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on Economic Geography |
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Issue of 2015‒05‒30
twelve papers chosen by Andreas Koch Institut für Angewandte Wirtschaftsforschung |
| By: | Diana Lúcia Gonzaga da Silva; Gervásio Ferreira dos Santos, Ricardo da Silva Freguglia |
| Abstract: | The objective of this paper is to analyze the spatial distribution of the agglomeration effect on wage differentials, from the returns to education in Brazil. To find the agglomeration effect on the returns to education in the 24 metropolitan areas in Brazil, a wage equation was estimated with the control of individual fixed effects and metropolitan areas effects, using a panel of micro data - RAIS-Migra - of formal workers. The results show that there is agglomeration gain of the return to education in Brazil. These gains are more favorable in the North and Northeast regions of Brazil. The metropolitan areas of the Center-South tend to generate higher earnings from individual skills of workers |
| Keywords: | Agglomeration Economies; Urban Wage Premium; Education; Wage Inequality; Metropolitan Areas |
| JEL: | J24 J31 R23 C23 |
| Date: | 2015–05–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spa:wpaper:2015wpecon7&r=geo |
| By: | Moretti, Enrico (University of California, Berkeley); Wilson, Daniel J. (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco) |
| Abstract: | Using data on the universe of U.S. patents filed between 1976 and 2010, we quantify how sensitive is migration by star scientists to changes in personal and business tax differentials across states. We uncover large, stable, and precisely estimated effects of personal and corporate taxes on star scientists’ migration patterns. The long run elasticity of mobility relative to taxes is 1.6 for personal income taxes, 2.3 for state corporate income tax and -2.6 for the investment tax credit. The effect on mobility is small in the short run, and tends to grow over time. We find no evidence of pre-trends: Changes in mobility follow changes in taxes and do not to precede them. Consistent with their high income, star scientists’ migratory flows are sensitive to changes in the 99th percentile marginal tax rate, but are insensitive to changes in taxes for the median income. As expected, the effect of corporate income taxes is concentrated among private sector inventors: no effect is found on academic and government researchers. Moreover, corporate taxes only matter in states where the wage bill enters the state’s formula for apportioning multi-state income. No effect is found in states that apportion income based only on sales (in which case labor’s location has little or no effect on the tax bill). We also find no evidence that changes in state taxes are correlated with changes in the fortunes of local firms in the innovation sector in the years leading up to the tax change. Overall, we conclude that state taxes have significant effect of the geographical location of star scientists and possibly other highly skilled workers. While there are many other factors that drive when innovative individual and innovative companies decide to locate, there are enough firms and workers on the margin that relative taxes matter. |
| Date: | 2015–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedfwp:2015-06&r=geo |
| By: | Di Liddo, Giuseppe |
| Abstract: | Urban sprawl may affect economic growth through its negative effects on a number of relevant aspects of the economic activity. The negative effect may be due either by the increase in infrastructure’s cost of provision within the national area and the reduction in productivity of farmland or by the increase in distortionary local taxes or subsidies. Furthermore, urbanization of remote rural area may also have important negative effects on public health, decreasing labour productivity. Using Italian regional data, this paper provides empirical evidence of the negative impact of urban sprawl on regional economic growth in Italy. The results suggest that the containment of urban sprawl may lead to higher regional GDP growth rate. |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sit:wpaper:15_05&r=geo |
| By: | Francesco Aiello; Graziella Bonanno (Dipartimento di Economia, Statistica e Finanza, Università della Calabria) |
| Abstract: | Banking is increasingly a-spatial. However, the environment matters for small banks. Indeed, they are embedded in narrowed markets and hence benefit from proximity to their member-customers. By referring to multilevel approach, this article aims at measuring how much the performance of Italian mutual-cooperative banks is determined by both geographical (provincial level) and individual characteristics (small bank level). The effect of local markets explains 28.27% of bank heterogeneity in the empty multilevel model and 33% in the most extended model. Moreover, it is found that bank efficiency increases with market concentration and demand density and decreases with branching in local markets. |
| Keywords: | Multilevel model, mutual-cooperative banks, local markets, cost efficiency |
| JEL: | G21 C13 D00 R19 |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:clb:wpaper:201503&r=geo |
| By: | Wrona, Jens |
| Abstract: | Over the last 20 years the trade literature repeatedly documented the trade-reducing effects of inter- and intra-national borders. Thereby, the puzzling size and persistence of observed border effects from the beginning raised doubts on the role of underlying political borders. However, when observed border effects are not caused by political trade barriers, why should their spatial dimension then inevitably coincide with the geography of present or past political borders? This paper identifies a "border effect" in the absence of a border. Thereby, the finding that trade between East- and West-Japan is 23.1% - 51.3% lower than trade within both country parts, is established in the absence of an obvious east-west division due to historical borders, cultural differences or past civil wars. From a rich set of explanatory variables post-war agglomeration processes, reflected by the contemporaneous structure of Japan's business and social networks, rather than cultural differences, shaped by long-lasting historical shocks, are identified as an explanation for the east-west bias in intra-Japanese trade. |
| Keywords: | Border Effects,Gravity Equation,Intra-national Trade,Japan |
| JEL: | F14 F15 F12 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:dicedp:185&r=geo |
| By: | Fredrik Carlsen (Department of Economics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology); Stefan Leknes (Department of Economics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology) |
| Abstract: | We use Norwegian data to evaluate the consumption hypothesis of geographical variation in educational attainment, i.e. that well-educated people particularly value the amenities provided by cities. Our results cast doubts on the hypothesis. After-tax real wages are higher in rural areas than in urban areas, suggesting that Norwegians are willing to forego purchasing power in order to enjoy urban amenities, but the urban purchasing power premium is roughly equal across education groups. Moreover, survey data in which respondents evaluate local amenities indicate a broad consensus between education groups about the advantages and disadvantages about city life as well as about the relationship between city size and the quality of local amenities. |
| Keywords: | Quality of life, urban amenities, population size, education, mobility |
| JEL: | R11 R12 J3 J61 |
| Date: | 2015–01–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nst:samfok:16215&r=geo |
| By: | Jørn Rattsø (Department of Economics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology); Hildegunn E Stokke (Department of Economics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology) |
| Abstract: | The tax system may have welfare costs associated with the regional allocation of resources. Nominal income taxation distorts incentives to the disadvantage of high-cost regions. The incentive problem can be addressed by real income taxation internalizing cost of living differences. Our contribution is to expand the handling of regional allocation by including amenities in a broader horizontal equitable taxation. Good amenities and high quality of life allow for lower wages in migration equilibrium and may distort the resource allocation to the disadvantage of low amenity regions. We use a large dataset of individual wages and housing prices to identify regional wage and price differences. The regional resource allocation is analyzed in a calibrated migration equilibrium model of a representative household capturing the basics of the Norwegian income tax system. Tax reform handling the two types of distortions has important and opposite quantitative effects for the resource allocation across regions when amenities and cost of living are positively correlated as in the Norwegian data. |
| Keywords: | Income taxation, regional taxation, cost of living, amenities |
| JEL: | H24 H77 J61 R23 |
| Date: | 2015–03–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nst:samfok:16315&r=geo |
| By: | Miguel A. Delgado; Peter M Robinson |
| Abstract: | We develop non-nested tests in a general spatial, spatio-temporal or panel data context. The spatial aspect can be interpreted quite generally, in either a geographical sense, or employing notions of economic distance, or even when parametric modelling arises in part from a common factor or other structure. In the former case, observations may be regularly-spaced across one or more dimensions, as is typical with much spatio-temporal data, or irregularly-spaced across all dimensions; both isotropic models and non-isotropic models can be considered, and a wide variety of correlation structures. In the second case, models involving spatial weight matrices are covered, such as "spatial autoregressive models". The setting is sufficiently general to potentially cover other parametric structures such as certain factor models, and vector-valued observations, and here our preliminary asymptotic theory for parameter estimates is of some independent value. The test statistic is based on a Gaussian pseudo-likelihood ratio, and is shown to have an asymptotic standard normal distribution under the null hypothesis that one of the two models is correct. A small Monte Carlo study of finite-sample performance is included. |
| Keywords: | on-nested test, spatial correlation, pseudo maximum likelihood estimation |
| JEL: | C12 C21 |
| Date: | 2013–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:stiecm:568&r=geo |
| By: | Peter M Robinson; Francesca Rossi |
| Abstract: | For testing lack of correlation against spatial autoregressive alternatives, Lagrange multiplier tests enjoy their usual computational advantages, but the (x squared) first-order asymptotic approximation to critical values can be poor in small samples. We develop refined tests for lack of spatial error correlation in regressions, based on Edgeworth expansion. In Monte Carlo simulations these tests, and bootstrap ones, generally significantly outperform x squared-based tests. |
| Keywords: | Spatial autocorrelation, Lagrange multiplier test, Edgeworth expansion, bootstrap, finite-sample corrections. |
| JEL: | C29 |
| Date: | 2013–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:stiecm:566&r=geo |
| By: | Clifford Lam; Pedro Souza |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a model for estimating the underlying cross-sectional dependence structure of a large panel of time series. Technical difficulties meant such a structure is usually assumed before further analysis. We propose to estimate this by penalizing the elements in the spatial weight matrices using the adaptive LASSO proposed by Zou (2006). Non-asymptotic oracle inequalities and the asymptotic sign consistency of the estimators are proved when the dimension of the time series can be larger than the sample size, and they tend to infinity jointly. Asymptotic normality of the LASSO/adaptive LASSO estimator for the model regression parameter is also presented. All the proofs involve non-standard analysis of LASSO/adaptive LASSO estimators, since our model, albeit like a standard regression, always has the response vector as one of the covariates. A block coordinate descent algorithm is introduced, with simulations and a real data analysis carried out to demonstrate the performance of our estimators. |
| Keywords: | spatial econometrics, adaptive LASSO, sign consistency, asymptotic normality, non-asymptotic oracle inequalities, spatial weight matrices |
| JEL: | C33 C4 C52 |
| Date: | 2014–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:stiecm:578&r=geo |
| By: | Louafi Bouzouina (Laboratoire d’Economie des Transports, ENTPE, Université de Lyon, CNRS, Rue Maurice Audin, 69 518 VAUX-EN-VELIN Cedex); Nathalie Havet (Université de Lyon, F-69007, France; CNRS, GATE Lyon St Etienne, 93, Chemin des Mouilles, F-69130, Ecully, France); Pascal Pochet (Laboratoire d’Economie des Transports, ENTPE, Université de Lyon, CNRS, Rue Maurice Audin, 69 518 VAUX-EN-VELIN Cedex) |
| Abstract: | Alors que le désenclavement des zones urbaines sensibles est l’un des objectifs de la politique de la ville, visant notamment à favoriser l’accès à l’emploi, très peu travaux s’intéressent à l’analyse des pratiques de mobilité de leurs habitants. En se focalisant sur la population des actifs de l’aire urbaine de Lyon, l’objectif de cet article est de tester l’impact du lieu de résidence, à travers la distinction ZUS/non ZUS, sur leur mobilité quotidienne et celle liée au travail en particulier. L’analyse repose sur la dernière Enquête Ménages Déplacements lyonnaise (2006) enrichie d’autres sources de données spatialisées. Les résultats des modèles multivariés montrent que le fait d’habiter un quartier ZUS réduit le nombre de déplacements des actifs, mais aussi leur distance et leur temps au quotidien. En revanche, quand il s’agit de la seule mobilité domicile-travail, les actifs de ces quartiers sont amenés à parcourir de plus longues distances. Ces résultats laissent entrevoir les difficultés spécifiques des actifs dans les zones urbaines défavorisées en matière de mobilité quotidienne et d’accès à l’emploi et aux aménités. |
| Keywords: | Mobilité quotidienne, domicile-travail, actifs, ZUS, Enquête ménages déplacements, spatial mismatch, facteurs individuels, facteurs contextuels, modélisation économétrique |
| JEL: | R41 J48 R12 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gat:wpaper:1511&r=geo |
| By: | Gierhake, Klaus |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zeudps:67&r=geo |