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on Economic Geography |
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Issue of 2023‒12‒18
eight papers chosen by Andreas Koch, Institut für Angewandte Wirtschaftsforschung |
| By: | Luisa Gagliardi (Bocconi University, Italy); Enrico Moretti (University of California, Berkeley, USA); Michel Serafinelli (University of Essex, UK; Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the employment consequences of deindustrialization for 1, 993 cities in France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, and the United States. In all six countries we find a strong negative relationship between a city’s share of manufacturing employment in the year of its country’s manufacturing peak and the subsequent change in total employment, reflecting the fact that cities where manufacturing was initially more important experienced larger negative labor demand shocks. But in a significant number of cases, total employment fully recovered and even exceeded initial levels, despite the loss of manufacturing jobs. Overall, 34% of former manufacturing hubs–defined as cities with an initial manufacturing employment share in the top tercile–experienced employment growth faster than their country’s mean, suggesting that a surprisingly large number of cities was able to adapt to the negative shock caused by deindustrialization. The U.S. has the lowest share, indicating that the U.S. Rust Belt communities have fared relatively worse compared to their peers in the other countries. We then seek to understand why some former manufacturing hubs recovered while others didn’t. We find that deindustrialization had different effects on local employment depending on the initial share of college-educated workers in the labor force. While in the two decades before the manufacturing peak, cities with a high college share experienced a rate of employment growth similar to those with a low college share, in the decades after the manufacturing peak, the employment trends diverged: cities with a high college share experienced significantly faster employment growth. The divergence grows over time at an accelerating rate. Using an instrumental variable based on the driving distance to historical colleges and universities, we estimate that a one standard deviation increase in local college share results in a rate of employment growth per decade that is 9.1 percentage points higher. This effect is in part explained by faster growth in human capital-intensive services, which more than offsets the loss of manufacturing jobs. |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rim:rimwps:23-17&r=geo |
| By: | Krolage, Carla; Bachtrögler-Unger, Julia; Dolls, Mathias; Schüle, Paul; Taubenböck, Hannes; Weigand, Matthias |
| JEL: | R11 O18 H54 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc23:277604&r=geo |
| By: | Julia Peter (Friedrich Schiller University Jena); Silke Uebelmesser (Friedrich Schiller University Jena, and CESifo) |
| Abstract: | Attitudes toward immigrants play a crucial role in voting behaviour and political decision-making. Such attitudes are shaped by individual characteristics, but the regional environment may also be important. This paper examines how individual attitudes toward immigrants are related to the economic, political, and social environment. We use individual-level data based on a large-scale representative survey and district-level administrative data. Specifically, we examine regional variation in economic growth, voting patterns, and characteristics of the immigrant population and their relation to beliefs about and attitudes toward immigrants. We also use an information experiment in which information about the actual characteristics of the immigrant population in Germany is provided and assess its impact on attitudes toward immigrants in the regional context. Our results suggest that the impact of the environment - over and above individual characteristics - is small and depends on the type of attitude. |
| Keywords: | attitudes, immigrants, regional determinants, economic concerns, policy preferences |
| JEL: | C90 D83 F22 J15 R11 R23 |
| Date: | 2023–11–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2023-020&r=geo |
| By: | Gómez-Lobo, Andrés; Oviedo, Daniel |
| JEL: | J1 N0 |
| Date: | 2023–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:120691&r=geo |
| By: | Antonin Bergeaud; Arthur Guillouzouic |
| Abstract: | Following Bergeaud et al. (2022), we construct a new measure of proximity between industrial sectors and public research laboratories. Using this measure, we explore the underlying network of knowledge linkages between scientific fields and industrial sectors in France. We show empirically that there exists a significant negative correlation between the geographical distance between firms and laboratories and their scientific proximity, suggesting strongly localized spillovers. Moreover, we uncover some important differences by field, stronger than when using standard patent-based measures of proximity. |
| Keywords: | knowledge spillovers, technological distance, public laboratories |
| Date: | 2023–11–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1961&r=geo |
| By: | Hanna Adam; Mario Larch; Jordi Paniagua |
| Abstract: | We quantify the economic impact of a potential secession of Catalonia from Spain. Using a novel dataset of trade flows between 17 Spanish sub-national regions and 142 countries, we estimate effects of different levels of borders on trade flows and uncover heterogeneity in country-to-country, region-to-country, region-to-region, as well as EU border effects. We use a general equilibrium analysis to understand the consequences of a potential Catalan secession, considering the associated political uncertainty. In counterfactual experiments, we impose new borders on Catalan trade, potentially within or outside the EU, resulting in a welfare decline for Catalonia and the remaining Spanish regions. |
| Keywords: | international trade, regional trade, border effects, regional independence |
| JEL: | F10 F13 F14 H77 R12 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10742&r=geo |
| By: | Agnieszka Rabiej; Dominika Sikora; Andrzej Torój |
| Abstract: | We investigate the regional business cycles at NUTS-3 granularity in Poland (N=73) using two variables in parallel: GDP dynamics and unemployment. The model allows for both idiosyncratic business cycle fluctuations in a region in the form of 2-state Markov chain, as well as spatial interactions with other regions. The posterior distribution of the parameters is simulated with a Metropolis-within-Gibbs procedure. We find that the regions can be classified into business cycle setters and takers, and this classification exhibits a high degree of overlap with the line of division between metropolitan versus peripheral regions. We also find that, under large N, the fixed-effects methods, as proposed in the previous literature, are vulnerable to both identification issues and (MCMC) convergence problems, especially with short T, which is of critical importance in GDP on the considered spatial granularity level. |
| Keywords: | business cycle, spatial autoregression, NUTS-3, Markov switching, Bayesian analysis |
| JEL: | C11 C23 C24 R12 |
| Date: | 2023–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sgh:kaewps:2023082&r=geo |
| By: | Crescenzi, Riccardo; De Filippis, Fabrizio; Giua, Mara; Salvatici, Luca; Vaquero Pineiro, Cristina |
| Abstract: | The Geographical Indications (GIs) scheme of the European Union guarantees visibility and protection to high-quality agri-food products associated with a demarcated region of origin. This paper estimates the impact of the scheme in attracting agri-food Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in European NUTS3 regions, using a novel dataset and a Generalized Propensity Score Matching approach. Areas endorsed with GIs attract more FDI in agri-food related activities than their non-GI counterparts. Positive effects, estimated for FDI inflows, related job creation, and inter-sectoral spillovers on local employment, involves territories with lower institutional quality. |
| Keywords: | foreign direct investment; geographical indications; regional development; territorial policy; European Union; European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme H2020 project BATModel [grant agreement number 861932] and the PON “Ricerca e Innovazione 2014–2020—Azione IV.6. Contratti di ricerca su tematiche Green”; D.M. 1062/2021; Ministero dell’Università e della Ricerca. This research was also funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the UK government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee [grant number 10041284]. This work is also part of a project that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Programme [Grant agreement No. 101061104- ESSPIN-HORIZON-CL2-2021-TRANSFORMATIONS-01]; Wiley deal |
| JEL: | R11 Q18 O24 C31 |
| Date: | 2023–10–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:120408&r=geo |