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on Economic Geography |
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Issue of 2025–09–01
seven papers chosen by Andreas Koch, Institut für Angewandte Wirtschaftsforschung |
| By: | Connor, Dylan Shane; Kemeny, Tom; Storper, Michael |
| Abstract: | This article examines the role of work at the cutting of technological change - frontier work - as a driver of prosperity and spatial income inequality. Using new methods and data, we analyze the geography and incomes of frontier workers from 1880 to 2019. Initially, frontier work is concentrated in a set of 'seedbed' locations, contributing to rising spatial inequality through powerful localized wage premiums. As technologies mature, the economic distinctiveness of frontier work diminishes, as ultimately happened to cities like Manchester and Detroit. Our work uncovers a plausible general origin story of the unfolding of spatial income inequality. |
| Keywords: | cities; industrial revolutions; inequality; technological change; wages |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2024–05–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:123950 |
| By: | Mingzhi Xiao; Yuki Takayama |
| Abstract: | As high-speed rail (HSR) investment accelerates across China, the question of whether such large-scale infrastructure can promote balanced regional development or exacerbate spatial inequality has become central for policymakers and scholars. This study provides systematic micro-level evidence by analyzing a balanced panel of 353 county-level divisions, including urban districts, county-level cities, and counties, along the Shanghai-Kunming and Xuzhou-Lanzhou HSR corridors from 2008 to 2019. Using a multi-period difference-in-differences (DID) approach, supported by event study and propensity score matching, we quantify the heterogeneous impacts of HSR openings across administrative types and regions, with special attention to the presence of direct HSR station access. The results show that HSR expansion significantly increases secondary and tertiary sector output in urban districts (by 2.77 and 8.71 hundred million RMB) and in county-level cities, particularly in the eastern region. In contrast, counties without HSR stations or with weaker economic foundations experience much smaller gains. Some counties also see a notable contraction in the service sector, which is closely linked to substantial population outflows. Robustness checks confirm the causal interpretation. These findings challenge the prevailing view that HSR fosters uniform growth. Instead, the results reveal that infrastructure-led development can intensify spatial and administrative disparities at the county level. The study underscores the need for integrated and locally tailored policy interventions to ensure that HSR investments contribute to inclusive and sustainable regional development. |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2508.16079 |
| By: | Klarl, Torben; Kritikos, Alexander S.; Poghosyan, Knarik |
| Abstract: | While Equity Crowdfunding (ECF) platforms are a virtual space for raising funds, geography remains relevant. To determine how location matters for entrepreneurs using equity crowdfunding (ECF), we analyze the spatial distribution of successful ECF campaigns and the spatial relationship between ECF campaigns and traditional investors, such as banks and venture capitalists (VCs). Using data from the two leading German platforms - Companisto and Seedmacht - we employ spatial eigenvalue filtering and negative binomial estimations. In addition, we introduce an event study based on the implementation of the Small Investor Protection Act in Germany allowing us to obtain causal evidence. Our combined analysis reveals a significant geographic concentration of successful ECF campaigns in some, but not all, dense areas. ECF campaigns tend to cluster in dense areas with VC activity, while they are less prevalent in dense areas with high banking activity, and are rarely found in rural areas. Thus, rather than closing the so-called regional funding gap, our results suggest that, from a spatial perspective, ECF fills the gap when firms in dense areas seek external financing below the minimum equity threshold offered by VCs and when there are few banks offering loans. |
| Keywords: | Crowdfunding, Finance Geography, Entrepreneurial Finance, Venture Capital (VC) Proximity |
| JEL: | G30 L26 M13 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1654 |
| By: | Philip McGann |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the case for, and context in which, an urban wealth fund (UWF) or a regional wealth fund (RWF), can realistically and meaningfully be established in UK cities and regions in a manner which helps to encourage investment capital back into economically weaker regions. Much of the current discussion regarding the links between industrial strategies, governance devolution nationally-orchestrated investments in renewables and national productivity growth, largely fails to consider in detail the particular effects on, or specific responses to, the capital markets, at the local, city, regional or national levels and the consequential local financial and fiscal implications of these effects and responses. The UK central-sub-central fiscal system is not well-designed to foster capital flows in economically weaker regions, and therefore finding ways to reform the interactions between the financial system and the fiscal system is essential in order to rejuvenate whole swathes of the UK economy is critical. The wealth fund model offers an important potential step in this direction. The fact that the wealth fund-types of arguments have received support from many of the UKs most prominent economists also underscores that these arguments have credibility and are worth serious consideration. These wealth fund types of arguments have strong links with various high-level fiscal and macroeconomic management debates currently taking place in the UK, but rather than national debt management issues, the arguments put forward here focus specifically on the economic nature, behaviour and role of cities and regions. It is argued here that, if properly constructed as genuine wealth funds, these institutions can provide a key piece of the jigsaw of how cities and regions may be 'turned around' in a manner which builds long-term investor confidence and investment flows back into weaker local economies. |
| Keywords: | Economic growth; Regional Economies; uk economy |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nsr:niesro:66 |
| By: | Wei Luo (GeospatialX Lab, Geography Department, National University of Singapore, Singapore); Siyuan Kang (GeospatialX Lab, Geography Department, National University of Singapore, Singapore); Qian Di (Vanke School of Public Health, Tsinghua University, Beijing) |
| Abstract: | US-China trade tensions, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Russia-Ukraine conflict have disrupted and reshaped global supply chains. Existing studies caution that these tensions may not meaningfully reduce U.S. dependence on China-linked supply chains. This study examines the drivers of this unmet reallocation under overlapping geopolitical and public health disruptions. It investigates how these shocks jointly reconfigured bilateral trade and global value chain (GVC) participation and positioning among the U.S., China, and major trading partners during 2016-2023. Using monthly bilateral trade data across all sectors and multi-regional input-output tables for GVC decomposition, we combine a multi-period event-study with structural analysis to evaluate trade-flow disruptions and shifts in participation and functional positioning within GVCs. We find that China's exports remained robust, expanded across global markets, and sustained a rise in GVC participation, becoming more embedded in upstream segments through increased intermediate shipments to Asia and Europe. Meanwhile, U.S. imports increasingly shifted toward "China+1" partners, especially ASEAN, whose trade structures remain closely tied to Chinese upstream supply chains. These strengthening triangular relationships reveal how global reallocation and GVCs have evolved around the U.S. and China across successive shocks. Based on the evidence, we propose a supply chain resilience framework defined by three interacting dimensions: the level of GVC participation, the functional position within the value chain, and a country's capacity to re-couple in the post-shock landscape, conditioned by market diversification, economic complexity, and institutional capability. These findings carry significant implications for trade policy and industrial strategy in an era of geopolitical and geoeconomic fragmentation. |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2508.06828 |
| By: | Matthias Eckardt; Philipp Otto |
| Abstract: | Compositional data, such as regional shares of economic sectors or property transactions, are central to understanding structural change in economic systems across space and time. This paper introduces a spatiotemporal multivariate autoregressive model tailored for panel data with composition-valued responses at each areal unit and time point. The proposed framework enables the joint modelling of temporal dynamics and spatial dependence under compositional constraints and is estimated via a quasi maximum likelihood approach. We build on recent theoretical advances to establish identifiability and asymptotic properties of the estimator when both the number of regions and time points grow. The utility and flexibility of the model are demonstrated through two applications: analysing property transaction compositions in an intra-city housing market (Berlin), and regional sectoral compositions in Spain's economy. These case studies highlight how the proposed framework captures key features of spatiotemporal economic processes that are often missed by conventional methods. |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2507.14389 |
| By: | Gabriel Marcos Arcanjo (Department of Economics, Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Brazil); Fernando Salgueiro Perobelli (Department of Economics, Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Brazil); Vinicius Vale (Department of Economics, Federal University of Paraná, Brazil); Douglas Silveira (Department of Economics, Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Brazil) |
| Abstract: | To understand how different regions withstand increasingly frequent exogenous shocks, we analyze regional resilience in Brazil, motivated by persistent structural inequalities and frequent exposure to such shocks. Using interregional input-output matrices for 2011 and 2019, we adopt an ex ante approach, simulating scenarios that stress the productive structure to evaluate regional responses. These results are integrated with network analysis and machine learning techniques to classify degrees of regional resilience. Resilience is highest in the South and Southeast, particularly São Paulo, and lowest in the North and Northeast. This pattern is associated with the concentration of activities with limited diffusion to less resilient regions, which exhibit growth and specialization in primary activities, along with dependence on services weakly integrated into production chains. Overall, resilience remains largely stable, highlighting structural barriers that hinder transformation and are not easily overcome spontaneously over time. |
| Keywords: | Regional Resilience; Input-Output; Network Analysis; Machine Learning |
| JEL: | C67 O40 C22 R10 R15 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:nereus:021497 |