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on Economic Geography |
| By: | Enrique López-Bazo (Faculty of Economics, University of Barcelona); Elisabet Motellón (Faculty of Economics, University of Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses firm-level data for each of the Spanish NUTS2 regions to estimate the effect of product and process innovations on firm’s export performance. It shows that the firm’s propensity to innovate and its export activity vary substantially across regions. Remarkably, results prove that the effect of innovation on exports is far from regionally uniform. The gap in the propensity to export between innovative and non-innovative firms, conditional to other sources of firm heterogeneity, is shown to be particularly wide in regions with high extensive margin of exports. However, differences in the propensity to innovate do not originate regional disparities in the share of sales abroad by exporting firms. Consequently, stimulate firm’s innovation in the less innovative regions can be an effective tool to increase the share of exporting firms. |
| Keywords: | export propensity, export intensity, product and process innovations, Spanish regions, firm heterogeneity. JEL classification: F14, R10. |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aqr:wpaper:201305&r=geo |
| By: | Pablo Martinelli |
| Abstract: | This paper sheds new light on the agricultural side of the Italian regional divide from an economic geography perspective, following a Von Thünen approach. The central hypothesis is that the development of the non-agricultural economy in Northern cities drove the location of agricultural output and inputs during the interwar years. A new database on Italian agriculture around 1930 fully confirms the key role of access to domestic markets in shaping agricultural activity. Thus, the causes of the falling behind of Southern agriculture are uncovered: it is not very surprising that an agricultural divergence joined an already ongoing industrial divergence during a period in which international markets collapsed. |
| Keywords: | Agriculture, Access to markets, Economic Geography, Italy |
| JEL: | Q10 N54 O13 R12 |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:whrepe:wp12-12&r=geo |
| By: | Wuebker, Robert; Schulze, William; Kräussl, Roman |
| Abstract: | Venture capital (VC) investment has long been conceptualized as a local business, in which the VC's ability to source, syndicate, fund, monitor, and add value to portfolio firms critically depends on their access to knowledge obtained through their ties to the local (i.e., geographically proximate) network. Consistent with the view that local networks matter, existing research confirms that local and geographically distant portfolio firms are sourced, syndicated, funded, and monitored differently. Curiously, emerging research on VC investment practice within the United States finds that distant investments, as measured by exits (either initial public offering or merger & acquisition) out-perform local investments. These findings raise important questions about the assumed benefits of local network membership and proximity. To more deeply probe these questions, we contrast the deal structure of cross-border VC investment with domestic VC investment, and contrast the deal structure of cross-border VC investments that include a local partner with those that do not. Evidence from 139,892 rounds of venture capital financing in the period 1980-2009 suggests that cross-border investment practice, in terms of deal sourcing, syndication, and performance indeed change with proximity, but that monitoring practices do not. Further, we find that the inclusion of a local partner in the investment syndicate yields surprisingly few benefits. This evidence, we argue, raises important questions about VC investment practice as well as the ability of firms to capture and lever the presumed benefits of network membership. -- |
| Keywords: | Venture Capital,Internationalization,Networks |
| JEL: | E20 E65 N14 O52 P52 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cfswop:201215&r=geo |
| By: | Kyriakopoulou, Efthymia (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Xepapadeas, Anastasios (Dept of International and European Economic Studies, Athens University of Economics and Business) |
| Abstract: | Environmental conditions and pollution levels have been proven to affect firms' and households’location decisions in various ways. In this paper, we study the optimal and equilibrium distribution of industrial and residential land in a given region. Industries produce a single good using land and labor and generate emissions of a pollutant, and households consume goods and residential land and dislike pollution. The trade-off between the agglomeration and dispersion forces, in the form of industrial pollution, environmental policy, production externalities, and commuting costs, determines the emergence of industrial and residential clusters across space. We also show that the joint implementation of a site-specific environmental tax and a site-specific labor subsidy can reproduce the optimum as an equilibrium outcome.<p> |
| Keywords: | Agglomeration; land use; spatial policies; pollution; environmental tax; labor subsidy |
| JEL: | H23 R14 R38 |
| Date: | 2013–05–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0566&r=geo |
| By: | Raouf Boucekkine (GREQAM - Aix-Marseille School of Economics); Carmen Camacho (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne); Giorgio Fabbri (EPEE - Université d'Evry-Val-d'Essonne) |
| Abstract: | We study the optimal dynamics of an AK economy where population is uniformly distributed along the unit circle. Locations only differ in initial capital endowments. Spatio-temporal capital dynamics are described by a parabolic partial differential equation. The application of the maximum principle leads to necessary but non-sufficient first-order conditions. Thanks to the linearity of the production technology and the special spatial setting considered, the value-fonction of the problem is found explicitly, and the (unique) optimal control is identified in feedback form. Despite constant returns to capital, we prove that the spatio-temporal dynamics, induced by the willingness of the planner to give the same (detrended) consumption over space and time, lead to convergence in the level of capital across locations in the long-run. |
| Keywords: | Economic growth, spatial dynamics, optimal control, partial-differential equations. |
| JEL: | C60 O11 R11 R12 R13 |
| Date: | 2013–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:cesdoc:13047&r=geo |
| By: | Cappelli, Riccardo; Montobbio, Fabio (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | Using data on inventor citations and inventor collaborations, this article analyses changes in geographical patterns of knowledge flows between European regions during the period 1981-2000. It shows that inventor collaborations become less geographically localized, while inventor citations become more localized. The European integration process has a significant effect on reducing barriers to knowledge flows between new and old EU members. For inventor citations, this effect relates only to the EU enlargement of 1995 and is confined to knowledge flows from Austria, Finland and Sweden to old EU members. |
| Date: | 2013–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:201309&r=geo |
| By: | Montobbio Fabio; Sterzi Valerio (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the determinants of different types of international technological collaborations among patents’ inventors between emerging and advanced countries. Technological collaborations generate knowledge flows between inventors through interpersonal and face to face contacts. We use US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) patent applications for a panel of eleven emerging economies and seven advanced countries (1990-2004) and a novel database that exploits information on companies’ country of origin. We estimate the impact of geographical distance and various economic and institutional variables using the Poisson pseudomaximum likelihood (PPML) and show that results vary according to the type of collaborations considered and to the country of origin (emerging vs. advanced) of the companies involved. Geographical distance affects international technological collaborations only when the applicant’s ownership is in the emerging country. Fixed effect estimates show that stronger IPRs positively affect international technological collaborations only when stemming from subsidiaries of multinational firms. |
| Date: | 2012–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:201208&r=geo |
| By: | Marasteanu, I. Julia; Jaenicke, Edward C. |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this paper to provide added insight into clustering as it pertains to the United States organic sector. I identify clusters of United States certified organic operations by showing how a formal definition of spatial clusters can emerge from an estimated model that accounts for spatial dependency. I also analyze how county-level variables impact the distribution of certified organic operations while controlling for spatial autocorrelation. My results indicate that the spatial distribution of certified organic operations displays statistically significant spatial autocorrelation as well as spatial heterogeneity. The results also indicate that county-level factors related to policy, economics, demographics, and land assets impact the distribution of certified organic operations. As research on firm and industry agglomeration, in general, typically finds that clustering benefits economic development, the results of this paper provide motivation for further research on the formation and impact of clustering in the U.S. organic sector. |
| Keywords: | Organic Agriculture, Industry Agglomeration, Agribusiness, Spatial Econometrics, Agricultural Commodity Markets, Production Economics, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Crop Production/Industries, Industrial Organization, |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea13:149551&r=geo |
| By: | Alex Fenton |
| Abstract: | This paper considers techniques for measuring the prevalence of income poverty within small areas, or "neighbourhoods", in Britain. The ultimate purpose is applying such statistics to investigating how the micro-spatial distribution of poverty within cities and regions changes over time as a consequence of political decisions and economic events. In the paper, some general criteria for small-area poverty measures are first set out, and two broad methods, poverty proxies and modelled income estimates, are identified. Empirical analyses of the validity and coverage of poverty proxies derived from UK administrative data, such as social security benefit claims, are presented. The concluding section assesses a new poverty proxy that will be used within a wider programme of analysis of the spatial distributional effects of tax and welfare changes and of economic trends in Britain from 2000 to 2014. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between the proxy values and other local poverty measures in different kinds of places. These suggest that the proxy is an adequate, albeit imperfect,tool for investigating changes in intra-urban distributions of poverty. |
| Keywords: | Small-area poverty estimates, small-area estimation, poverty proxies, poor neighbourhoods, deprivation indices |
| JEL: | I32 I38 R23 |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:sticas:/173&r=geo |