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on Economic Geography |
| By: | Dauth, Wolfgang (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]) |
| Abstract: | "Theories in regional science predict that related establishments benefit from their mutual proximity due to forward-backward linkages, labor market pooling and knowledge spillovers (the Marshallian forces). While the existence of these externalities as a whole is well supported by the empirical literature, there are few studies that discriminate between separate explanations. This paper introduces a new approach to assess the importance and magnitude of each of the Marshallian forces separately. Instead of measuring external economies of scale that take place within single industries, it models spillovers that happen between co-located industries. To this end, methods of spatial econometrics are adopted to measure interindustry relationships in employment growth between 55 industries of the manufacturing and service sectors in the labor market regions of the five largest cities in western Germany in the years 1989 to 2006. In this context, the strength of these relations is determined by economic closeness rather than by geography. The results suggest that each of the three Marshallian forces help to explain agglomeration externalities." (author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| JEL: | O47 R11 R12 |
| Date: | 2010–08–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:201015&r=geo |
| By: | Funke, Michael (BOFIT); Yu, Hao (BOFIT) |
| Abstract: | Seaports have historically played a key role in facilitating trade and growth. This paper is the first attempt in the literature to analyse the formation of Chinese seaport cities and the dynamics that drives it. First, we aim to identify theoretically the emergence of urbanized seaports with the help of a formal economic geography model. Second, employing an empirically plausible parameterisation of the model, we calibrate the evolutionary process and spatial distribution of seaports along the Chinese coastline. |
| Keywords: | seaports; cities; economic growth; China |
| JEL: | R11 R12 R41 |
| Date: | 2010–07–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:bofitp:2010_011&r=geo |
| By: | Oded Hochman (Department of Economics, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel) |
| Abstract: | We investigate here the agglomeration of spatial clubs in an efficient allocation of a club economy. The literature on agglomeration has focused largely on a primary agglomeration caused by direct attraction forces. We concentrate mainly on secondary and tertiary agglomerations caused by a primary agglomeration. Initially, scale economies in the provision of club goods (CGs) lead each CG to agglomerate in facilities of its club. This primary agglomeration causes a secondary concentration of population around these facilities, which in turn brings about a tertiary agglomeration of facilities of different clubs into centers in the midst of population concentration. The agglomeration of facilities occurs only if a secondary concentration of population takes place. We analyze in detail two specific patterns of agglomeration. One is the central location pattern in which the facilities of all clubs agglomerate perfectly in the middle of the complex. The second is a triple-centered complex in which the center in the middle of the complex consists of perfectly agglomerated facilities of different clubs, each with a single facility per complex. The remaining two centers also consist of facilities of different clubs, but cubs in these centers each have two facilities per complex, one in each center. Each of these two centers is located between a boundary and the middle of the complex closer to the middle of the complex than to the boundary. The facilities in these two centers form condensed clusters of facilities that may contain residential land in between the facilities. We then show that these agglomeration patterns also characterize agglomerations in general. The literature maintains that an efficiently behaving municipality increases its tax-base. This implies that it is in the municipality’s interest to achieve efficiency. The best way for a local government to achieve this desired efficiency is by partially intervening in market operations in order to internalize local externalities. We argue that it suffices for such an intervention to be limited to providing the city’s infrastructure, to taxing only residential land rents and clubs’ profits, to subsidizing the basic industry of the city, and to partially regulating land uses. Consequently, if the local governments of all complexes behave properly the decentralization of the efficient allocation of the club economy should be attained. |
| Keywords: | effective or ineffective agglomeration, spatial clubs, complex, configuration, collective goods, local public goods, facilities, direct and indirect attraction, primary and tertiary agglomerations, secondary population concentration. |
| JEL: | R1 H4 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bgu:wpaper:1005&r=geo |
| By: | Thissen, M.J.P.M.; Burger, M.J.; Oort, F.G. van |
| Abstract: | We build a theoretical model that relates house price, city size and the expected future growth of demand for housing. Our model combines the Alonso-Mills model on urban economics with insights from financial economics on house prices. Estimating the model for cities in the US, we empirically validate the positive effect of city size on urban house prices. Moreover, our estimations confirm that an (unrealistic) increase in the expected growth of demand fuelled by the widespread availability of credit provides a better explanation for the recent bubble than inelastic housing supply that explained earlier bubbles. |
| Keywords: | house prices;bubbles;city size |
| Date: | 2010–07–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:eureri:1765020380&r=geo |
| By: | Lambais, Guilherme B. R. |
| Abstract: | The objective of this paper is to analyze a set of technology-based enterprises connected to incubators and the University of Campinas, both located in the Metropolitan Region of Campinas, Brazil. We call these, respectively, “induced” and “spontaneous” companies. A survey was conducted directly with the companies and reveled an answer rate of 31% for our population connected to incubators and 24% for those connected with the university. We propose a discussion of firm’s endogenous and exogenous characteristics, as well as their relations with the geographic space. Our main conclusions are as follows: 1) the space emerges as fundamental in the creation and development of technology-based endeavors, 2) both groups of companies do not differ substantially in successful growth potential, 3) differences emerge with the level of integration with the university and network access, and 4) their main limitation is connected with financing access. |
| Keywords: | Regional and urban economics; New economic geography; Technology-based enterprises; Metropolitan Region of Campinas; Technopolis |
| JEL: | L20 R00 |
| Date: | 2009–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:24449&r=geo |
| By: | Virginie Piguet; Sonia Paty; Sylvie Charlot |
| Abstract: | The main purpose of this paper is to assess the effects of fiscal cooperation on local taxation in a decentralized country, using the French experience. We estimate a model of tax setting for local business tax using spatial and dynamic econometric techniques, for the period 1993-2003. We find first that reducing the number of municipalities is likely to limit tax competition and increase local business tax rates as a consequence. Second, we find that tax rates are higher when groups of localities set a single business tax rate rather than applying an additional rate of business tax, suggesting that horizontal tax competition constrains the level of tax rate increase generated by tax-base sharing. |
| Keywords: | Consolidation, Tax competition, Vertical externalities, Local business tax |
| JEL: | H2 H3 H7 |
| Date: | 2010–01–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ceo:wpaper:2&r=geo |
| By: | Rune M. Vejlin (School of Economics and Management, Aarhus University, Denmark) |
| Abstract: | I develop a stylized partial on-the-job equilibrium search model which incorporate a spatial dimension. Workers reside on a circle and can move at a cost. Each point on the circle has a wage distribution. Implications about wages and job mobility are drawn from the model and tested on Danish matched employer-employee data. The model predictions hold true. I find that workers working farther away from their residence earn higher wages. When a worker is making a job-to-job transition where he changes workplace location he experiences a higher wage change than a worker making a job-to-job transition without changing workplace location. However, workers making a job-to-job transition which makes the workplace location closer to the residence experiences a wage drop. Furthermore, low wage workers and workers with high transportation costs are more likely to make job-to-job transitions, but also residential moves. |
| Keywords: | ob mobility, residential mobility, wage dynamics, search |
| JEL: | J6 J3 R3 |
| Date: | 2010–08–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aah:aarhec:2010-14&r=geo |
| By: | Dirk Fornahl; Tom Broekel; Ron Boschma |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to explain whether firm-specific features, their engagement in collaboration networks and their location influence patent activity of biotech firms in Germany in the period 1997-2004. First, we demonstrate that non-collaborative R&D subsidies do not increase patent intensity of biotech firms. Second, the number of knowledge links biotech firms is also not influencing their patent performance. However, strong and robust evidence is found that some but not too much cognitive distance between actors involved in R&D collaborations increases patent performance of firms. Third, being located in a biotech cluster does positively impact on patent performance. |
| Keywords: | relatedness, R&D subsidies, biotechnology, knowledge networks, proximity paradox |
| JEL: | O33 O38 R58 |
| Date: | 2010–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1009&r=geo |
| By: | Pisani, Elena |
| Abstract: | A recent transition in rural development policies is that of a move from a narrow sectoral approach of rural development, to one that adopts a broader territorial vision. This relatively new theoretical perspective is of peculiar interest to academics and politicians in Latin American countries where, since the mid 1990s, the concept of new rurality has been seen as the beginning of a new approach to rural development. The purposes of this research are: a) to clarify the analytical signposts of the new rurality in Latin America; b) to identify the main analytical differences between sectoral and territorial approaches in fostering rural development; c) to analyse how the new rurality approach could be applied in heterogeneous rural economies. The application is realized in Maule Region (Chile), where at present a strong agrarian economy co-exists with a weak rurality. The study is developed by means of a cluster analysis that uses selected agro-environmental, institutional, social and economic variables. Each of these variables considers the specific attributes of the new rurality approach. The results of this analysis will help policy makers identify suitable rural development policies that are conceived for each cluster and the specific extra-urban economies it represents. Finally the research proposes a new index - Peasantry Development Index PDI – conceived as a specific instrument to monitor rural development policies and their impacts on peasantry. |
| Keywords: | Sectoral development; Territorial development; Rural development; New rurality; Chile |
| JEL: | R58 O18 O54 Q01 |
| Date: | 2010–03–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:23915&r=geo |
| By: | Leonardo Bonilla Mejía |
| Abstract: | En el presente documento se explora la movilidad inter-generacional en educación desde una perspectiva regional. La pregunta central es ¿en qué ciudades y regiones la educación de los individuos depende menos de la de sus padres? Además, se estudia si los migrantes tuvieron mayor o menor movilidad. Para abordar el tema, se emplean siete índices de movilidad, y dos encuestas diferentes. Los resultados son sensibles a los índices, lo que confirma que en las investigaciones sobre movilidad es indispensable construir varios índices. Hay razones para creer que los resultados de algunos índices son más confiables. De acuerdo con estos índices, hubo mayor movilidad en las ciudades y regiones en donde más aumentó el promedio de educación. |
| Date: | 2010–08–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000102:007312&r=geo |