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on Economic Geography |
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Issue of 2025–02–17
five papers chosen by Andreas Koch, Institut für Angewandte Wirtschaftsforschung |
| By: | Bernard, Josef; Refisch, Martin; Kostelecky, Tomas; Grzelak, Anna; Konopski, Michal; Klärner, Andreas |
| Abstract: | The concept of left-behind places or regions has skyrocketed in recent years and various empirical studies are using the concept to describe (not only) economically lagging regions. Yet, there is still no settled definition and method of measurement of left-behindness in the social sciences. In the methodological part this working paper presents a plausible conceptualisation and operationalisation of left-behind regions in European Union countries. The operationalization of “left-behindness” is guided by several principles: it is relative to national standards, multidimensional, and both structural and dynamic. Labour market regions are identified as the appropriate spatial unit for analysis. The study uses NUTS3 regions, aggregated for metropolitan areas and adjacent regions, excluding extraterritorial and small countries. A total of 918 regions across 25 countries are analysed using indicators related to economic viability, social structure, and population development from 1993 to 2021. Our empirical analysis highlights how the nature of “left-behindness” varies across Europe, with a particular focus on Central and Eastern Europe. In these regions, left-behindness is closely tied to regional disadvantages, char-acterized by low economic prosperity, reduced social status, and higher poverty rates. These areas often experi-ence stagnation or shrinkage, with non-metropolitan regions being particularly affected, possibly due to poorer infrastructure. In other parts of Europe, the different dimensions of left-behindness are less coherently associ-ated and do not form clear spatial patterns. In particular, poverty is spatially decoupled from low economic pros-perity in many countries. Overall, we identified macro-regional differences of left-behindness manifestation across Europe, shaped by historical, economic, and social factors unique to each region. |
| Keywords: | Community/Rural/Urban Development |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:jhimwp:349286 |
| By: | Andrew B. BERNARD; Andreas MOXNES; SAITO Yukiko |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the importance of economic integration on the production of innovation. During the late 1980s and-90s, Shikoku and Honshu, Japan’s largest and fourth largest islands, were connected for the first time by three different bridges. This greatly reduced travel times compared to previous modes of transport such as ferry. We examine the impact of bridge connections on team formation and the production of knowledge, as measured by patent data. Using the geolocation of inventors before the opening of the bridges, we find that inventors located close to the bridges increased knowledge production more than inventors located farther away from the bridges. The treated inventors matched to more productive inventors at greater distances. Inventors on Shikoku were more likely to change their innovation teams and add co-inventors from Honshu while dismissing collaborators from Shikoku. The results are robust to instrumenting for the location of the bridges using the minimum bridge span distances between Shikoku and Honshu. We present a parsimonious economic framework that is largely consistent with the empirical evidence. Our results suggest that economic integration can have sizable effects on idea creation and innovation. |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:25009 |
| By: | Sacha den Nijs (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam); Mark Thissen (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Tinbergen Institute) |
| Abstract: | Resilience and competitiveness in relation to fossil energy dependencies is of increasing concern to industries and policy makers. We investigate to what extent the competitive position of industries in European regions are sensitive to changes in fossil fuel prices, and whether reductions in gas use along the value chain may increase regional industry resilience. A new spatial revealed cost competition model based on the input-output price model is used and calibrated to multi-regional world input-output tables on an EU NUTS 2 level. We obtain elasticities of fossil fuel prices on revealed cost competitiveness and analyze how they are affected by increased efficiency and electrification in production. We show that European regions are resilient to global coal price increases, whereas they are vulnerable to gas price shocks. The transition towards using less gas in production, by efficiency improvements or electrification, can reduce these gas price vulnerabilities. However, when competitors become more efficient instead, the vulnerability to such shocks may increase. Decarbonizing upstream sectors like electricity generation in the own region, own country or in Europe, can increase resilience of downstream industrial sectors in most European regions. |
| Keywords: | Competitiveness, regional resilience, fossil fuels, energy efficiency, global value chains, input-output analysis |
| JEL: | F18 Q41 R11 R15 |
| Date: | 2024–11–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20240061 |
| By: | Jia Chen; Guowei Cui; Vasilis Sarafidis; Takashi Yamagata |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a Mean Group Instrumental Variables (MGIV) estimator for spatial dynamic panel data models with interactive effects, under large N and T asymptotics. Unlike existing approaches that typically impose slope-parameter homogeneity, MGIV accommodates cross-sectional heterogeneity in slope coefficients. The proposed estimator is linear, making it computationally efficient and robust. Furthermore, it avoids the incidental parameters problem, enabling asymptotically valid inferences without requiring bias correction. The Monte Carlo experiments indicate strong finite-sample performance of the MGIV estimator across various sample sizes and parameter configurations. The practical utility of the estimator is illustrated through an application to regional economic growth in Europe. By explicitly incorporating heterogeneity, our approach provides fresh insights into the determinants of regional growth, underscoring the critical roles of spatial and temporal dependencies. |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2501.18467 |
| By: | Guillaume Chapelle; Morgan Ubeda (CY Cergy Paris Université, THEMA) |
| Abstract: | Unemployment rates vary significantly across neighborhoods and worker types, yet the role of transport infrastructures in explaining these disparities remains unexplored. We propose a quantitative urban model with frictional unemployment and heterogeneous workers where better connections between neighborhoods might exacerbate unemployment disparities due to competition among workers. We document this phenomenon using a difference-indifferences to estimate the impact of the creation of the Paris Regional Express Rail (RER). We find that the project increased the unemployment rate of low-skilled workers, but not of their high-skilled counterparts. In Paris, differences in job market access reduce unemployment inequalities between college graduates and the rest of the population. |
| Keywords: | Urban unemployment, Transport Networks, Spatial Mismatch, Unemployment dispersion |
| JEL: | R31 R52 R21 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ema:worpap:2025-01 |