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on Economic Geography |
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Issue of 2016‒05‒21
twelve papers chosen by Andreas Koch Institut für Angewandte Wirtschaftsforschung |
| By: | Clément Bosquet; Henry G. Overman |
| Abstract: | We consider the link between birthplace and wages. Using a unique panel dataset we estimate a raw elasticity of wage with respect to birthplace size of 4.6%, two thirds of the 6.8% raw elasticity with respect to city size. We consider a number of mechanisms through which this birthplace effect could arise. Our results suggest that inter-generational transmission (sorting) and the effect of birthplace on current location (geography) both play a role in explaining the effect of birthplace. We find no role for human capital formation at least in terms of educational outcomes (learning). Our results highlight the importance of intergenerational sorting in helping explain the persistence of spatial disparities. |
| Keywords: | place of birth; spatial sorting; lifetime mobility |
| JEL: | J61 J62 |
| Date: | 2016–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:66492&r=geo |
| By: | MORIKAWA Masayuki |
| Abstract: | Knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS), which produce skill-intensive services used as intermediate inputs, are becoming important for the economic growth and international competitiveness of advanced countries. This study, using establishment- and company-level micro data, analyzes the productivity of knowledge- and information-intensive services in Japan, including information services, publishers, and design services. We focus on the effect of urban density on the productivity of these services. Our estimations reveal that doubling the employment density of municipalities is associated with around 5% higher labor productivity of service providers, which is larger than that found in the manufacturing industry. However, quantitatively, the economies of density vary for individual services, suggesting that the services to be promoted by small and medium cities differ from those for which large metropolitan cities such as Tokyo and Osaka have strong comparative advantages. |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:16067&r=geo |
| By: | Marco Gonzalez-Navarro; Matthew A. Turner |
| Abstract: | We investigate the relationship between the extent of a city's subway network, its population and its spatial configuration. To accomplish this investigation, for the 632 largest cities in the world, we construct panel data describing the extent of each of the 138 subway systems in these cities, their population, and measures of centralization calculated from lights at night data. These data indicate that large cities are more likely to have subways, but that subways have an economically insignificant effect on urban population growth. Consistent with economic theory and with other studies of the effects of transportation improvements on cities, our data also indicate that subways cause cities to be more decentralized. For a subset of subway cities we also observe panel data describing subway and bus ridership. We find that a 10% increase in subway extent causes about a 6% increase in subway ridership and has no effect on bus ridership. Consistent with the available literature describing the effect of roads on cities, our results are consistent with subways having a larger effect on the configuration of cities than on their sizes, and with subways having a larger effect on discretionary than commute travel. |
| Keywords: | subways, public transit, urban growth, urban decentralization |
| JEL: | L91 R4 R11 R14 |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:sercdp:sercdo0195&r=geo |
| By: | Hamann, Silke; Niebuhr, Annekatrin; Peters, Jan Cornelius |
| Abstract: | We analyse whether the size of the local labour market allows for better matching between job seekers and vacancies, which is thought to enhance productivity. This analysis is based on a large data set providing detailed micro-level information on new employment relationships in Germany. Our results suggest rather small matching benefits. Doubling employment density increases the productivity of new employment relationships by 1.1% to 1.2%. Moreover, the findings indicate that the benefits accrue only to persons experiencing job-to-job transitions and short-term unemployed. We detect no important impact of agglomeration on transitions from long-term non-employed. |
| Keywords: | agglomeration economies,matching,urban wage premium,transitions to employment |
| JEL: | R23 J31 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cauewp:201607&r=geo |
| By: | Jing Xiao; Ron Boschma; Martin Andersson |
| Abstract: | This paper adopts an evolutionary framework to the study of industrial resilience. We present a study on European regions and assess the extent to which the capacity of their economies to develop new industrial specializations is affected by the global economic crisis of 2008. We compare levels of industry entry in European regions in the period 2004-2008 and 2008-2012, i.e. before and after a major economic disturbance. Resilient regions are defined as regions that show high entry levels or even increase their entry levels after the shock. Industrial relatedness and population density exhibit a positive effect on regional resilience, especially on the entry of knowledge-intensive industries after the shock, while related variety per se shows no effect on regions being resilient or not. |
| Keywords: | regional resilience, evolutionary economic geography, new growth paths, related variety, industrial relatedness |
| JEL: | B52 O18 R11 |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1608&r=geo |
| By: | Michael Fritsch (School of Economics and Business Administration, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena); Sandra Kublina (School of Economics and Business Administration, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effect of related and unrelated variety on regional growth in West Germany. In particular, we analyze the role of regional absorptive capacity and new business formation for these effects. We find that West German regions benefit from both types of varieties. The positive effect of unrelated variety on growth is more pronounced in regions with higher levels of absorptive capacity in terms of R&D activities and with higher levels of new business formation. Such moderating effects cannot be found for related variety. |
| Keywords: | Related variety, unrelated variety, knowledge spillovers, regional absorptive capacity, entrepreneurship, regional growth |
| JEL: | R11 R12 D62 |
| Date: | 2016–05–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2016-009&r=geo |
| By: | Ernest Miguélez (GREThA, University of Bordeaux & AQR Research Group-IREA. University of Barcelona); Rosina Moreno (AQR Research Group-IREA. University of Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | This paper has two main objectives. First, it estimates the impact of related and unrelated variety of European regions’ knowledge structure on their patenting activity. Second, it looks at the role of technological relatedness and extra-local knowledge acquisitions for local innovative activity. Specifically, it assesses how external technological relatedness affects regional innovation performance. Results confirm the strong relevance of related variety for regional innovation; whereas the impact of unrelated variety seems relevant only for the generation of breakthrough innovations. The study also shows that external knowledge flows have a higher impact, the higher the similarity between these flows and the extant local knowledge base. |
| Keywords: | Variety; Patents; Patent citationsM Relatedness; Knowledge production function. JEL classification: O18; O31; O33; R11 |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ira:wpaper:201603&r=geo |
| By: | Berliant, Marcus; Mori, Tomoya |
| Abstract: | Literature from several phases of the career of Masahisa Fujita is surveyed chronologically, with a view toward future contributions in these areas. First we address the economic structure of the interior of a city with mobile consumers, adding production. Next we provide a critical discussion of the New Economic Geography, in particular distinguishing between recent approaches employing two regions and more than two regions, both in theory and in application to data. Finally, we discuss knowledge creation in groups and briefly touch on his current work in artificial intelligence. |
| Keywords: | New urban economics; New economic geography; Knowledge creation; Knowledge diversity; Robot economist |
| JEL: | D83 O31 R12 R13 R14 |
| Date: | 2016–04–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:70844&r=geo |
| By: | Boltho, Andrea; Carlin, Wendy; Scaramozzino, Pasquale |
| Abstract: | In an earlier paper (Journal of Comparative Economics, 1997) the authors argued, against the conventional wisdom of the time, that East Germany was unlikely to follow a development path similar to that of the Italian Mezzogiorno. This paper revisits the issue some 25 years after German reunification. Statistical tests show that the absence of income per capita convergence between South and North that has characterized Italy since the war, continued over the last two or more decades. Germany, on the other hand, has, over the same period, seen significant income convergence between East and West. The main explanations that are provided for such contrasting outcomes stress differences between the two countries (and within the two countries) in investment performance, in labour market flexibility, and, in particular, in developments in the tradeable sector whose performance in East Germany has been much superior to that of the Mezzogiorno. These differences, in turn, are linked to very different standards of institutional quality and governance which are almost certainly rooted in the two "poor" regions' longer-run history. |
| Keywords: | convergence; institutional quality; labour market flexibility; tradeables |
| JEL: | O57 R12 R58 |
| Date: | 2016–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11266&r=geo |
| By: | Goswami,Arti Grover; Lall,Somik V. |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the spatial organization of jobs in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, and applies the Lucas and Rossi-Hansberg (2002) model to explain the observed patterns in terms of the agglomeration forces and the commuting costs of workers. The paper suggests that: (i) Economic activities are concentrated in the downtown -- beyond which employment is spatially dispersed. (ii) Geographically weighted regressions identify five potential subcenters in 2011; however, none of these contribute significantly to employment. When explaining the variation in employment density across localities in Kampala, the research highlights that (i) density falls by 23.5 percent per kilometer increase in distance from the nearest potential subcenter; (ii) an increase in local production externalities of 10 percent increases density by 3.7 percent; and (iii) production externalities in Kampala's potential subcenters are extremely weak to have any significant impact even on nearby tracts. |
| Keywords: | Urban Housing and Land Settlements,Urban Slums Upgrading,Labor Policies,Health Systems Development&Reform,Transport Economics Policy&Planning |
| Date: | 2016–04–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7655&r=geo |
| By: | J. Vernon Henderson; Tim Squires; Adam Storeygard; David Weil |
| Abstract: | We study the distribution of economic activity, as proxied by lights at night, across 250,000 grid cells of average area 560 square kilometres. We first document that nearly half of the variation can be explained by a parsimonious set of physical geography attributes. A full set of country indicators only explains a further 10%. When we divide geographic characteristics into two groups, those primarily important for agriculture and those primarily important for trade, we find that the agriculture variables have relatively more explanatory power in countries that developed early and the trade variables have relatively more in countries that developed late, despite the fact that the latter group of countries are far more dependent on agriculture today. We explain this apparent puzzle in a model in which two technological shocks occur, one increasing agricultural productivity and the other decreasing transportation costs, and in which agglomeration economies lead to persistence in urban locations. In countries that developed early, structural transformation due to rising agricultural productivity began at a time when transport costs were still relatively high, so urban agglomerations were localized in agricultural regions. When transport costs fell, these local agglomerations persisted. In late developing countries, transport costs fell well before structural transformation. To exploit urban scale economies, manufacturing agglomerated in relatively few, often coastal, locations. With structural transformation, these initial coastal locations grew, without formation of more cities in the agricultural interior. |
| Keywords: | agriculture; physical geography; development |
| JEL: | J1 N0 |
| Date: | 2016–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:66538&r=geo |
| By: | Alessandro Nuvolari; Michelangelo Vasta |
| Abstract: | In this paper we provide a systematic appraisal of the spatial patterns of inventive activity in Italy in the period 1861-1913. Our main source of evidence is a data-set containing all patents granted in Italy in five benchmark years (1864-65, 1881, 1891, 1902, 1911). Our geographical unit of analysis is the province, an administrative district of the time. First, using some simple descriptive statistics, we introduce a characterization of the spatial distribution of patents and of its evolution over time. Second, we perform an econometric exercise in which we assess the connection between different forms of human capital and patent intensity. We are able to establish a robust correlation between literacy and “basic” patent intensity and robust correlation between secondary technical education and scientific and engineering studies and “high quality” patent intensity. Third, we study the connection between patents and industrialization. Our exercise shows that patents exerted a significant role in accounting for the level of industrial production. Interestingly enough, in this context, the role of patents was possibly more relevant than that of the availability of water-power and of the level of real wages (two factors that were pointed out by the previous literature, mostly on the basis of rather impressionistic accounts of the evidence). Our study warrants two main conclusions. First, domestic inventive activities were an important element of the industrialization process, even in a late-comer country such as Italy. Second, at the time of the unification, Northern provinces were characterized by more effective innovation systems. This factor contributes to explain the growing divide in economic performance between the North and the South of the country during the Liberal age |
| Date: | 2015–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:wpaper:724&r=geo |