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on Economic Geography |
| By: | Marie-Estelle Binet (University of Rennes 1 - CREM UMR CNRS 6211, France); François Facchini (University of Paris-Sud, Faculty Jean Monnet (France)) |
| Abstract: | This paper deals with the determinants of enterprise creation in the 22 French regions from 1994 to 2003. We then estimate a dynamic panel data model which allows spatial heterogeneity to be modelled and which is compared with a specification without spatial heterogeneity. The estimation results show that an appropriate consideration of spatial heterogeneity can lead to new insights. The results show: 1) that the Holcombe effect and the income effect have a statistically significant and positive impact for all regions; 2) that the age of the population and the size of the firms have the same negative effects for all regions with the exception of Ile-de-France; 3) that at the threshold of 10%, the refugee effect only concerns 10 regions out of 22; 4) that the effect of public R&D remains insignificant for 17 of the 22 regions, but becomes statistically significant in five regions and has a positive effect in three regions only, these being those which exhibit the highest per capita public R&D expenditure levels. Globally, Anselin's (1990) hypothesis, according to which the presence of spatial heterogeneity casts doubt upon the generalizability of theories in regional science, is thus in part confirmed. |
| Keywords: | Creation of enterprises, spatial heterogeneity, dynamic panel data, refugee effect, public R&D |
| JEL: | M13 O18 J21 |
| Date: | 2013–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tut:cremwp:201312&r=geo |
| By: | Karlsson, Charlie (Jönköping International Business School); Johansson, Börje (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology); R. Stough, Roger (George Mason University) |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this working paper is to provide a short overview of actual topics in contemporary research concerned with global, national, regional and local knowledge and innovation dynamics. In the text, we stress the importance to understand the current changes of the global and their implications for knowledge generation and innovation. Treating knowledge as a key resource for innovation shifts the focus from the innovation itself to the process of knowledge generation, transformation and diffusion, i.e. to knowledge dynamics. This necessitates integrating spatial aspects since knowledge generation and as a result, innovation exhibits a strong geographical clustering, which implies that innovation ability and innovation resources also are strongly clustered geographically in particular to urban regions. The role of interaction and proximity for knowledge generation and innovation is highlighted and instead it is stressed that relational, cognitive, organizational, social and institutional proximities are not substitutes or complements to spatial proximity but that they are all functions of the prevailing spatial proximity. Another important factor for interaction is social capital, which by fostering trust makes information and knowledge to diffuse faster. |
| Keywords: | Knowledge; innovation; proximity; knowledge economy; knowledge dynamics; knowledge networks; innovation ability; innovation resources; globalization; agglomeration; face-to-face interaction; urban regions; social capital |
| JEL: | O31 O32 O33 R12 |
| Date: | 2013–04–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0305&r=geo |
| By: | Autor, David (MIT); Dorn, David (CEMFI, Madrid); Hanson, Gordon H. (University of California, San Diego) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the geographic overlap of trade and technology shocks across local labor markets in the United States. Regional exposure to technological change, as measured by specialization in routine task-intensive production and clerical occupations, is largely uncorrelated with regional exposure to trade competition from China. While the impacts of technology are present throughout the United States, the impacts of trade tend to be more geographically concentrated, owing in part to the spatial agglomeration of labor-intensive manufacturing. Our findings suggest that it should be possible to separately identify the impacts of recent changes in trade and technology on U.S. regional economies. |
| Keywords: | trade, technology, geography, local labor markets |
| JEL: | F16 O33 R12 |
| Date: | 2013–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7326&r=geo |
| By: | Wixe, Sofia (Jönköping International Business School) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the role of spatial externalities in explaining the average labour productivity of Swedish manufacturing firms. The empirical findings support MAR and Porter externalities as well as general urbanization economies, but not Jacobs externalities. In addition, the matching between the firm and the regional labour force is found to be productivity-enhancing. However, firm-specific characteristics, including the characteristics of the employees, are not to be forgotten. Especially since externalities are commonly associated with knowledge spillovers, and it is through the employees that the external knowledge is absorbed and channelled to the firm as a whole. |
| Keywords: | Firm productivity; spatial externalities; manufacturing; Sweden |
| JEL: | D24 L25 L60 R32 |
| Date: | 2013–04–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0306&r=geo |
| By: | Florida , Richard (University of Toronto); Mellander , Charlotta (Jönköping International Business School) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the geographic variation in inequality, and it distinguishes between wage and income inequality. Wage inequality is associated with skills, human capital, technology and metro size - in line with the literature on skill-biased technical change. Income inequality is instead more closely associated with race, poverty, lower levels of unionization and lower taxes. This suggests that income inequality is a product not only of skill-biased technical change, but also of the enduring legacy of race and poverty at the bottom of the socio-economic order, as well as the unraveling of the post-war social compact between capital and labor. |
| Keywords: | inequality; income; wage; high-tech; skills |
| JEL: | J24 O10 O33 R00 |
| Date: | 2013–04–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0304&r=geo |
| By: | Mano, Yukichi; Suzuki, Aya |
| Abstract: | Industrial clusters are ubiquitous, and the associated low transaction costs allow producers to benefit from information spillovers, interfirm division and specialization of labor, and the development of skilled-labor markets. Previous studies, however, have seldom quantified the benefits on business performance. Ethiopia’s cut flower industry provides a rare opportunity to compare agglomerated with dispersed producers. Agglomerated farms frequently share technological knowledge and market information to decide when and even whether products are worth harvesting and shipping and to select product varieties. Econometric results indicate that agglomerated farms export higher valued flowers and achieve higher productivity and profitability. These findings imply that promotion of industrial clusters would further develop the industry. |
| Keywords: | agglomeration economies, information spillovers, market information, technological knowledge, cut flower, Sub-Sahara Africa, Ethiopia |
| JEL: | L15 L25 O12 O25 |
| Date: | 2013–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:econdp:2013-04&r=geo |
| By: | Ebru Kerimoglu (Istanbul Technical University, Department of Urban and Regional Planning); B. Can Karahasan (Okan University, Department of International Trade) |
| Abstract: | The ‘creative class’ as a source of growth has been afforded increasing attention in recent years. However, creative people are not distributed evenly across space, tending rather to concentrate in particular locations. The location decisions of these creative people have been forwarded as a significant factor in accounting for regional disparities in growth and development (Florida, 2002; Fritsch and Stuetzer, 2009). Inspired by the ongoing debate surrounding the creative class theory, this study investigates the spatial distribution of creative capital and its links with regional disparities by examining the geographical divergence of provincial income in Spain. Our findings indicate that although provinces with low levels of creative capital around 1996 experienced an increase in their creative employment in the years leading up to 2004, they still lag behind the northern (and, in particular, the north-eastern) provinces of Spain. More interestingly we report strong spillover effects among the leading and lagging provinces. This spatial pattern of creative capital also accounts for the north-south divide in Spain. Thus, our empirical evidence shows that the provinces with high levels of creative capital in northern Spain are more developed in terms of provincial income even when controlling for other determinants of the process, including industrial development, regional spillover effects and human capital development. |
| Keywords: | Creative Capital, Spain, Regional Divergence, Regional Spillover. JEL classification: R11, R12, O10, E24 |
| Date: | 2012–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aqr:wpaper:201201&r=geo |
| By: | Roberto Antonietti (University of Padova) |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses the existence of knowledge externalities in the form of creative human capital spillovers that affect firm innovative performance. Relying on a large sample of Italian manufacturing firms, a knowledge production function is estimated and the residuals regressed on regional creative workforce indicators interacted with spatial agglomeration variables and measures of knowledge transmission mechanisms. The estimates show that regional density of creative human capital has a positive effect on firm innovativeness only after a critical mass is achieved and only after accounting for the presence of local universities, industrial districts and entrepreneurial activities related to knowledge-intensive services. |
| Keywords: | creative human capital; innovativeness; knowledge production function; nonlinearity JEL: L60; O31; R10; R15 |
| Date: | 2013–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pad:wpaper:0159&r=geo |
| By: | Edward L. Glaeser; Sari Pekkala Kerr; William R. Kerr |
| Abstract: | Measures of entrepreneurship, such as average establishment size and the prevalence of start-ups, correlate strongly with employment growth across and within metropolitan areas, but the endogeneity of these measures bedevils interpretation. Chinitz (1961) hypothesized that coal mines near Pittsburgh led that city to specialization in industries, like steel, with significant scale economies and that those big firms led to a dearth of entrepreneurial human capital across several generations. We test this idea by looking at the spatial location of past mines across the United States: proximity to historical mining deposits is associated with bigger firms and fewer start-ups in the middle of the 20th century. We use mines as an instrument for our entrepreneurship measures and find a persistent link between entrepreneurship and city employment growth; this connection works primarily through lower employment growth of start- ups in cities that are closer to mines. These effects hold in cold and warm regions alike and in industries that are not directly related to mining, such as trade, finance and services. We use quantile instrumental variable regression techniques and identify mostly homogeneous effects throughout the conditional city growth distribution. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship, Industrial Organization, Chinitz, Agglomeration, Clusters, Cities, Mines |
| JEL: | L0 L1 L2 L6 N5 N9 O1 O4 R0 R1 |
| Date: | 2013–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:13-15&r=geo |
| By: | Tsun Se Cheong (Business School, University of Western Australia); Yanrui Wu (Business School, University of Western Australia) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the impacts of globalization on intra-provincial inequality in China. The empirical analysis is based on a dataset of Chinese counties and county-level cities. It is found that foreign direct investment (FDI) and intra-provincial regional inequality are negatively correlated, whereas the relationship between international trade and regional inequality is statistically insignificant. In addition, it is shown that the level of industrialization and service development in Chinese provinces has a positive effect on intra-provincial inequality. It implies that intra-provincial regional inequality will increase as the primary sector declines. The results also show that domestic trade is negatively correlated with regional inequality, whereas the transportation infrastructure has a positive effect on inequality in the country. |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uwa:wpaper:13-10&r=geo |
| By: | Wolfgang Polasek (Department of Economics and Finance, Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna, Austria and University of Porto, Portugal) |
| Abstract: | Growth rate data that are collected incompletely in cross-sections is a quite frequent problem. Chow and Lin (1971) have developed a method for predicting unobserved disaggregated time series and we propose an extension of the procedure for completing cross-sectional growth rates similar to the spatial Chow-Lin method of Liano et al. (2009). Disaggregated growth rates cannot be predicted directly and requires a system estimation of two Chow-Lin prediction models, where we compare classical and Bayesian estimation and prediction methods. We demonstrate the procedure for Spanish regional GDP growth rates between 2000 and 2004 at a NUTS-3 level. We evaluate the growth rate forecasts by accuracy criteria, because for the Spanish data-set we can compare the predicted with the observed values. |
| Keywords: | Interpolation, missing disaggregated values in spatial econometrics, MCMC, Spatial Chow-Lin methods, predicting growth rates data, spatial autoregression (SAR), forecast evaluation, outliers |
| JEL: | C11 C15 C52 E17 R12 |
| Date: | 2013–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ihs:ihsesp:295&r=geo |
| By: | Ernest Miguélez (Economics and Statistics Division, World Intellectual Property Organization and Faculty of Economics, University of Barcelona); Rorina Moreno (Faculty of Economics, University of Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | The aim of the present paper is to identify the determinants of the geographical mobility of skilled individuals, such as inventors, across European regions. Their mobility contributes to the geographical diffusion of knowledge and reshapes the geography of talent. We test whether geography, amenities, job opportunities and social proximity between inventors’ communities, and the so-called National System of Innovation, drive in- and out-flows of inventors between pairs of regions. We use a control function approach to address the endogenous nature of social proximity, and zero-inflated negative binomial models to accommodate our estimations to the count nature of the dependent variable and the high number of zeros it contains. Our results highlight the importance of physical proximity in driving the mobility patterns of inventors. However, job opportunities, social and institutional relations, and technological and cultural proximity also play key roles in mediating this phenomenon. |
| Keywords: | inventors’ mobility, gravity model, amenities, job opportunities, social and institutional proximities, zero-inflated negative binomial, European regions. JEL classification: C8, J61, O31, O33, R0 |
| Date: | 2012–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aqr:wpaper:201203&r=geo |
| By: | Joaquim Murillo (Faculty of Economics, University of Barcelona); Javier Romaní (Faculty of Economics, University of Barcelona); Jordi Suriñach (Faculty of Economics, University of Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | The location of economic activity, in general, and of that of activities of business excellence (high-tech or knowledgeintensive businesses that have a low environmental impact), in particular, is not dependent on one single factor, but rather on a series of economic, geographical, social and political variables. Against this background, the aim of this paper is to design a composite index for assessing the capacity to attract this kind of economic activity. As a case study, we have calculated this index for 26 of the main municipalities in the province of Barcelona (Spain).. |
| Keywords: | activities of business excellence; composite index; firm location. JEL classification: C43, R3, R11. |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aqr:wpaper:201205&r=geo |
| By: | Fausto Alves de Brito (Cedeplar-UFMG); Breno Aloísio T. Duarte de Pinho (Cedeplar-UFMG) |
| Abstract: | The urbanization process in Brazil is crucial in the structural conformation of modern Brazilian society, especially from the second half of the twentieth century. Not only is the territory that accelerates the process of urbanization, but Brazilian society itself that becomes increasingly urban. The city becomes the privileged locus of economic activities more relevant and the vast majority of the population. The novelty of the urbanization process in Brazil was his tremendous speed, much higher than the developed countries, which did coincide in time, the processes of urbanization, urban population concentration in large cities and metropolises. |
| Keywords: | urbanization process, system of cities |
| JEL: | J6 |
| Date: | 2012–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdp:texdis:td464&r=geo |