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on Economic Geography |
| By: | Karlsson, Charlie (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology); Johansson, Börje (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology); Stough, Roger R. (School of Public Policy, George Mason University) |
| Abstract: | This paper is an introductory overview highlighting some of the current knowledge as regards three critical questions related to the emerging knowledge economy: i) Why does human capital and talent tend to agglomerate in large urban regions?, ii) How does this agglomeration affect the location of different types of economic activities?, and iii) How does this agglomeration affect regional growth? There are different underlying agglomerative forces creating spatially concentrated increasing returns to scale. Also, cities become centres of various amenities due to general increases in real incomes offering people spare time activities. One major reason for the agglomeration of production in urban regions and metro¬politan areas today is the existence of various positive externalities, providing good settings for industries and firms with knowledge-intensive and knowledge-creation activities, specialised business service firms and headquarters of multinational firms. There are strong tentative empirical evidences that the agglomeration of human capital contributes to regional development and growth. However, there is uncertainty concerning the size of the human capital externalities. |
| Keywords: | Human Capital Externalities; Talent; Knowledge Creation; Knowledge Spillover; Agglomeration; Urban Region; Regional Growth |
| JEL: | D62 D83 J24 R12 R23 |
| Date: | 2009–08–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0191&r=geo |
| By: | Baltzopoulos, Apostolos (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology) |
| Abstract: | Past research on the effects of agglomeration externalities on regional economic development is inconclusive and has focused mainly on employment growth and innovative output. This paper considers the link between agglomeration externalities and entrepreneurship. It does so by looking at the importance of Marshallian specialization and Jacobian diversity externalities for regional entrepreneurial output implementing an individual level data set that allows considering not only the effect on total number of start-ups but also on the propensity of the entrepreneur to start his new venture in an industry he has previous experience in. The results suggest that while Marshallian externalities have a positive, Jacobian externalities have a negative effect on regional entrepreneurial output. However, Jacobian externalities increase the probability that an entrepreneur will start a firm in an industry he has relevant experience in, especially in the case of knowledge intensive industries. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship; externalities; spatial agglomeration |
| JEL: | O12 O18 R11 R30 |
| Date: | 2009–08–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0190&r=geo |
| By: | Cellini, Roberto; Torrisi, Gianpiero |
| Abstract: | We analyse the effects of public spending for tourism, in Italian regions. The evaluation is permitted by the availability of the databank under the project “Conti Pubblici Territoriali” (“Regional Public Account”) of the Ministry of Economic Development: the spending of all public subjects is aggregated according to the regions of destinations, and classified according to different criteria, including the sectoral criterion. We take a cross-section regression analysis approach. The effects of public spending for tourism on tourism attraction are investigated. Generally speaking, the effectiveness of public spending appears to be really weak. |
| Keywords: | Tourism; Regions; Public Spending; Regional Public Account |
| JEL: | R58 R53 L83 C21 M49 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:16917&r=geo |
| By: | Giorgio Fazio; Davide Piacentino |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we adapt multilevel analysis methods to investigate the spatial variability of SMEs productivity across the Italian territory, and account for differences in the socio-economic context. Our results suggest that to properly capture the variability of the data, it is important to allow for both spatial mean and slope effects. Social decay has the expected negative impact. However, while this effect is larger on firms with smaller capital intensity, firms with higher capital intensity seem to be less affected by geography. Greater territorial heterogeneity emerges among those firms with lower capital to labour ratios. |
| Keywords: | Firm heterogeneity, Spatial variability, Socio-economic Context, Multilevel Analysis |
| JEL: | C31 R11 R12 R30 |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gla:glaewp:2009_31&r=geo |
| By: | Kristy Buzard; Gerald Carlino |
| Abstract: | This study details the location patterns of R&D labs in the U.S., but it differs from past studies in a number of ways. First, rather than looking at the geographic concentration of manufacturing firms (e.g., Ellison and Glaeser, 1997; Rosenthal and Strange, 2001; and Duranton and Overman, 2005), the authors consider the spatial concentration of private R&D activity. Second, rather than focusing on the concentration of employment in a given industry, the authors look at the clustering of individual R&D labs by industry. Third, following Duranton and Overman (2005), the authors look for geographic clusters of labs that represent statistically significant departures from spatial randomness using simulation techniques. The authors find that R&D activity for most industries tends to be concentrated in the Northeast corridor, around the Great Lakes, in California's Bay Area, and in southern California. They argue that the high spatial concentration of R&D activity facilitates the exchange of ideas among firms and aids in the creation of new goods and new ways of producing existing goods. They run a regression of an Ellison and Glaeser (1997) style index measuring the spatial concentration of R&D labs on geographic proxies for knowledge spillovers and other characteristics and find evidence that localized knowledge spillovers are important for innovative activity. |
| Keywords: | Research and development ; Geography |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedpwp:09-16&r=geo |
| By: | Kunz, Marcus |
| Abstract: | "The paper analyses movements in the unemployment rate of West German districts in the period 1992-2004 by the chain reaction theory of unemployment (CRT). The estimations show that unemployment movements are generated together by lagged adjustment processes and by exogenous shocks. We find that adjustment processes to labour demand shocks are transient and do not display hysteresis effects. The effect of a labour demand shock to the unemployment rate disappears completely within only 2 years. Approximately half of the shock affects the unemployment rate in the contemporaneous period, the other half is due to temporal persistence in future periods, i.e. lagged adjustment effects. These results hold for low, middle and high unemployment regions and are in line with other studies in this field. The effects of exogenous national variables are much higher than those of exogenous regional variables during both, boom as well as recession years. The differen-tiation between low, middle and high unemployment regions shows that the development of regional factors would generate a regional convergence process, while national factors tend to impede this development." (author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| Keywords: | Arbeitslosenquote, regionale Disparität - Determinanten, Arbeitslosigkeit - Entwicklung, Landkreis, Hysterese, Persistenz, Westdeutschland, Bundesrepublik Deutschland |
| JEL: | C22 C23 O18 R11 R12 |
| Date: | 2009–08–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:200919&r=geo |
| By: | Funke, Michael (BOFIT); Yu, Hao (BOFIT) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we analyse the impact of R&D on total factor productivity across Chinese provinces. We introduce innovations explicitly into a production function and evaluate their contribution to economic growth in 1993 - 2006. The empirical results highlight the importance and the interaction between local and external research. The evidence indicates that growth in China is not explained simply by factor input accumulation. |
| Keywords: | China; R&D; R&D Spillovers; patents; regional economic growth; semiparametric estimators |
| JEL: | C14 O47 R11 R12 |
| Date: | 2009–08–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:bofitp:2009_010&r=geo |
| By: | Eckhardt Bode; Peter Nunnenkamp; Andreas Waldkirch |
| Abstract: | Abstract: This paper estimates the aggregate productivity effects of Marshallian externalities generated by foreign direct investments (FDI) in the US. In contrast to earlier work, this paper puts special emphasis on controlling for Marshallian externalities and other intra- and inter-regional spillovers generated by domestic firms. The productivity effects of these externalities may, if not accounted for appropriately, be falsely attributed to FDI. This paper also deals with the potential endogeneity of FDI and the presence of spatial lags by employing a system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator. We use a regional production function framework that models Marshallian externalities and other intra- and inter-regional spillovers explicitly as determinants of total factor productivity, and tests several empirical specifications of this model, using data for US states from 1977—2003. The results indicate that FDI does, in fact, generate positive externalities, while those from domestic firms are negative |
| Keywords: | Foreign Direct Investment, US States, Spatial Econometrics, Marshallian Externalities |
| JEL: | C31 F21 F23 |
| Date: | 2009–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1535&r=geo |
| By: | Jeffrey Zabel |
| Abstract: | The United States is known for the ability of its residents to move to where the jobs are, and this has helped the nation maintain its position as the world’s top economy. Households’ decisions to move depend not only on job prospects but also on the relative cost of housing. I investigate how the housing market affects the flow of workers across cities. This occurs through at least two channels: the relative mobility of homeowners versus renters, and the relative cost of housing across markets. I use homeownership rates to measure the former, and use an index that measures house prices across metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs); the price elasticity of housing supply; and the growth rate of house prices to capture the latter. ; To show how variation in these factors affects cross-city migration, I estimate a VAR model of migration, employment, wages, house prices, and new housing supply using data from 277 U.S. MSAs for 1990–2006. The impulse response functions based on employment supply and demand shocks show substantial variation when evaluated at different values of the homeownership rate, the price elasticity of housing supply, relative housing prices, and their growth rates. I also allow for spillover effects in the model that reflect the impact of a labor demand shock in the nearest city. |
| Keywords: | Migration, Internal - United States ; Housing - Prices ; Labor mobility |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedbcw:09-2&r=geo |
| By: | Osiris Jorge, Parcero; Adolfo, Cristobal-Campoamor |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes some determinant conditions under which neighborhood formation gives rise to segregation by income. In contrast to the literature, we explore the sequential arrival of poor and rich individuals to neighborhoods exploited by oligopolistic land developers. These developers try to maximize a discounted flow of lot prices during neighborhood formation, taking advantage of the local externalities generated by the rich and the poor. Under a speedy arrival of new potential inhabitants and/or low discount rates, competing developers are more likely to concentrate rich people in the same neighborhood. This happens because the benefits from early agglomeration are outweighed by a more profitable matching of rich neighbors within nearby lots. |
| Keywords: | land developers; segregation; income distribution; arrival rates |
| JEL: | H23 R21 |
| Date: | 2009–08–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:16936&r=geo |
| By: | Baltzopoulos, Apostolos (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology) |
| Abstract: | The present study carries out a mutli-level analysis of entrepeneurship by considering the choice of the individual to leave his job position to become self-employed. A comprehensive data-set matching the individual to his place of work allows controlling for the characteristics of both the firm and the region he worked in before starting his own firm. The results suggest that small firms spawn entrepreneurs more frequently and individuals working in larger regions that are characterized by larger local markets, higher accumulation of knowledge resources and higher population density are more likely to transcend into entrepreneurship. I also find evidence that people are more likely to select the path of self-employment in the face of weak local competition. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship; self-employment; externalities |
| JEL: | D01 O12 O18 R10 |
| Date: | 2009–08–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0189&r=geo |
| By: | Siedschlag, Iulia (ESRI); Zhang, Xiaoheng (ESRI); Smith, Donal (ESRI) |
| Abstract: | We examine the attractiveness of European Union regions for location of multinationals in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector. Using data on 8,543 foreign subsidiaries established in 229 regions of the European Union over the period 1998-2008 we find that on average, the location probability increases with regional demand, agglomeration economies, technological development, flexibility of labour markets, and information technology infrastructure. The determinants of the location choice of ICT multinationals are different for regions in Western Europe and Central and Eastern Europe. While in Western Europe, regions with higher GDP per capita are preferred for both ICT multinationals in manufacturing and service sectors, in Central and Eastern Europe, regions with lower GDP per capita attract the bulk of ICT multinationals in the service sector. Unemployment rates appear negatively correlated with the probability of location in the whole European Union and Western Europe, while they increase attractiveness for regions in Central and Eastern Europe. Some determinants are also found to have heterogeneous effects on multinationals from different countries. In particular, US multinationals are not sensitive to labour costs while EU multinationals respond to this factor negatively. |
| Keywords: | Foreign direct investment; Information and Communication Technologies; Location choice; Conditional logit; Nested logit; European Union. |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esr:wpaper:dynreg45&r=geo |
| By: | James A. Giesecke |
| Abstract: | This paper details the construction of a large-scale computable general equilibrium (CGE) model for a single U.S. region. The model contains detailed treatment of margins and taxes, features not typically given prominence in U.S. regional CGE models. The starting point for the core of the CGE model's data base is information from IMPLAN, producers of regional I/O data at the U.S. county and state levels. IMPLAN's I/O tables, however, are in producer prices with aggregated treatment of margins and taxes. The methods for reconfiguring the I/O data into basic price flows with direct allocation of imports and a disaggregated treatment of taxes and margins are described. The method is applied to construction of a Los Angeles County model. An illustrative simulation of a productivity improvement in the Los Angeles County economy is then discussed. |
| Keywords: | CGE, IMPLAN |
| JEL: | C68 R13 R15 |
| Date: | 2009–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cop:wpaper:g-187&r=geo |