative forecasting performance. We compute short-run unemployment forecasts in two countries with different administrative territorial divisions and data frequency: Switzerland (26 regions, monthly data for 34 years) and Spain (47 regions, quarterly data for 32 years) |
| Keywords: | regional forecasts; spatial econometrics; dynamic panel; SVAR |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rim:rimwps:15_12&r=geo |
| By: | Vanessa OLTRA; Maïder SAINT-JEAN |
| Abstract: | This article tries to apprehend the technological trajectories that develop in Aquitaine region in the field of green chemistry (GC). Breschi’s research works are used to stress that spatial patterns of innovation vary greatly amongst sectors according to the specific features of the underlying technology, as summarized by the concept of technological regime. In such a perspective, we take into account the role of industrial structures and technological regimes to apprehend regional trajectories of innovation in the field of GC. In order to characterize such trajectories, an empirical analysis is carried out by using patent data for the period 1990-2009. We end up with an original database of GC patents for the Aquitaine region which enables us to emphasize the concentration of innovative sources as well as the specialization fields in relation with the regional industrial structure. |
| Keywords: | Green chemistry, Regional trajectories of innovation, Technological Regime, Patents |
| JEL: | O30 R11 L65 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grt:wpegrt:2012-14&r=geo |
| By: | Brida , Juan Gabriel; London, Silvia; Rojas, Mara |
| Abstract: | Between 1985 and 1998, the growth rate of Chile was among the top four in the world (Massad, 2002, Gallego and Loayza, 2002) showing, moreover, a very heterogeneous behavior at regional level. The objective of this paper is to analyze how dissimilar are the economic performance of Chilean regions in recent decades (1960-2009) in relation to the economic policies implemented. A methodology of clustering analysis based on the study of dynamic regimes is used to study the convergence/divergence of the behavior of regions. |
| Keywords: | Desempeño Económico; Convergencia; Dinámica de Regímenes; Chile; Análisis Regional |
| JEL: | C14 O49 O54 |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:39182&r=geo |
| By: | Alessandra Colombelli; Jackie Krafft; Francesco Quatraro |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the emergence of new technology-based sectors at the regional level. We focus on the specific case of nanotechnology as representative of an industry based on a technology still in infancy whose evolution can be reliably traced on the basis of filed patent submissions. We implement a methodological framework based on the „product-space? approach, which allows us to investigate whether the development of new technologies is linked to the structure of the existing local knowledge base. We use patent data over the period 1986-2006 to carry out the analysis at the NUTS 2 level over the EU 15 countries. The results of the descriptive and econometric analysis supports the idea that history matters in the spatial development of a sector, and that the technological competences accumulated at the local level are likely to shape the future patterns of technological diversification. |
| Keywords: | product space, technological diversification, new industries, capabilities, EU Regions |
| JEL: | R11 N94 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1211&r=geo |
| By: | Pede, Valerien O.; Sparks, Adam H.; McKinley, Justin D. |
| Abstract: | This paper revisits the inequality-growth relationship using data at the sub-national (provincial) level in the Philippines over the period 1991- 2000. A conditional convergence growth model is considered where the growth of per capita income depends on inequality and other growth factors. The contribution of each province to the overall inequality obtained from the Theil index is considered. Results indicate that inequality has a positive and significant effect on per capita income growth. However, the magnitude of the inequality effect is not stable across regions. Geographically Weighted Regression estimates show that the magnitude of the inequality growth relationship varies over a range of 0.72 to 3.36. Other results are also noteworthy in this study. Per capita income grows faster in provinces that contribute more to the overall inequality. Provinces with higher poverty incidence tend to grow less and human capital appears to be a significant booster to per capita income growth. Additionally, urban provinces tend to grow faster than the rural ones. |
| Keywords: | clusters, growth, inequality, spatial econometrics, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, R11, R12, O15, C21, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aare12:124402&r=geo |
| By: | Gnagey, Matthew |
| Abstract: | Land development is a central topic in environmental, resource, urban and regional economics, yet our empirical knowledge of people behind land development, the developers, and the supply of urban land is limited. In response I develop a model of exurban land developers to test the spatial interactions of heterogeneous developers in exurban areas. Using estimation techniques that identify a parameter isolate the spatial competition and interaction effect I am able to determine the effects of developer behavior. I find significant evidence of land developers competing spatially as they locate across an exurban county. |
| Keywords: | Land Developer, Housing supply, Exurban development, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Land Economics/Use, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea12:124932&r=geo |
| By: | Yoshitsugu Kanemoto (National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies) |
| Abstract: | Many sources of urban agglomeration involve departures from the first-best world. The benefit evaluation of a transportation project must then take into account agglomeration benefits along with any direct user benefits. Using a monopolistic competition model of differentiated intermediate products, we show that the additional benefits can be expressed as an extended Harberger formula with variety distortion in addition to price distortion. They are positive if variety is procompetitive, but, in the anticompetitive case, we cannot exclude the possibility of negative additional benefits. By introducing the rural sector and multiple cities explicitly, we also show that the agglomeration benefits depend on where the new workers are from. |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ngi:dpaper:12-04&r=geo |
| By: | Giulia Ajmone Marsan; Annalisa Primi |
| Abstract: | This paper presents an overview of co-patenting trends at the national and regional level in three technology fields (biotechnology, telecommunications and renewable energy), across regions in the OECD and emerging economies, from the late 1970s to the late 2000s. After a general introduction on regional patenting activities, inter-regional co-inventorship networks in the three selected technologies are built and analysed. Different behaviors and relative network positioning emerge, in terms of top patenting regions both across technological fields and over time. Co-patenting networks increase their density over time and they show preferential attachment properties, namely regions with a central position in an early phase of development of the network tend to maintain their positioning in the future. However, there are also windows of opportunity for new central nodes to emerge in the network. Evidence shows that the structure of the network evolves differently depending on technological field and that the role of spatial proximity and capability proximity is mixed in influencing co-inventorship patterns. Co-patenting networks include star players that establish connections regardless of the proximity of partners; but also several wellperforming actors that benefit from proximity or relative proximity of agents.<BR>Cet article analyse des réseaux de co-brevets parmi les régions des pays OCDE et des économies émergentes sélectionnées, dans trois secteurs technologiques (télécommunications, biotechnologie, énergie renouvelable) sur la période 1977-2007. Après une introduction générale sur la production de brevets à niveau régional, les réseaux inter-régionaux de co-brevets dans les trois technologies sont construits et analysés. Des comportements et des positionnements différents à niveau des régions émergent, dans la structure générale des réseaux analysés, selon la technologie et dans le temps. Les réseaux de co-brevets deviennent plus denses avec le temps et montrent la propriété de l’attachement préférentiel, soit les régions avec une position centrale dans le réseau au début tendent à la garder dans le temps. Toutefois, il existe des opportunités pour atteindre un positionnement central même pour les régions qui entrent dans le réseau dans des phases successives. Les données montrent comment la structure du réseau évolue avec des caractéristiques différentes selon la classe technologique et comment la proximité spatiale et la proximité des connaissances influencent l’évolution du phénomène de la co-invention des brevets : les réseaux d’excellence contiennent les acteurs leaders, qui établissent leurs collaborations innovantes sans tenir en compte la proximité géographique, ainsi que plusieurs acteurs performants qui bénéficient aussi de la proximité géographique relative avec autres agents. |
| Keywords: | ICT, patents, green technologies, biotechnology, regional innovation, network analysis, co-inventorship |
| JEL: | D85 L00 O1 O25 O3 R12 |
| Date: | 2012–03–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:govaab:2012/3-en&r=geo |
| By: | Zeng, Di; You, Wen; Mills, Bradford; Alwang, Jeffrey; Royster, Michael; Studer, Kenneth; Anson-Dwamena, Rexford |
| Abstract: | Health disparities are abundantly recorded in literature, but is much less understood within a rural-urban context. In this paper, four major diseases in Virginia are studied: cancer, stroke, cardiovascular disease (heart disease) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Separate count data regressions are estimated at regional level to provide a primary understanding of those factors. A simultaneous equations model with rural-urban specification are then estimated via seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) techniques to take account of possible causalities among these diseases as well as error correlations, which is followed by Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition of the disparity proportions explained by observed characteristics and unobserved mechanisms. The results suggest that regional-level factors are significantly correlated with health disparities between rural and urban areas. The unknown mechanisms behind these linkages are different between rural and urban areas, and explain an even larger proportion of these disparities. |
| Keywords: | Disparities, Rural-Urban, Count Data, SUR, Virginia, Health Economics and Policy, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea12:124964&r=geo |
| By: | Ivan Muñiz Olivera (Departament d'Economia Aplicada, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona); Miguel Angel García López (Departament d'Economia Aplicada, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | One of the criticisms leveled at the model of dispersed city found all over the world is its unarticulated, random, and undifferentiated nature. To check this idea in the Barcelona Metropolitan Region, we estimated the impact of the urban spatial structure (CBD, subcenters and transportation infrastructures) over the population density and commuting distance. The results are unfavorable to the hypothesis of the increasing destructuring of cities given that the explanatory capacity of both functions improves over time, both when other control variables are not included and when they are included. |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uab:wprdea:wpdea1207&r=geo |
| By: | Roberto Patuelli (Department of Economics, University of Bologna, Italy; The Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis (RCEA), Italy); Maurizio Mussoni (Department of Economics, University of Bologna, Italy; The Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis (RCEA), Italy); Guido Candela (University of Bologna, Italy) |
| Abstract: | Culture is gaining increasing importance in the modern tourism industry, and represents a significant force of attraction for tourists (both domestic and international). Cultural tourism allows destinations and regions to expand their customer base, diversify their offer, extend the stay of the tourist, and reduce seasonality. Great efforts are made, by national governments and regions, in order to obtain official designation regarding the relevance of their historical/cultural attractions, for example through UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites (WHS) list. Such an aspect seems particularly relevant for a country like Italy, which has a high number of entries in the WHS list, and where regions take an active role in promoting tourism. Using an 11-year panel of domestic tourism flows, we investigate the importance of the regional endowment in terms of WHS from two perspectives: (a) by separately estimating the effects, on tourism flows, of WHS located in the residence region of tourists and in the destination region; and (b) by taking into account potential spatial substitution/complementarity effects between regions due to their WHS endowment. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is offered to evaluate the spatial extent of the latter. |
| Keywords: | cultural tourism; domestic tourism; World Heritage Sites; spatial interaction model; Italy; spatial competition |
| JEL: | C23 L83 R12 Z10 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rim:rimwps:14_12&r=geo |
| By: | Register, D. Lane; Lambert, Dayton M.; English, Burton C.; Jensen, Kimberly L.; Menard, R. Jamey; Wilcox, Michael D. |
| Abstract: | Recent developments in firm location analysis are applied to explore the concentration patterns of firms making up the green energy sectors in 2002 and 2006. A two-step procedure is applied in this analysis. First, Guimarães, Figueiredo, and Woodward’s spatial adaption of Ellison and Glaeser’s industry concentration index are applied to estimate the degree to which firms making up the so-called green energy sectors tend to exhibit concentration. In the second stage, the spatial distribution of concentration is analyzed using a statistical framework, also suggested by Guimarães, Figueiredo, and Woodward. Preliminary results suggest that green energy subsectors exhibit significant global concentration, but localized concentration appears to be random. |
| Keywords: | global, local, industry concentration measures, green energy sectors, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, C21, L20, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea12:124038&r=geo |
| By: | Rafael González-Val (Universitat de Barcelona & IEB); Luis Lanaspa (Universidad de Zaragoza); Fernando Sanz (Universidad de Zaragoza) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this work is to test empirically the validity of Gibrat’s law on the growth of cities, using data on the complete distribution of cities from three countries (the US, Spain and Italy) for the entire twentieth century. In order to achieve this, we use different techniques. First, panel data unit root tests tend to confirm the validity of Gibrat’s law in the upper-tail distribution. Second, when we consider the entire distribution, we find that Gibrat’s law does not hold exactly in the long term using nonparametric methods that relate the growth rate to the initial city size. |
| Keywords: | Gibrat’s law, city size distribution, urban growth |
| JEL: | R00 C14 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ieb:wpaper:2012/6/doc2012-18&r=geo |
| By: | Bartolini, Fabio; Raggi, Meri; Viaggi, Davide |
| Abstract: | A large body of literature has highlighted and analysed the issues which affect the quality and the reliability of evaluation results of the RDPs measure. In addition to weaknesses in the specification of objectives, measurement of the additionality, several authors have pointed-out a lack in evaluation of the cross-effects across space of the measure. The objective of this contribution is to develop a spatial analysis of the participation rate in the measure 121, highlighting, as a determinant, the effect of the set of priorities established by the local administration. The analysis is realised by two steps: the first is the realisation of an Exploratory Spatial Description Analysis (ESDA) of the participation rate in the Emilia Romagna Municipalities and the second is the development of a spatial econometric model of the participation rate in measure 121. Results highlight the relevance of the spatial analysis in improving the predictability of the participation to rural development measures. In particular they show a positive effect of the neighbouring and of the spatial location in the explanation of the participation rate; the results also show the effect of the priority mechanism implemented by each province in determining participation. |
| Keywords: | rural development measure, farm modernisation, spatial econometrics, participation, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Q18 - Agricultural Policy, Food Policy, Q10 - General, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aieacp:124103&r=geo |
| By: | Goodness C. Aye (Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Nigeria); Samrat Goswami (Department of Rural Management and Development, Tripura University); Rangan Gupta (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria) |
| Abstract: | The paper examines the long-run behavior of house prices by addressing the issue of price convergence or divergence across fifteen metropolitan cities in India. Using available city-level quarterly data covering the period 2007-2011 and applying the Im, Pesaran and Shin (2003) panel unit root test, it is found that relative price levels among various metropolitan cities in India do not converge. This implies that the Law of One Price does not hold in the Indian housing market, hence the different metropolitan house markets operate independent to one another. |
| Keywords: | House Prices, Law of One Price, Price Convergence, India |
| JEL: | D40 L85 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pre:wpaper:201220&r=geo |
| By: | Cho, Seong-Hoon; Kim, Seung Gyu; Roberts, Roland K.; Kim, JiYoung |
| Keywords: | Community/Rural/Urban Development, Land Economics/Use, |
| Date: | 2012–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea12:124708&r=geo |
| By: | Martin Gregor (Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic) |
| Abstract: | This paper builds spatial microfoundations for the functional forms used in the analysis of inter-jurisdictional public spending spillovers. It introduces a symmetric bilateral model that distinguishes between three stages: production of multiple public inputs (intermediary goods), production of multiple public outputs (final goods) including asymmetries and non-additive aggregations, and consumption of the public outputs with asymmetries and preferences for variety. The model is characterized by seven modeling features, and the paper demonstrates how these features are combined in the relevant literature. The paper identifies sufficient conditions for the different combinations of the features to be isomorphic. Additionally, it analyzes which microfoundations for the inter-jurisdictional spillovers lead to asymmetrically structured demands for public spending. |
| Keywords: | spillover, externality, complementarity, weak-link, local public goods |
| JEL: | H4 H7 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fau:wpaper:wp2012_16&r=geo |
| By: | Garduno-Rivera, Rafael; Baylis, Katherine R. |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) affected income distribution within Mexico given internal migration. In low-skilled labor-abundant developing countries, trade liberalization should theoretically increase the income of low-skilled workers, decreasing income disparity. However, anecdotal evidence indicates that NAFTA increased the gap between rich and poor in Mexico, and empirical evidence is mixed (Chiquiar, 2005; Nicita, 2009; Hanson, 2007). Because trade may affect wages differently across regions within the country, accurate measures of wage effects must incorporate intra-national migration. We specifically consider rural to urban migration and find that working age men with low incomes get a boost from the NAFTA in their wages while NAFTA has a negative effect for those with high incomes. There is a slight increase in migration in the years after NAFTA. We also find that, workers far away from the US-Mexico border earn significantly lower wages in comparison to their counterparts in the border. But this effect diminishes after NAFTA, when tariffs decrease. As a result, we find that in urban areas, trade liberalization has reduced income inequalities among working age men. |
| Keywords: | Income Distribution, Regional Disparities, Trade Liberalization, Internal-Migration, International Relations/Trade, Labor and Human Capital, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea12:124740&r=geo |
| By: | Aurélie LALANNE (GREThA, CNRS, UMR 5113); Guillaume POUYANNE ( GREThA, CNRS, UMR 5113) |
| Abstract: | Research on metropolization has been very active during the 1990s, but it seems to have relatively run out during the next decade. In this paper, we review the way metropolization was dealt with in economics these last ten years. We use bibliometric tools and network analysis so as to bring out four main fields of research. Each one is analyzed from the point of view of the theoretical filiation and of the dynamics of publication. We also bring out the main questions and the controversies of the 2000s. The Global City is based on geographers\' works such as Friedmann and Sassen. Various classifications to qualify the global urban hierarchy are developped. Several authors argue in favour of a more explicit consideration of the territory. The Innovative City is at the intersection of urban economics and the geography of innovation. If the impact of economic diversity and proximity is still studied, the localization of headquarters is an emerging theme. The Cognitive City, which derives from the application of the human capital theory to the city, sees growing research on the nature of the externalities of knowledge. Finally, the Creative City, stemming from Florida’s theses at the beginning of 2000s, is an emergent theme. As such, it is the object of rather lively controversies: on the composition of the creative class, on the \"primacy of location\" of creative people or firms, and on the nature of the \"creative milieu\". This literature brings to the foreground some innovative themes such as the work on cosmopolitanism. |
| Keywords: | metropolization, global city, creative city, innovative city, learning city, bibliometrics |
| JEL: | R10 R11 R12 R19 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grt:wpegrt:2012-11&r=geo |
| By: | Malcolm, Scott A.; Marshall, Elizabeth P.; Aillery, Marcel P.; Heisey, Paul W.; Livingston, Michael; Day-Rubenstein, Kelly |
| Keywords: | Community/Rural/Urban Development, Environmental Economics and Policy, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea12:124674&r=geo |
| By: | Danny MacKinnon; Kate Driscoll Derickson |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a theoretical and political critique of how the concept of resilience has been applied to places. It is based upon three main points. First, the ecological concept of resilience is conservative when applied to social relations. Second, resilience is externally-defined by state agencies and expert knowledge. Third, a concern with the resilience of places is misplaced in terms of spatial scale, since the processes which shape resilience operate primary at the scale of capitalist social relations. In place of resilience, we offer the concept of resourcefulness as an alternative approach for community groups to foster. |
| Keywords: | resilience, resourcefulness, ecology, communities, capitalism |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1212&r=geo |
| By: | Alexiadis, Stilianos |
| Abstract: | This paper attempts to rekindle interest on regional allocation of investment and to show that a trade-off between aggregate efficiency and interregional equity is implied. Modifying, however, the objective function it is established that this trade-off can be avoided. |
| Keywords: | Regional Allocation of Investment; Trade-off |
| JEL: | R10 |
| Date: | 2012–06–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:39477&r=geo |
| By: | Antoci, Angelo; Borghesi, Simone; Marletto, Gerardo |
| Abstract: | Car use is an increasingly serious problem in many modern cities because of polluting emissions, noise, accidents and congestion. To examine this issue, this paper analyzes the individual choice between taking the car and using alternative transport modes (e.g. walking, cycling, taking the bus etc...) in the presence of cars' negative impacts on alternative transport modes. Using a simple evolutionary model, we show the existence of suboptimal Nash equilibria characterized by the widespread use of cars and discuss the effects of simple transport policies that reduce cars' negative impacts on alternative transport modes. |
| Keywords: | urban transport; cars; negative impacts; evolutionary dynamics; suboptimal Nash equilibria |
| JEL: | R40 D62 R41 C73 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:39560&r=geo |
| By: | Alessia Naccarato |
| Abstract: | In this work we present space-time models with simultaneous effect in which the relations between phenomenon measured in different sites are not determined on the base of an a priori structure, but are estimated in the model’s estimation procedure. This approach avoids superimposition of a priori space fixed structure so that the spatial weights are not bound at being symmetrical and have not to be constant over time. In this way, spatial weights will then take into account the intensity and the direction of influence that a single station, in a given time including the contemporaneous one, has on the whole spatial system and vice versa. To reduce the increase in the number of parameters a procedure for constrained estimation is presented. |
| Keywords: | VAR Models, Space-Time Models, Simultaneous Effect, Constrained Maximum Likelihood Estimator |
| JEL: | C31 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtr:wpaper:0157&r=geo |
| By: | Sergio Beraldo (Chercheur Indépendant - Aucune); Massimiliano Piacenza (Institute for Economic Research on Firms and Growth (Ceris-CNR) - Italian National Research Council, Center for Research on Regulated Services - HERMES); Gilberto Turati (Chercheur Indépendant - Aucune) |
| Abstract: | The quality of the institutional environment is a crucial issue in understanding the effective outcome of fiscal decentralization initiatives. However, there has been so far very little work on the subject. In this paper we contribute to fill this gap by considering the municipalities belonging to three provinces in Southern Italy and proxying the presence of a weak institutional environment with the capture of the local government by Mafia-type organizations. The analysis exploits an unforeseen change in fiscal policy by central government increasing Vertical Fiscal Imbalances and tests whether the effects of the lower tax decentralization on municipal spending are conditioned by the quality of the institutional environment. We find no sensible effects when the institutional environment is weak; on the contrary, a 4-6% increase in average spending per capita is estimated as a consequence of the lower tax autonomy in municipalities not captured by Mafia clans. The evidence is robust both to controls for potential confounding factors and sensitivity analyses. Overall, our findings suggest that some caution is needed before deciding to devolve more fiscal power to lower tiers of government. |
| Keywords: | Tax decentralization, Local government accountability, Institutional quality, Mafia-type organizations |
| Date: | 2012–05–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00706970&r=geo |
| By: | Cheshire, Paul C.; Hilber, Christian; Kaplanis, Ioannis |
| Abstract: | We use store-specific data for a major UK supermarket chain to estimate the impact of planning on store output. Using the quasi-natural experiment of the variation in policies between England and other UK countries, we isolate the impact of Town Centre First policies. We find that space contributes directly to store productivity; and planning policies in England directly reduce output both by reducing store sizes and forcing stores onto less productive sites. We estimate that since the late 1980s planning policies have imposed a loss of output of at least 18.3 to 24.9% - more than a “lost decade’s†growth. JEL codes: D2, L51, L81, R32. |
| Keywords: | Economia -- Regulació, Supermercats, Planejament urbà, Gran Bretanya, 332 - Economia regional i territorial. Economia del sòl i de la vivenda, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:urv:wpaper:2072/196650&r=geo |