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on Economic Geography |
| By: | Miren Lafourcade (EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics - Ecole d'Économie de Paris, Université de Valenciennes et du Hainaut Cambrésis - Université de valenciennes et du Hainaut Cambrésis, PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - CNRS : UMR8545 - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) - Ecole des Ponts ParisTech - Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris - ENS Paris); Jacques-François Thisse (EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics - Ecole d'Économie de Paris, PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - CNRS : UMR8545 - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) - Ecole des Ponts ParisTech - Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris - ENS Paris, CORE - Center of Operation Research and Econometrics [Louvain] - Université Catholique de Louvain) |
| Abstract: | The paper surveys the main contributions of new economic geography from the point of view of transport analysis. It shows that decreasing transport costs is likely to exacerbate regional disparities. However, very low transport costs should foster a more balanced distribution for economic activities across space. Thus, the spatial curve of development, which relates the degree of spatial concentration to the level of transport costs, would be bell-shaped. The paper also provides a detailed discussion of the main determinants of transport costs, which remain fairly large in most countries. It concludes with a discussion of some policy implications. |
| Keywords: | economic geography ; transport costs ; regional disparities |
| Date: | 2011–04–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-00586878&r=geo |
| By: | Laurent Gobillon (INED - INED); Carine Milcent (EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics - Ecole d'Économie de Paris, PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - CNRS : UMR8545 - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) - Ecole des Ponts ParisTech - Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris - ENS Paris) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the determinants of the regional disparities in the mortality of patients treated in a hospital for a heart attack in France. These determinants can be some differences in patient characteristics, treatments, hospital charateristics, and local healthcare market structure. We assess their importance with an exhaustive administrative dataset over the 1998-2003 period using a stratified duration model. The raw disparities in the propensity to die within 15 days between the extreme regions reaches 80%. It decreases to 47% after controlling for the patient characteristics and their treatments. In fact, a variance analysis shows that innovative treatments play an important role. Remaining regional disparities are significantly related to the local healthcare market structure. The more patients are locally concentrated in a few large hospitals rather than many small ones, the lower the mortality. |
| Keywords: | spatial health disparities ; stratified duration model |
| Date: | 2011–04–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-00586837&r=geo |
| By: | Konstantin Gluschenko |
| Abstract: | After a period of growing disconnectedness of regional markets following the 1992 price liberalization in Russia, a process of improvement in market integration started since about 1994. This paper analyzes the spatial pattern of goods market integration in the country in 1994-2000, characterizing Russian regions into three states: integrated with a benchmark region, not integrated but tending toward integration with it, and not integrated and not tending toward integration. The standard AR(1) model serves to test for market integration. To capture a movement toward integration (price convergence), a nonlinear time series model with an asymptotically decaying trend is proposed. The results obtained suggest that only a bit more than one fifth of the Russian regions can be deemed not integrated and not tending toward integration with the benchmarkregion over 1994–2000. |
| Keywords: | Law of one price, Price dispersion, Non-linear trend, Russian regions. |
| JEL: | C32 P22 R10 R15 |
| Date: | 2010–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wdi:papers:2010-999&r=geo |
| By: | Cellini, Roberto (University of Catania); Torrisi, Gianpiero (University of Newcastle upon Tyne) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we analyse the effects of public spending for tourism in the twenty Italian regions. The evaluation is made possible by the availability of the databank under the project ‘Conti Pubblici Territoriali’ (‘Regional Public Account’) of the Ministry of Economic Development, wherein the spending of all public institutions is aggregated for each region, and it is also classified according to different criteria, including the sectoral criterion. We take a cross-sectional regression analysis approach, and the effects of public spending for tourism on tourism attraction are investigated. Generally speaking, the effectiveness of public spending appears to be weak. |
| Keywords: | Tourism; Regions; Public Spending; Regional Public Accounts |
| JEL: | C21 L83 M49 R53 R58 |
| Date: | 2010–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:demqwp:2010_010&r=geo |
| By: | L. Mauro; Francesco Pigliaru |
| Abstract: | Since Putnam s work on social capital, the Italian regional case has been a very rich source of both data and theories about the origins of large and persistent differences in local stocks of social capital, and about the impact of such differences on economic performances. The Italian case is widely interpreted as supporting the idea that persistent regional divides are largely explained by local differences in social capital. In this paper we maintain that this interpretation fails to recognize that the current large regional gap in Italy is significantly linked to two policy decisions taken by the central State at the beginning of the 1970s. In particular, we focus on the possibility that social capital became a binding constraint for the growth of southern Italy’s mainly as a consequence of the deep process of governmental decentralization that began in the1970s. We formalize this hypothesis by using an endogenous growth model with public capital. In this model, the accumulation of public capital is characterized by the presence of iceberg costs that depend on social capital. Decentralization affects these costs because the impact of the local stocks of social capital on public investment increases when the latter is managed locally. To assess the role of decentralization as a trigger of the influence of local social capital on growth, we control for the impact of labor market reforms, a second and almost simultaneous institutional shock that took place in Italy and that made regional labor markets far more rigid than in the previous decades. In the second part of our paper, we use the large empirical literature on the Italian regions to restrict the values of the parameters of our model in order to perform a simple simulation exercise. In this exercise, the model turns out to be able to account for the major swings in the convergence of southern regions towards the center-northern regions since 1861. The general lessons we can draw from this further analysis of the Italian regional case are as follows. First, we show that the strength of social capital as a determinant of long-run growth may depend on some well-defined characteristic of the institutional context. Second, our model suggests that the economic success of decentralization policies -- even when the budget constraint is not "soft" -- depends on the local endowment of social capital. |
| Keywords: | Growth; Decentralization; Convergence; Social Capital |
| JEL: | O4 R5 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cns:cnscwp:201103&r=geo |
| By: | Geys, Benny; Osterloh, Steffen |
| Abstract: | Studies of spatial policy interdependence in (local) public policies usually concentrate on the relations between jurisdictions within a single analysed region, and disregard possible extra-regional effects. This paper evaluates the validity of such restriction by studying German local politicians' assessments of their jurisdictions' main competitors in the struggle to attract firms. We find that location near a border significantly undermines politicians' perception that the fiercest competitive pressure derives from jurisdictions within their own state. This effect sets in about 20km (12.5km) from a national (international) border. We also confirm that intranational borders are perceived as much less constraining for firms than international ones, even in a highly integrated area such as the European Union. Overall, these results indicate that nearest municipalities perceive each other as competitors regardless of the state or country where they are located. The practical implications of these findings for future studies on spatial policy interdependence are discussed. -- |
| Keywords: | government interaction,competition,border effects,policy interdependence |
| JEL: | D24 D60 H71 H72 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:11020&r=geo |
| By: | Jeanty, P. Wilner; Ulimwengu, John Mususa |
| Abstract: | The poverty rate and income transfer are clearly correlated. However, not much research has attempted to determine the causal linkage between the two. Previous research has primarily focused on the poverty-reducing impact of income transfer. In this paper, we apply a simultaneous equation system of spatial regressions to uncover the spatial pattern of the relationship between the poverty rate and income transfer, using a sample of 3,001 U.S. counties. The results are in line with theoretical expectations; they provide evidence of a significant simultaneity effect between the poverty rate and income transfer. Our findings also confirm the presence of significant spatial autocorrelation. Contrary to previous studies, we find that more generous counties tend to do a better job of reducing poverty and that counties with more poor tend to be less generous, creating incentive for the poor to participate in the labor force. Furthermore, counties located in devolution states perform better in both poverty reduction and income transfer. These findings are missing from extant literature that focuses only on the poverty-reducing impact of welfare payments. |
| Keywords: | endogeneity, income transfer, Poverty, SHAC, spatial econometrics, |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1076&r=geo |
| By: | Simone Strambach (Department of Geography, Philipps University Marburg); Iris Dieterich (Department of Geography, Philipps University Marburg) |
| Abstract: | The paper focuses on the territorial shaping of knowledge dynamics as one of the driving forces for innovation. Knowledge dynamics are unfolding from processes of creation, use, transformation and diffusion of knowledge. Due to both the ongoing restructuring of global value chains and the changes in the organization of innovation ‘combinatorial knowledge dynamics’ gain a more prominent role in innovation. Firms are facing an increasing need to combine heterogeneous knowledge sources spread over organizational, technological, sectoral and spatial boundaries in innovation processes. Combinatorial knowledge dynamics imply to cope with many different cognitive, technological, intra- and inter-organizational and institutional interfaces. Deeper empirical investigation in the connected organizational and institutional change linked with knowledge dynamics is still missing, but is indeed necessary to better understand the spatio-temporality of knowledge dynamics behind innovation. Addressing the connection of space as a scope of action and space as being generated as a part of the social process, the paper chose a biographical method to explore knowledge dynamics. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, territorial knowledge dynamics, automotive industry, Baden-Württemberg |
| JEL: | D83 L62 O32 |
| Date: | 2011–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pum:wpaper:2011-01&r=geo |
| By: | Marcus BERLIANT; FUJITA Masahisa |
| Abstract: | Is the paradise of effortless communication the ideal environment for knowledge creation? Or, can the development of local culture in regions raise knowledge productivity compared to a single region with a unitary culture? In other words, can a real technological increase in the cost of collaboration and the cost of public knowledge flow between regions, resulting in cultural differentiation between regions, increase welfare? In our framework, a culture is a set of ideas held exclusively by residents of a location. In general in our model, the equilibrium path generates separate cultures in different regions. When we compare this to the situation where all workers are resident in one region, R&D workers become too homogeneous and there is only one culture. As a result, equilibrium productivity in the creation of new knowledge is lower relative to the situation when there are multiple cultures and workers are more diverse. |
| Date: | 2011–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:11046&r=geo |
| By: | Tykvová, Tereza; Schertler, Andrea |
| Abstract: | Drawing on a novel dataset of worldwide venture capital deals, we investigate how venture capitalists (VCs) overcome the complexity of investing in geographically and institutionally distant regions. Our results indicate that syndicating with local VCs is a common way for foreign VCs to gain deal access, overcome the complexity of investing in distant regions and offset their lack of within-country experience. The foreign VC's distance from the portfolio company ceases to be a serious investment obstacle when he can rely on a highly experienced local VC. Our results further suggest that inexperienced VCs, i.e. those VCs with a large need for syndication, increase their chances to invest across borders when they invest in small deals jointly with local inexperienced partners. -- |
| Keywords: | Multiple Regression Analysis,Syndicates,Venture Capital,Internationalization,Distance,Experience |
| JEL: | F21 G24 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:11022&r=geo |
| By: | Marco Bassetto; Leslie McGranahan |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we investigate the relationship between public capital spending and population dynamics at the state level. Empirically, we document two robust facts. First, states with faster population growth do not spend more (per capita) to accommodate the needs of their growing population. Second, states whose population is more likely to leave do tend to spend more per capita than states with low gross emigration rates. To interpret these facts, we introduce an explicit, quantitative political-economy model of government spending determination, where mobility and population growth generate departures from Ricardian equivalence by shifting some of the costs and benefits of public projects to future residents. The magnitude of the empirical response of capital spending to mobility is at the upper end of what can be explained by the theory with a plausible calibration. In the model, more mobile voters favor more spending because the maturity of states' debt is very long term and costs are shifted into the future more than benefits. |
| JEL: | E62 H41 H71 |
| Date: | 2011–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16970&r=geo |