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on Economic Geography |
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Issue of 2017‒11‒05
seven papers chosen by Andreas Koch Institut für Angewandte Wirtschaftsforschung |
| By: | Michel Serafinelli; Guido Tabellini |
| Abstract: | Creativity is often highly concentrated in time and space, and across different domains. What explains the formation and decay of clusters of creativity? In this paper we match data on thousands of notable individuals born in Europe between the XIth and the XIXth century with historical data on city institutions and population. After documenting several stylized facts, we show that the formation of creative clusters is not preceded by increases in city size. Instead, the emergence of city institutions protecting economic and political freedoms facilitates the attraction and production of creative talent. Keywords: innovation, agglomeration, political institutions, immigration, gravity. JEL: R10, O10, J61, N13 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:igi:igierp:608&r=geo |
| By: | Robert Lehmann; Wolfgang Nagl |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the main determinants of the regional representation of foreign employees in Germany. Since migration determinants are not necessarily the same for workers of different nationalities, we explain spatial patterns not only for total foreign employment but also for the 35 most important migration countries to Germany. Based on a total census for all 402 districts in Germany, we find a large heterogeneity in migration determinants between nationalities. We identify three groups of countries for which labor market and economic conditions, amenities or cultural factors are more important. Geographical distance plays a major role in location decisions, a finding that is especially pronounced for workers from countries neighboring Germany. |
| Keywords: | foreign employment, migration determinants, distance, spatial models |
| JEL: | F22 J21 J61 O15 R12 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6356&r=geo |
| By: | Nicol˜ Barbieri, Davide Consoli; Davide Consoli |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses whether and to what extent regional diversification enables or thwarts green employment in US Metropolitan Areas (MAs) between 2006 and 2014. The recent debate on related and unrelated variety provides the conceptual frame for our study. The main findings are two. First, unrelated diversification is a positive and significant predictor of green employment growth. Second, this effect differs across occupational categories: while unrelated variety at industry level favours the growth of mid- to low-skill green jobs, unrelated variety at occupational level favours high- to mid-skill green jobs. Overall, local related diversification has very little impact. |
| Keywords: | Green employment, Variety, Diversifications |
| Date: | 2017–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1727&r=geo |
| By: | Steven Brakman; Charles van Marrewijk |
| Abstract: | We analyse the link between supply chains and the extent to which the Great Recession has affected national economies. Our analysis is in two steps, namely first for value added measures of supply chains and then for the Grubel-Lloyd index using gross-export data. Regarding value added measures we find, in general, no effect. Only if we separate out Europe do we find that the trough in Europe occurs about 0.17 years later and the recovery (for the countries that have recovered) about 1.55 years later. Moreover, the duration of the decline in Europe is about 4 months longer and of the recovery about 17 months longer. We explain this link and Europe’s special role using a detailed Grubel-Lloyd index applied to gross-exports as an alternative supply chain measure, which significantly affects the impact of the Great Recession regarding the timing and duration of the recovery (later and longer). |
| Keywords: | resilience, Great Recession, supply chains |
| JEL: | E32 R11 R12 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6505&r=geo |
| By: | Badi H. Baltagi (Center for Policy Research, Maxwell School, Syracuse University, 426 Eggers Hall, Syracuse, NY 13244); Peter H. Egger (ETH Zurice, CEPR, CESifo, GEP); Michaela Kesina (ETH Zurich) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the determinants of firm-level revenues, as a measure of the performance of firms in China's domestic and export markets. The analysis of the determinants of the aforementioned outcomes calls for a mixed linear-nonlinear econometric approach. The paper proposes specifying a system of equations, which is inspired by Basmann's work and recent theoretical work in international economics and conducts comparative static analyses regarding the role of exogenous shocks to the system to flesh out the relative importance of transmissions across outcomes. |
| Keywords: | Spatial Econometrics, Spillovers, Panel-Data Econometrics, Nonlinear Systems, Firm- Level Sales, Chinese Firms |
| JEL: | C23 C31 D24 L65 |
| Date: | 2017–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:max:cprwps:209&r=geo |
| By: | Konstantin Büchel; Maximilian von Ehrlich |
| Abstract: | Social interactions are considered pivotal to agglomeration economies. We explore a unique dataset on mobile phone calls to examine how distance and population density shape the structure of social interactions. Exploiting an exogenous change in travel times, we show that distance is highly detrimental to interpersonal exchange. Despite distance-related costs, we find no evidence that urban residents benefit from larger networks when spatial sorting is accounted for. Higher density rather generates a more efficient network in terms of matching and clustering. These differences in network structure capitalize into land prices, corroborating the hypothesis that agglomeration economies operate via network efficiency. |
| Keywords: | social interactions, agglomeration externalities, network analysis, spatial sorting |
| JEL: | R10 R23 D83 D85 Z13 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6568&r=geo |
| By: | Badi H. Baltagi (Center for Policy Research, Maxwell School, Syracuse University, 426 Eggers Hall, Syracuse, NY 13244); YingDeng (University of International Business and Economics); Xiangjun Ma (University of International Business and Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the fact that 37 percent of the internal migrants in China do not sign a labor contract with their employers, as revealed in a nationwide survey. These contract-free jobs pay lower hourly wages, require longer weekly work hours, and provide less insurance or on-the-job training than regular jobs with contracts. We find that the co-villager networks play an important role in a migrant’s decision on whether to accept such insecure and irregular jobs. By employing a comprehensive nationwide survey in 2011 in the spatial autoregressive logit model, we show that the common behavior of not signing contracts in the co-villager network increases the probability that a migrant accepts a contract-free job. We provide three possible explanations on how networks influence migrants’ contract decisions: job referral mechanism, limited information on contract benefits, and the "mini labor union" formed among co-villagers, which substitutes for a formal contract. In the sub-sample analysis, we also find that the effects are larger for migrants whose jobs were introduced by their covillagers, male migrants, migrants with rural Hukou, short-term migrants, and less educated migrants. The heterogeneous effects for migrants of different employer types, industries, and home provinces provide policy implications. |
| Keywords: | Contract, Co-Villager Network, Spatial Autoregressive Logit Model, Internal Migrants |
| JEL: | O15 R12 J14 |
| Date: | 2017–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:max:cprwps:207&r=geo |