|
on Economic Geography |
| By: | Massimiliano Mazzanti; Valeria Costantini; Anna Montini |
| Abstract: | The achievement of positive Environmental Performance (EP) at national level could strongly depend on differences in regional features, namely economic specialization, regulation stringency and innovation capabilities of both public institutions and the private business sector. We apply both shift-share and econometric analysis on a new NAMEA available for the 20 Italian Regions, in order to provide evidence of the role played by sector innovation, technological spillovers and regional policies in shaping the geographical distribution of EP. The Italian North-South divide regarding industrial development and productive specialisation patterns seems to affect regional EP. Nonetheless, such pattern presents some interesting differences, revealing a more heterogeneous distribution of emissions, which may reflect the role of other driving forces. In particular, agglomerative effects seem to prevail over purely internal factors - environmental efficiency of neighbouring regions strongly influence the internal EP. This means that together with the clustering of specific sectors into restricted areas as a standard result in regional economics, there is also some convergence in the adoption of cleaner or dirtier production process techniques. Finally, regional technological spillovers seem to play a more effective role in improving environmental efficiency than "sector internal innovation", revealing that accounting for spatial features is crucial to understand the key drivers of EP. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Performance; Technological Innovation; Regional Spillovers; regional NAMEA |
| JEL: | Q53 Q55 Q56 R15 |
| Date: | 2011–01–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:udf:wpaper:201103&r=geo |
| By: | Enrico Giovannetti; Francesco Pagliacci |
| Abstract: | Medium-sized European cities are facing serious problems in terms of the exploitation of local resources (land, water, air). In this article, we observe existing links between sustainable development and cities’ economic and structural features. We adopt a multi-scalar perspective, since the theme of sustainable development involves both urban areas and the wider regions surrounding them. First, we identify clusters of urban areas that are homogenous in structural terms and we then compare these results at different territorial scales. When the sustainable development of the clusters is observed, a clear ‘geography of resource exploitation’ emerges, consistent with both urban economic and environmental indicators. Then, as a possible response to these problems, we suggest a typical tool adopted by planners: that is, polycentrism. Rather than considering it as a simple morphological feature of European urban systems, we look upon it as a possible mode for the governance of networks of medium-sized cities. In the last section of the paper, we analyse the economic and structural drivers that explain potential for polycentric integration |
| Keywords: | polycentrism; medium-sized cities; sustainable development; cluster analysis; |
| JEL: | Q01 R10 R58 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mod:depeco:0641&r=geo |
| By: | Bruno, Randolph; Bytchkova, Maria; Estrin, Saul |
| Abstract: | We analyse a micro-panel data set to investigate the effect of regional institutional environment and economic factors on Russian new firm entry rates across time, industries and regions. The paper builds on novel databases and exploits inter-regional variation in a large number of institutional variables. We find entry rates across industries in Russia are not especially low by international standards and are correlated with entry rates in developed market economies, as well as with institutional environment and firm size. Furthermore, industries that, for scale or technological reasons, are characterised by higher entry rates experience lower entry within regions affected subject to political change. A higher level of democracy enhances entry rates for small sized firms but reduces them for medium or large ones. |
| Keywords: | democracy; entry rate; institutions |
| JEL: | L26 P31 |
| Date: | 2011–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8283&r=geo |
| By: | Gaigné, Carl; Riou, Stéphane; Thisse, Jacques-François |
| Abstract: | There is a large consensus among international institutions and national governments to favor urban-containment policies - the compact city - as a way to improve the ecological performance of the urban system. This approach overlooks a fundamental fact: what matters for the ecological outcome of cities is the mix between the level of population density and the global pattern of activities. As expected, when both the intercity and intraurban distributions of activities are given, a higher population density makes cities more environmentally friendly. However, once we account for the fact that cities may be either monocentric or polycentric as well as for the possible relocation of activities between cities, the relationship between population density and the ecological performance of cities appears to be much more involved. Indeed, because changes in population density affect land rents and wages, firms and workers are incited to relocate, thus leading to new commuting and shipping patterns. We show that policies favoring the decentralization of jobs may be more environmentally desirable. |
| Keywords: | cities; commuting costs; greenhouse gas; transport costs; urban-containment policy |
| JEL: | D61 F12 Q54 Q58 R12 |
| Date: | 2011–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8297&r=geo |
| By: | Peter Robinson (Institute for Fiscal Studies and London School of Economics); Supachoke Thawornkaiwong |
| Abstract: | <p>Central limit theorems are developed for instrumental variables estimates of linear and semiparametric partly linear regression models for spatial data. General forms of spatial dependence and heterogeneity in explanatory variables and unobservable disturbances are permitted. We discuss estimation of the variance matrix, including estimates that are robust to disturbance heteroscedasticity and/or dependence. A Monte Carlo study of finite-sample performance is included. In an empirical example, the estimates and robust and non-robust standard errors are computed from Indian regional data, following tests for spatial correlation in disturbances, and nonparametric regression fitting. Some final comments discuss modifications and extensions.</p> |
| Date: | 2011–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:cemmap:08/11&r=geo |
| By: | Wall, Howard J. |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the spatial interaction of neighboring cities over their employment cycles. The cycles of neighboring cities tend to be more similar to one another than are those of non-neighboring cities, although this is due primarily to neighbors’ tendency to be in the same state. In addition to these same-state effects, neighborness interacts with industry and human capital in ways that make the cyclical interaction of neighbors different from that of non-neighbors. Specifically, neighboring cities with similar levels of educational attainment and establishment size tend to have more-similar employment cycles, but neighboring cities with similar racial compositions tend to have less-similar employment cycles. |
| Keywords: | Neighboring cities; employment cycles |
| JEL: | R10 E32 |
| Date: | 2011–03–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:29410&r=geo |
| By: | Aurelio Bruzzo |
| Abstract: | This contribution aims to present the main results of a preliminary survey carried out on relevant socio-economic disparities that exist among the Provincial Administrations and/or geographic regions of Argentina, using several indicators to conduct a descriptive statistic analysis on the matter. In fact, even in this simple way, it is assumed to usefully contribute to the scientific debate developed regarding the limited knowledge so far available about the socioeconomic growth, which occurred in Argentina at regional level during the last decades. For this purpose, according to the main official sources of statistical documentation, available at international level, a broad set of indexes has been elaborated; such parameters have been used to outline a overview, basically comprehensive and organic, on various aspects (population, labour market, income level, territory, etc.) deemed useful for obtaining further interpretation elements about disparities inside this country, still in development. |
| Keywords: | Argentine; Territorial disparities |
| JEL: | R11 R12 |
| Date: | 2010–11–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:udf:wpaper:201011&r=geo |
| By: | Aurelio Bruzzo; Nicola Camatti |
| Abstract: | In the Treaty of Lisbon it is established that the European Union pursues the goal of the economic, social and territorial cohesion. In this way a new concept has been introduced both in the political-institutional and scientific debate - exactly the one of the territorial cohesion - on which effective meaning and its implications on the operative plan, until now does not seems to be achieved a complete concordance of opinions both among the policy makers and the studious at international level. In the present volume we prepared - mainly following a multi-disciplinary approach - a review of both of the official documentation and of the scientific literature published in the last decade, in the effort not only to provide a tendentially exhaustive framework of this complex subject, but also to define an efficient and effective operative prospect, in order to facilitate a concrete implementation of the territorial cohesion within the Member States, in particular in the regional and local context. |
| Keywords: | Territorial Cohesion; Multi-disciplinary Review |
| JEL: | R00 Y3 |
| Date: | 2010–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:udf:wpaper:201009&r=geo |
| By: | De Fence, Janine; McGregor, P. G. (Peter Gregor); Munday, Max; Swales, J. Kim; Turner, Karen |
| Abstract: | This paper considers the combined use of regional input-output (IO) and computable general equilibrium (CGE) methods to examine regional pollution problems from different consumption and production orientated perspectives. The first stage of the analysis involves using a regional input-output framework and data derived on direct CO2 (as carbon) generation by industry (and in household final consumption) to examine regional accountability for CO2 generation. In doing we consider an accounting method that permits greater accountability of regional private and public (household and government) final consumption as the main driver of regional carbon generation, while retaining focus on the local production, technology and consumption decisions that fall under the jurisdiction of regional policymakers. However, we go on to argue that a potential issue arising from the increasing focus on consumption-based „carbon footprint‟ type measures is that regional CO2 generation embodied in export production is attributed outside of the region, while regional consumers are likely to benefit from such production. We demonstrate our argument by using a regional CGE model to simulate the impacts of an increase in export demand for regional production on key macroeconomic variables, including GDP, employment and household consumption, as well as on different measures of CO2 attributable to regional consumption. In terms of the latter, we demonstrate how CGE model results may be used to create „post-shock‟ IO accounts to permit the calculation of CO2 generation under the various production and consumption accounting principles considered in the first part of the paper. Our empirical analyses focus on the case example of the Welsh regional economy and an anticipated increase in export demand for the output of one of the biggest polluting sectors, Iron and Steel production. |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stl:stledp:2010-16&r=geo |
| By: | Piero, Casadio |
| Abstract: | Collective bargaining at company level has not been particularly widespread, especially at small firms and in the South. The Bank of Italy’s survey shows that performancerelated wage premia have been paid irregularly and have involved only small amounts. Nevertheless they have fostered a gradual widening of regional and skill-based wage differentials. In 2002-07 the earnings items set at company level, in addition to the contractual minimums, averaged 14.9 per cent in industrial firms; 6.7 per cent only for firms below 50 workers. Controlling for firm size and characteristics, the company-level component of earnings was some 5-6 percentage points lower in the South than in the North for production workers and 8-9 points for clerical workers. The original finding of the study is that just 10 per cent of employees in the North earn only the nationally fixed contractual minimum, compared with 30 per cent in the Centre and over 40 per cent in the South. A short examination of geographical wage differentials, controlling for sector, and firm size concludes |
| Keywords: | wage bargaining; firm-level contracts; territorial wage differentials. |
| JEL: | J31 J41 |
| Date: | 2010–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:29384&r=geo |
| By: | Sylvain Barde |
| Abstract: | The maximum entropy methodology is applied to the Schelling model of urban segregation in order to obtain a reliable prediction of the stable configuration of the system without resorting to numerical simulations. We show that this approach also provides an implicit equation describing the distribution of agents over a city which allows for directly assessing the effect of model parameters on the solution. Finally, we discuss the information theoretic motivation for applying this methodology to the Schelling model, and show that it effectively rests on the presence of a potential function, suggesting a broader applicability of the methodology. |
| Keywords: | Information theoretic measure; potential function; Schelling segregation model |
| JEL: | C11 C63 D80 J15 |
| Date: | 2011–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ukc:ukcedp:1104&r=geo |