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on Urban and Real Estate Economics |
| By: | Theodore Tsekeris; Klimis Vogiatzoglou; Stelios Bekiros |
| Abstract: | The paper describes a spatial economic agent-based model (ABM), consistent with the principles of new economic geography (NEG), which allows the discrete-time evolutionary simulation of complex interactions of household and firm location choices. In contrast with the current ABM approaches, it considers a multi-regional (multi-urban) setting to enable a more realistic representation of decisions related to commuting, migration and household and employment location. The model allows simulating spatially differentiated, multi-commodity markets for land and labor in a system of cities and the behavior of profit-maximizing firms with multi-regional asset investment decisions, incorporating endogenous intra- and inter-urban transport costs with congestion effects. It also accounts for the impact of industrial and urban agglomeration forces on location choices and the formation of urban development patterns. Other features include the representation of the actions of central and local government agents to address issues of territorial development, efficiency and equity. The simulation set-up and evolutionary analysis of the spatial ABM are presented and several implications are discussed with regard to the possible outcomes of a set of policy interventions. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p479&r=ure |
| By: | Miquel-Angel Garcia-Lopez |
| Abstract: | At the present time, most large cities in the world are polycentric and, at the same time, they are undergoing a process of employment and population decentralization. Gordon and Richardson (1996) argued that polycentricity is just an intermediate stage between monocentricity and a more unstructured, chaotic and amorphous location model, the dispersed city. Focusing their attention only on main centers, they neglected the role of transport infrastructure on urban spatial structure. On the contrary, New Urban Economics theoretical models (e.g. White, 1976; Steen, 1986; Sullivan, 1986) show that employment and population location is structured not only around main centers, but also around transport infrastructure. In a context of employment and population decentralization, transport infrastructure might be reinforcing its location role and a new location model might emerge, the accessibility city, in which employment and population continue to be concentrated but close to transport infrastructure and with more low-density settlements. For the case of the Barcelona Metropolitan Region, we study the spatial distribution of population and its evolution between 1991 and 2006. The goal is to provide some insight into the location model discussion by taking into account the role of transport infrastructure and, therefore, considering the accessibility model as an alternative spatial configuration. Results reveal a multi-nodal distribution for population, with movements that are, indeed, away from the main centers but often into transport infrastructure. As a result, the accessibility city seems to be emerging. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p521&r=ure |
| By: | Maksim Belitski; Julia Korosteleva |
| Abstract: | The importance of entrepreneurship as a driving force in the economic development has been widely recognised. Respectively, a growing number of empirical studies have focused on explaining variation in entrepreneurial activity at various spatial levels with the majority of them taking either a cross-country perspective or looking at the inter-regional differences. Given limited city-level data availability, scarce work has been undertaken so far on cross-city entrepreneurship within the spatially oriented entrepreneurship research. Furthermore, to our best knowledge, no empirical studies exist on entrepreneurship across European cities and our paper aims to bridge this gap. The object of the paper is to analyse the variation in entrepreneurial activity across European cities. More specifically, by harmonizing the city level data in 31 European countries, based on European Urban Audit Survey (Eurostat) data, we undertake a panel data study of how various demographic, socio-economic, ethnic and geographical characteristics of European cities and institutional country-level settings affect entrepreneurship in 377 European cities during the period of 1989-2006. We use the rate of self-employment as a measure of entrepreneurship. While controlling for various spatial effects across cities we find that the rate of self-employment is largely explained by city size, socio-economic characteristics, such as the level of education and city inhabitants' wellbeing, city ethnicity and size of a local government. Institutional quality, including a property right system and democratic institutions, and city location affect entrepreneurship. Our findings fail to support a hypothesis of the importance of capital city incubators, Euroregions and EU enlargement for entrepreneurial activity. Surprisingly, our city location results suggest that cities in the south of Europe are more entrepreneurial than in the north. Along with a positive effect of a lower education and insignificant effect of a city typology associated with high-tech entrepreneurship. Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Agglomeration, Labour market, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Urban JEL Codes: L26 R10 R30 O31 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1646&r=ure |
| By: | Vania Ceccato; Mats Wilhemson |
| Abstract: | This study uses data over 9600 apartment sales in Stockholm, Sweden, to assess the impact of crime on property prices. Using two-stage analysis, the study first employs hedonic pricing modelling to estimate the impact of crime controlling for other factors (property and neighbourhood characteristics). Then, the willingness to pay is calculated for a certain property having as a function crime together with other house and area attributes. GIS is used to combine apartment sales by co-ordinates with offences, land use characteristics and demographic and socio-economic data of the population. The novelty of this research is threefold. First, it explores a set of land use attributes created by spatial techniques in GIS in combination with detailed geographical data in hedonic pricing modelling. Second, the effect of crime in neighboring zones at one place can be measured by incorporating spatial lagged variables of offence rates into the model. Third, the study provides evidence of the impact of crime on housing prices from a capital city from a welfare state country, something otherwise lacking in the international literature. Our results indicate that total crime rates showed no effect on apartment prices but when the offences were break down by types, violence, residential burglary, vandalism and robbery had individually a significant effect on property values. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1026&r=ure |
| By: | Hisamitsu Saito; Munisamy Gopinath; JunJie Wu |
| Abstract: | A wide urban-rural disparity is observed in employment growth in the United States. For example, employment growth averaged 2.1 percent in urban counties during 1998-2007, compared with just 1 percent in rural counties. In this study, we examine the sources of U.S. employment growth using the county-level industry data. From an analytical labor-market model, we derive equilibrium employment growth as a function of growth in neighborhood characteristics and initial conditions such as accumulated of human capital, industrial structure and natural amenities. The equilibrium employment growth equation is then estimated using spatial econometric techniques, which account for spillovers from employment growth in neighboring counties. Specifically, a spatial lag model is estimated using U.S. county and industry data from 1998-2007. Results show positive growth spillovers from both urban and rural regions, but the former has relatively large impacts on regional employment growth. The statistical significance of the spatial-lag coefficient in most U.S. manufacturing and service industries suggests the presence of a strong spatial multiplier effect. Evaluating the contribution of alternative factors to employment growth, we find that initial accumulated human capital is the key determinant of regional employment growth. The decomposition of the urban-rural gap in employment growth shows spillovers from urban (rural) regions widen (narrow) the gap. The latter suggests that collaboration among rural regions in economic development can be effective in narrowing the urban-rural gap in employment growth. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1129&r=ure |
| By: | Mira G. Baron; Sigal Kaplan |
| Abstract: | Recent ‘studentification’ processes raise issues regarding the positive and negative impacts of student influx on the urban environment. The positive impacts discussed in the literature include urban core revitalization, employment generation and economic growth. The negative externalities comprise the formation of temporary sub-communities, competition with low-income groups in the rental housing market, and an increase in traffic volume. The current study adds to the literature by focusing on the influence of student influx on rent prices. The importance of this issue derives from the need to understand the net effect of the contradicting impacts of ‘studentification’ on contemporary urban development for policy implications. While student influx is considered a promising force of urban regeneration, in the literature concerns were raised regarding the detrimental effect of students’ temporary sub-communities. The impact of ‘studentification’ on rent prices is evaluated by hedonic property price analysis incorporating spatial correlations. Data were collected from on-line real-estate portals advertising apartments for rent in the city of Haifa, Israel. The data include apartments characterized by more than a dozen relevant attributes to rental apartment choice including rent price, location, structural features, furniture and electrical appliances. Locations with high proportions of students in the private rented sector were identified on the basis of municipal tax files, as students in Haifa are eligible for substantial municipal tax discounts. The results of this study show the rent price differential between apartments of comparable characteristics located in ‘studentified’ and ‘non-studentified’ zones. The paper concludes with a discussion regarding the policy implications of the findings. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p204&r=ure |
| By: | Ari Tarigan; Stian Bayer; Christin Berg |
| Abstract: | The growth and expansion of commercial locations followed by urban sprawl and significant change in demographic and socio-demographic characteristics of urban resident have taken place in the Stavanger region, Norway - partly due to its role as 'the Petroleum Capital of Norway'. Most notable evidence are: (1) suburbanisation of employment due to the rapid development of the petroleum-based businesses, manufacturing companies and service enterprises in the region and its satellite region; (2) increased labour force participation, in particular by skilled workers and women; (3) growing proportion of immigration from inter-region of Norway as well as international, responding its dynamic labour market; (4) general increases in income; (5) changing population structure caused by significant percentage of young professional individuals; (6) and also great proportion of auto ownership and auto dependency. For example, the local authority has developed the industrial parks, known as the Forus area which is situated in the south-west of the Stavanger city centre. Currently, there are more than 1200 businesses located in this area and this provides opportunities for more than 24000 professionals, indicating that its employment density is extremely high. This, however, means that auto dependency of the Forus area-based commuters has reached by nearly 82 % of total mode choices used. The effects of industrialisation in suburbs on travel behavior are complex and not clear yet. One argues that suburbanisation of employment is inevitable in recent era in order to provide better accessibility of jobs and to reduce attractiveness of city centre in the same time. Therefore, how local authority connects their residents and workplaces and to break dependency on auto is the issue since commuters tend to use auto. This case is more obvious in particular if the quality of installed transport infrastructure is relatively poor. Whiles, others recommend jobs-housing balance supported by mixed-zone policy to control negative impacts of workplace sprawl. Allowing urbanisation of employment alone without considering travel distance balance leads to a less sustainable travel patterns because the higher the commuting distance the much more likely individuals tend to be depending on auto. This study is an attempt to determine the effects of suburbanisation of employment on commuting travel patterns. The questions raised are: Does suburbanisation of employment lead to an increase of commuting travel time (and distance), auto use, energy consumption, and the spatial extension of their action space? If so, who still have more sustainable commuting travel patterns? Who don't? Also, how sustainable is their commuting travel patterns compared to other groups of commuter in the region? Which factors tend influence auto dependency? The focus of this study is on commuters. Results of travel behaviour survey in the Stavanger area, conducted in summer 2008, are examined in this study to evaluate the effects of suburbanisation of employment on travel. The study depicts the commuters in the Forus area as the sample size and compares its behavioural patterns with the city centre-based commuters of the Stavanger region and the other commuters who reside in between the city centre and the Forus area. A set of multivariate analyses and other statistical tools are utilised to examine at the individual level, with auto ownership, public transport use, travel distance and travel time performed as its dependent variables. Using the results it is shown who tends to commute longer and who don't. Also factors that influence auto dependency are captured and the characteristics of the sustainable commuters are identified. Evaluating this policy location is necessary as a study reported that it may be pragmatically and politically more acceptable to change policies in primarily employment areas, because the users of those areas may have fewer complaints about more intense development than residential users typically do. In addition, the resultant model system is applied in a scenario analysis to forecast possible changes in future auto travel that will follow hypothetical spatial changes in the Stavanger region. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1648&r=ure |
| By: | Corrado Zoppi; Sabrina Lai |
| Abstract: | The planning activity of the regional administration of Sardinia (Italy) is characterized by a deep change after the approval of the Regional Landscape Plan (RLP). The RLP, ruled by the National Code of Cultural Heritage and Landscape, establishes the directions for future Sardinian regional planning and requires that sectoral, province and city plans, and plans for protected areas, be changed to comply with its directions. The adjustment process could be conflictual, since cities, provinces, and bodies responsible for protected areas might disagree with the regional administration about the rules established by the RLP. These are particularly restrictive for coastal areas, where cities could suffer a sharp decline in building expansion rights and risk losing financial resources that would come from the impact fees paid by the developers. Moreover, payments of communal tax for real estate might decrease, since the value of land would plummet without development rights. The investment attraction capacity of Sardinian coastal cities could therefore drop as a consequence of the ruling framework of the RLP. The Sardinian regional operational program 2007-2013 concerning the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) respects the rules of the ERDF on the investments for territorial cohesion (as defined by Regulation no. 1080/2006/EC), since it promotes their regional geographic concentration. With regards to Sardinian coastal cities, this paper analyzes the investment policies for public services and infrastructure implemented by the Sardinian Region through the Regional Operational Program, in order to assess the impact of the RLP. The first section develops a geographic information system (GIS) to define a territorial taxonomy of Sardinian coastal cities, by analyzing the spatial distribution of investment in public services and infrastructure and of other attributes concerning demography, urbanization, RLP ruling framework. The second section analyzes, through linear regression and logit methodologies, the investment policies concerning public services and infrastructure, and identifies correlations between the variables represented by the GIS. The methodological approach adopted in this paper can be used in regional planning processes to address the important issue of the often-conflictual relationship between the implementation of conservative planning policies and local economic development programs. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p713&r=ure |
| By: | Blanca Gutierrez Valdivia; Pilar García Almirall |
| Abstract: | The arrival of numerous immigrant populations in the last decade is causing deep changes in the physical and social morphology of the Spanish cities. This population locates in specific areas of our cities and has distinct settlement patterns from those of the native population. Likewise, the characteristics of their housing and the use that they make of the public space are different from those of the rest of the population. In this paper does a characterization of the physical conditions of the dwellings where this population live and of the public space that the immigrants use and the social consequences that these challenges involve. The territorial area of the research is the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona. It has been developed in different neighborhoods of the RMB with different urban and demographic characteristics and with a high concentration of immigrant population. The methodology used has been a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques. First of all, a quantitative approach on the housing and the public space of the zone of studied has been made. Afterwards, different qualitative methods to study the results in depth (participant observation, interviews, analysis of photographies) have been used. Keywords: immigrant population, housing, public space, qualitative |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1353&r=ure |
| By: | Veronika Killer; Kay W. Axhausen; Christian Holz-Rau; Dennis Guth |
| Abstract: | This study points out the effect of road infrastructure improvement between 1970 and 2005/06 and the resulting change of travel time in Germany and Switzerland. Reconsidering the interaction between the transportation system and land use, the paper contributes to the ongoing discussion about induced travel and infrastructure capacity. The impact of highway capacity expansion on land use has been studied worldwide focusing on urban areas. This study goes one step further. We detect changes in suburban and rural areas by this national comparison. The generation of a historical travel time dataset applies a method developed for Switzerland in previous studies and is adjusted for Germany according to its political, structural and topographical situation. The method is based on a historical network and estimated mean car speeds on different road types varying between densely or sparsely populated areas. Travel time matrices between all municipalities in Germany and Switzerland are calculated and validated by a regional comparison. Three indexes are developed to detect regional effects of travel time. The results are regionally segmented by a spatial cluster analyses named Getis-Ord’s Gi* statistics. The spatial overview of the three travel time indexes takes into account the national and regional level. The historical travel time dataset is successfully validated. This useful data is needed for later investigation on commuting behaviour. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1017&r=ure |
| By: | Simon Falck |
| Abstract: | This paper aims at analyzing location choice among foreign companies in Sweden. Using an empirical approach on micro data, their location choices are explored at the regional level and analyzed in a typology setting. Controls are made for industrial sectors and the role played by agglomeration economies. The results are consistent with the hypothesis on a strong relationship between location choice and agglomeration economies and also that industrial agglomeration play a role in location decisions. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1492&r=ure |
| By: | Stefan Luethi; Alain Thierstein; Michael Bentlage |
| Abstract: | We assume that the territory of Germany is experiencing a reorganisation of functional division of labour in favour of the knowledge economy. New forms of network economies and functional differentiation between cities and towns can be observed. The increasing importance of emerging network economies has introduced new lines of thinking about space, place and scale that interprets regions as unbounded, relational spaces. The key aim of the paper is to set out a theoretical context and then to empirically investigate the functional polycentric patterns and interlocking networks of Advanced Producer Services (APS) and High-Tech firms on different spatial scales. We start from a conceptual background that brings together the location behaviour of multi-branch multi-location firms with a world city network approach. The analytical building blocks are 338 Functional Urban Areas in Germany, including adjacent agglomerations in Germany’s neighbouring countries. Based on this methodological approach, the paper looks at the extent to which the functional urban hierarchy within the German space economy is associated with different special scales and economic sub-sectors. Interim results provide evidence that the German territory can be regarded as a hierarchically organized space economy in which only few agglomerations establish substantial international connectivities and economic strength. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p120&r=ure |
| By: | Ulrich Zierahn |
| Abstract: | The regional employment growth in Germany is characterized by huge disparities. Whereas institutional factors might explain the disparities of employment growth between nations, they can only account for a minor fraction of the regional employment growth. Instead the sectoral structure of employment is often seen as a major reason for regional disparities. An important attribute of the research conducted so far is that it concentrates on estimating shift-share-regression-models when controlling for the influence of the sectoral structure on employment growth. However, these models do not account for spatial interdependencies and treat regions as autarkies, though on a regional level such effects are very likely to occur. Against this background, the present article focuses on analyzing the role played by spatial interdependencies between regions in explaining their employment growth. By using spatial econometric methods this article emphasizes that regional employment growth is characterized by spatial autocorrelation, pointing to spatial interdependencies between the regions. This holds true also for mayor factors of regional employment such as wages and qualification. In this article three different models of spatial interdependencies are being compared: the spatial lag, spatial error and cross regressive model. While the spatial lag model controls for the influence of the value of the endogenous variable in neighboring regions (i.e. the spatial lag of the endogenous variable) on the endogenous variable in the observed region, the spatial error model estimates the influence of the spatial lag of the error term. Finally, the cross regressive model includes the spatial lag of the exogenous variables. These spatial interdependencies are integrated into the framework of the shift-share-regression-model to identify the relevant spatial interdependencies and to measure their influence on the regional employment growth in Germany. Preliminary results indicate that the spatial autocorrelation of the regional employment growth is to a large extend caused by the spatial lags of the exogenous variables. The spatial lag of the endogenous variable and the error term become insignificant, when the spatial lags of the exogenous variables are being accounted for. These effects can be interpreted as spatial spillover effects. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p205&r=ure |
| By: | Mercedes Rodriguez; JosÈ Antonio Camacho |
| Abstract: | There is a rich debate in the innovation literature about to what extent innovation has become an international (or globalised) phenomenon, or, on the contrary, it maintains its local/regional character. As Koschatzky (2001) notes, given the fact that knowledge is commonly tied to personal capabilities; it has a clear geographical component. In the case of knowledge-intensive services (KIS) most of analyses come to the same conclusion: distance is particularly relevant when knowledge (mainly of a tacit type) is diffused. Starting from this premise, a burgeoning literature on the contribution of those knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) to regional innovation has emerged. Most of these papers adopt a national perspective, that is, analyse regions in a specific country. On the contrary, comparisons of regional features have been carried out in very few papers: Germany and the UK (Simmie and Strambach, 2006) or Germany and France (Muller and Zenker, 2001) are two examples. The objective of this paper is to take a step further and examine the distribution of knowledge-intensive services (KIS) in the European regions. For so doing we employ the data provided by the Regional Innovation Scoreboard (RIS) 2009. This database provides information on the innovation performance across 194 regions of the European Union and Norway. The methodology employed is known as spatial analysis and evaluates whether there are clusters in the location of KIS in the European regions, which involves three processes. First, to evaluate the existence of spatial autocorrelation by means of global statistics; the Moran’s I and the Geary’s C. Once verified the existence of positive spatial autocorrelation, it is possible to identify “clusters” of regions with high and low participations of KIS by using a local indicator of spatial autocorrelation (LISA). Finally, employing an econometric model, some potential explanatory factors for the concentration of KIS are examined. The results obtained support the hypothesis that KIS are spatially concentrated and confirm that spatial clusters are different in northern/central and southern/eastern regions. Moreover, a close relationship between location of KIS and regional innovation performance is found. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p277&r=ure |
| By: | Gesa Matthes |
| Abstract: | Scientific studies have revealed incipient reurbanization in terms of Berg’s theory of urban spatial change (cf. BMVBS/BBR: 20; BERG et al.). These spatially different demographic developments impact directly on spatial planning, particularly on social and ecological issues such as gentrification, land use or transport. It is therefore important to consider to what extent reurbanization exists, how it will develop in the future and how it can be assessed from the perspective of sustainable development. Given the lack of empirical evidence regarding reurbanization, its causes and interdependencies and taken into account that the development of local populations becomes increasingly dependent on migration as the German population shrinks, the Institute for Transport Planning and Logistics, Hamburg University of Technology carried out an interdisciplinary case study focusing on the development of intra-regional migration within the city region of Hamburg and its impact on transport development as one of the crucial consequences of intra-regional migration in the past. Primary data were collected concerning the reasons for migration into the city and changes in mobility behaviour. This paper presents the most important aspects of the empirical results on inter-related causes and effects and methodological cognition. Firstly, it discusses experience of the “mixed methods” approach, developed to survey changes in mobility behavior and based on the qualitative method of MAYRING. Secondly, it presents the results of the quantitative analysis of intra-regional migration based on a detailed system of spatial categories. With regard to middle-order-centers of the city region and urban quarters in Hamburg, it reveals considerable change over a ten year period. Thirdly, it highlights the reasons for change of residence from surrounding areas into urban quarters. Due to the preliminary character of the survey, this question only applies to one selected group of these migrants (families). Lastly, it will present selected results from the survey on changes in mobility behaviour in the chosen group, particularly those which have immediate consequences for sustainable planning. BMVBS/BBR: Online Publikation 21/2007 BERG et al.: A Study of Growth and Decline. 1982 MAYRING: Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse: Grundlagen und Techniken. 2003 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p842&r=ure |
| By: | Erik Jenelius; Lars-Göran Mattsson |
| Abstract: | Disruptions in the road transport system can have severe consequences for accessibility and transport costs. These impacts vary depending on in which regions they occur (regional importance), and users may be affected differently depending on where they travel (regional exposure). Some disruptions (caused by, e.g., car crashes, minor landslides and floods) affect only single road links, whereas others (e.g., heavy snowfall, storms and wildfires) disable extended areas of the road network. In this paper we systematically analyze the vulnerability of road networks under both kinds of disruptions. We apply the analysis approach to the Swedish road network using travel demand and network data from the Swedish transport modeling system Sampers. We investigate to what extent regional disparities in vulnerability depend on the network structure and travel and location patterns. For single link failures, we find that the total impacts (measured as travel time increases) depend strongly on the network density and the average traffic load in the region, whereas the average impact per traveler in a region is largely determined by the network density and the average user travel time. For area-covering disruptions, the study shows that the impacts depend strongly on the amount of internal, outbound and inbound travel demand of the affected area itself. As a result, the worst-case impact per traveler in a region is largely determined by the concentration of the population to one central location. Our findings, which should be universal for most road networks of similar scale, reveal that the vulnerability to single link failures and spatially spread events display markedly different regional distributions. Furthermore, these regional disparities stem from fundamental properties of the transport system and the population distribution. Hence, we believe that resource allocation for reducing vulnerability is more an issue of preparedness and mitigation than redundancy-providing infrastructure investments. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p448&r=ure |
| By: | Valente J. Matlaba (University of Waikato); Mark Holmes (University of Waikato); Philip McCann (University of Groningen); Jacques Poot (University of Waikato) |
| Abstract: | This paper combines classic and spatial shift-share decompositions of 1981 to 2006 employment change across the 27 states of Brazil. The classic shift-share method shows higher employment growth rates for underdeveloped regions that are due to an advantageous industry-mix and also due to additional job creation, commonly referred to as the competitive effect. Alternative decompositions proposed in the literature do not change this broad conclusion. Further examination employing exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) shows spatial correlation of both the industry-mix and the competitive effects. Considering that until the 1960s economic activities were more concentrated in southern regions of Brazil than they are nowadays, these results support beta convergence theories but also find evidence of agglomeration effects. Additionally, a very simple spatial decomposition is proposed that accounts for the spatially-weighted growth of surrounding states. Favourable growth in northern and centre-western states is basically associated with those states’ strengths in potential spatial spillover effect and in spatial competitive effect. |
| Keywords: | regional employment; shift-share analysis; spatial autocorrelation; spatial spillovers; Brazil |
| JEL: | J21 O18 N66 R11 |
| Date: | 2012–07–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wai:econwp:12/08&r=ure |
| By: | Alex Hagen-Zanker; Ying Jin |
| Abstract: | In modelling spatial economic interactions such as embodied in the movements of people and goods, the study area is usually subdivided into geographic units, i.e. zones, to represent the origin, destination and any stop-over locations. In most cases, model precision tends to improve as the study area is subdivided into increasingly small zones. Smaller zones however come at the cost of increased run-time. In practice the modeller often has to compromise on the resolution or the geographic coverage, which impinges upon model accuracy and applicability. Current trends in spatial economic interactions are calling for larger study areas and finer spatial details: As transport and telecommunications improve, the realm of spatial interaction continues to expand. Furthermore, the rapid expansion in e-monitoring of the movements of goods and people is offering ever-increasing spatial detail. The combined impact is a strong need to expand spatial model coverage whilst capturing local details. This paper reports on the development of an innovative zoning. The basic idea is to use more detailed zoning where interaction is stronger, e.g. at shorter distance or between higher density areas. Instead of a single zonal division for the whole study area, the zoning scheme consists of one specific zonal division for each respective location (atomic zone) in the study area, adapted to the interaction flows to and from that location. Incorporating this adaptive zoning scheme improves the scaling behaviour of spatial interaction and choice models, as the number of interactions per zone is no longer equal to the number of zones, but - depending on the precise nature of the interaction - logarithmic to it instead. The adaptive zoning scheme will require models to be adjusted to the new geographical representation. This paper will therefore detail the required modifications to a typical doubly-constrained spatial interaction model. Application on commuting patterns in England demonstrates that the adoptive zoning scheme can reduce the number of spatial interactions by as much as 95% whilst maintaining a fine granularity. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1036&r=ure |
| By: | Megha Mukim |
| Abstract: | Innovation is crucial to regional economic competitiveness and to productivity growth. A salient feature of the Indian economy is the geographic concentration of both, economic activity and innovation, as measured by patent activity. Theoretical models argue that the clustering of economic activity within a geographic region results in knowledge spillovers, which in turn drives innovation. The literature also posits that the presence of human capital is critical to the generation of new knowledge. This paper studies how and why economic geography and factor endowments matter for innovative activity – in other words, what is the relationship between human capital and patent generation, and crucially, how is this affected by the spatial distribution of economic activity? The paper analyses patent activity, both applications and grants, between 1995 and 2004 across districts in India. By using an econometric model, it then relates innovation to measures of agglomeration, industry-type and the size distribution of firms, and to the distribution of human capital endowments. It also uses data on employment by industrial activity, productivity and FDI flows. Understanding the magnitude of the effects of economic geography and factor endowments is vital for policy formulation aimed at encouraging innovative activity. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1356&r=ure |
| By: | Hannu Tervo |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes long-term spatial developments in Finland by focusing on two predictions of the new economic geography (NEG) models, the increasing persistence of locational patterns and the emerging agglomeration shadow, i.e. the rising dominance of growth centers. Pre- and post-war periods are distinguished to roughly express the shift from an agriculture-based economy to a post-industrial country. The analyses base on the assumption that each of the 19 Finnish regions has a center of its own and the rest of the region forms its local hinterland. The empirical analysis is based on regional population data from 1880 to 2004 at decade intervals. First, to analyze the persistence of locational patterns the variation in the rank of regions over time and the evolution in rank-size distributions at different stages of development are examined. Second, to analyze the dominance of centers and causal processes between cities and their local hinterland before and after WWII an extension of the Granger causality method using a panel framework is applied. The results indicated that persistence in locational patterns increased in Finland during the processes of industrialization and urbanization. Furthermore, in the pre-war period, centers and their hinterlands grew hand-in-hand, while the post-war period shows that cities cast an agglomeration shadow over their local hinterland. In all, the paper gives evidence in favour of the NEG predictions. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p147&r=ure |
| By: | Krister Olsson; Elin Berglund |
| Abstract: | In contemporary western cities, city marketing is widely applied as a means for local economic development, city competitiveness and attractiveness. In practice, city marketing generally includes a wide range of promotional, organisational and spatial strategies and activities. It is often manifested in city centre revitalization including upgrading of public space, the construction of spectacular entertainment and cultural amenities, and image enhancing activities. Parallel to the growing practice of city marketing, there has been a growing interest in city marketing within the academia. However, the literature on city marketing is by no means homogenous. City marketing is interpreted, described and valued in very different ways and there is, apparently, diverging opinions what city marketing is and what it means to a city and its citizens. Furthermore, the literature on city marketing tends to make general assumptions about the prevalence and nature of city marketing practice and fails to consider local and regional variations. Most empirical studies are concerned with big cities in international competition. To a great extent, there is a lack of knowledge in how city marketing is performed in small and medium-sized cities in a regional context. The aim with the paper is to contribute with empirical and theoretical knowledge about the prevalence, nature and meaning of city marketing by focusing Swedish small and medium-sized cities in various regional contexts. Through a review of city marketing literature, the development of a theoretical framework of city marketing, and an empirical study of city marketing practice in all Swedish municipalities, the paper is expected to contribute with new knowledge about both the practice and theory of city marketing. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p236&r=ure |
| By: | Windy Vandevyvere; Andreas Zenthöfer |
| Abstract: | The Dutch housing market has been shaped by highly interventionist public policies spanning over several decades. Direct and indirect government intervention in the housing market through spatial planning and land policy, regulation and supervision of housing associations, rent policy and financial guarantees, generous mortgage interest deductibility and other explicit or implicit subsidies have led progressively to entrenched structural problems, which have negative consequences for the economy as a whole. Given the relatively rigid supply, price developments have been determined in particular by fiscal incentives and demand factors, under which innovations in mortgage financing have played a particularly important role, so that, compared to other euro area members, the Netherlands has relatively high levels of leveraged housing wealth. We conclude with possible reforms that would increase the efficiency of the Dutch housing market by addressing distortions in a gradual fashion while still achieving social policy objectives. |
| JEL: | E6 G21 H2 H31 H6 R3 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:euf:ecopap:0457&r=ure |
| By: | Jean CavailhËs; Isabelle Thomas |
| Abstract: | Since over half a century, Europe has been undergoing periurbanization; this phenomenon is similar to suburbanisation or ìurban sprawlî in the U.S. Hence, for each plot of land, there is competition for land use (agriculture, urbanisation). We here study the effect of urban sprawl on the price of farmland in Belgium. Using a set of very traditional urban economics variables, we show that the determinants of residential prices also explain the spatial variation of farmland. Indeed, the prospect of conversion from agriculture to residential land uses are high in Belgium, which is a densely inhabited country characterized by a tight urban network and where, moreover, land zoning is permissive. Therefore, urban sprawl largely dominates residential choice since over 40 years leading to fragmented landscapes where agriculture coexists with housing. We here use the Capozza & Hesley (1989) model that was recently developed by Plantinga & Miller (2001) and CavailhËs & Wavresky (2003). This model aims at analyzing urban growth from a microeconomic point of view, where agricultural land is converted in residential plot. Until conversion, the price of farmland is equal to the capitalization of the agricultural land rent; after conversion it is equal to the capitalization of the residential rent. It basically depends upon the commuting distance and the anticipated date of conversion (other determinants are also discussed: Ricardian land fertility, number of inhabitants of the township, income, border effects leading to discontinuities, etc.) A hedonic log-linear equation is used where spatial autocorrelation is controlled by Anselinsà method (1988) and the multicollinearity (if any) by partial least squares (PLS). The same econometric equation is estimated for both developable and agricultural land price. Data were aggregated at the level of the 589 municipalities and made available for an 11 years period (1995-2005). Data are mainly provided by the Belgian National Institute of Statistics (SPF …conomie - Direction GÈnÈrale Statistiques): for all communes we know the price, surface and the number of transactions per year, for both developable land (but not yet developed) and farmland (meadow and arable land). Distance between the centroÔd of a commune and the centroÔd of the closest hub-city is the shortest road distance computed on the real road network (see Vandenbulcke et al., 2007, for more details). Econometric findings show that R2 values are slightly better for developable land (R2 = 0,92) than for farmland (R2 = 0,86), but that the partial R2 value associated to urban influence variables is better for farmland (0,85) than for developable land (0,38)3. The explanation of this paradox can be theoretical (combined effect of distance and anticipated land conversion date), as well as empirical (due to data imperfections: data are aggregated by municipalities). Results also reveal that agricultural prices decrease with distance from job centres and increase with the demographic size of the commune, with population rate of increase, householdsà income as well as with the contiguity to the coastline. The same variables enter the regression estimated with residential land price. Figure 1 (provisional results) shows the relationship between the slope of land price according to distance to urban centres (CBD) in the 25 urban areas, for farmland as well as developable land. Explaining farmland slope (dependent variable, y-axis) by developable land slope (explanatory variable, x-axis) indeed leads to a high determination coefficient (R2 = 0,62). |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1628&r=ure |
| By: | Lutz Trettin; Friederike Welter; Uwe Neumann |
| Abstract: | In recent years entrepreneurship in urban neighbourhoods, has drawn a growing attention of the research community as well as of urban planning (Mollenhorst et al. 2009). Entrepreneurship research is increasingly focussing on the manifold and intertwined contexts of entrepreneurial activities, such as the background of the enterprising individual, social networks, particular socio-spatial contexts or the cultural context. This combined view on the multifaceted embeddedness of entrepreneurial activities very often discloses strong linkages with their immediate socio-spatial environment (Steyart/Katz 2004). In the field of urban development the decision-makers in politics, planning and administration have increasingly adopted entrepreneurship support as a central means to foster economic revival in deprived localities, such as urban neighbourhoods in old industrialized regions or an urban locality with unfavourable demographic and socio-economic structures located within an overall prosperous urban agglomerations. However, practical experience shows that the efforts to economic renewal of deprived urban neighbourhoods through fostering entrepreneurship deserves a long time and faces serious obstacles (Berg et al 2004). Entrepreneurship research should critically ask, whether and how the knowledge about mixed embeddednes of entrepreneurial activities is considered by decision-makers in planning, administration and politics. Therefore, this paper aims at reviewing policy approaches which were recently adopted in different 6 German cities. Theoretically the paper draws on the literature which addresses entrepreneurship in its contexts. Empirically the paper is based on two empirical studies on public programmes at the interface of urban restructuring and economic development. We discuss the consideration of intertwined contexts of entrepreneurship as a relevant success factor of support policies. Our central focus is, whether entrepreneurship is seen as a topic related to economic life or as a matter of everyday social activities. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p550&r=ure |
| By: | Annekatrin Niebuhr; Javier Revilla Diez; Fabian Böttcher; Friso Schlitte |
| Abstract: | Increasing inequality in qualification specific employment prospects characterises labour markets in most highly developed countries. Theoretical models suggest that in-plant skill segregation might matter for the polarization of employment and wages. According to these models production technology and the educational level of the work force are important determinants of skill segregation. There are some studies that investigate the increasing in-plant skill segregation at the national level. However, since production technologies and skill structures are characterized by pronounced regional disparities, there are likely significant differences in the level of segregation between regions. But empirical evidence on corresponding regional inequalities is lacking. The objective of this analysis is to investigate regional disparities in skill segregation in Germany. Moreover, we analyse the determinants of these differences at the regional level. Our findings point to marked disparities among German regions. While rural areas are characterised by a weaker segregation, agglomeration areas have a higher level of skill segregation. Furthermore, skill segregation is increasing in most areas during the period under consideration, which may have regional economic consequences. The results of a regression analysis indicate that the local endowment with human capital is an important determinant for the regional level of skill segregation. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p640&r=ure |
| By: | Giuseppe Di Giacomo; Fabio Mazzola |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to examine interregional interactions in public expenditure (for NUTS I and NUTS II level regions) using a new database on Italian Regional Public Accounts (RPA) over the period 1996-2007. Intergovernmental interactions are particularly important for assessing the impact of the reform towards fiscal federalism which is currently under way in Italy. As pointed out by Salmon (1987,2002), a more decentralized system implies that governments situated at the same level in a multi-level governmental system compete each other as well as with those located along the hierarchy. Competitive behavior is also a key element in many recent models of local government behavior (Brueckner, 1997, 2000) and is now the focus of a growing empirical literature based on strategic interaction in local policy decisions analyzed through the estimation of a reaction function (Millimet, 2002; Revelli, 2003). The paper provides empirical evidence on complementary/competitive relationships in terms of capital public expenditure using the approach originally developed by Dendrinos and Sonis (1988, 1990). This model has been applied to income variables in several papers (Hewings et al. 1996, Magalhaes et al.1999, Dall’erba et al., 2003) but the use of policy variables has not been explored yet. By investigating the occurrence of competitive versus complementary interactions in regional public expenditure, the paper suggests that the definition of a fiscal federalism scheme should take into account adequately both direct and indirect effects. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p637&r=ure |
| By: | Luigi Scrofani; Vittorio Ruggiero |
| Abstract: | Since the early 90s of last century, the city is returned to the focus of European and national policies and new theories of urban development inspired by the theme of regeneration and the new centrality of the historical part of the city. In recent years interesting process of reconstruction and rehabilitation of historic areas have been, but also experimental steps towards new means of intervention of the city and new content that contributed to the review of practice of interventions in the territory based on two key themes of the functional organization and the satisfaction of an increasing housing needs. Many Italian cities have launched plans and proposals for urban regeneration of the old town, enriched by new instances related to the values and concrete social practices of participation and environmental sustainability. A raised dynamism linked to the redistribution of functions between the city centre, specialized in business skills, and an ever-expanding suburbs, which tends to create a diffuse urban systems. The theme of the re-qualification of the historic centre of Italian cities, therefore, is placed at the intersection of an urban policy seeks to address the continuing problems of quality of life and physical degradation of infrastructure and the need to revitalize the city and its ability attractiveness in terms of investment, functions, visitors and new residents. In particular, the frequent cases of property speculation, with the expulsion from the city centre for residents of restored areas, have made clear that the re-qualification can never be just based on building but have to be social to link virtuous pieces of fragmented communities. In this paper the authors, using statistical indicators too, have been analyzed not only the process of regeneration of the Italian cities but also the evolution of urban space to a model focused on quality and competitiveness. But to understand the attractiveness and competitiveness of the urban area was also fundamental the study of the image that reflects the city, because it leads many people to visit, shop and spend their free time there. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p818&r=ure |
| By: | Carl Gaigne; Julie LeGallo; Bertrand Schmitt |
| Abstract: | The well-known rise in the geographical concentration of hog production suggests the presence of agglomeration economies related to spatial spillovers and inter-dependencies among industries. In this paper, we examine whether manure management regulation restricting manure application per acre may weaken productivity gains arising from the agglomeration process. We develop a spatial model of production showing that, on the one hand, dispersion is favored when manure is applied to land as a crop nutrient and, on the other hand, agglomeration is strengthened when farmers adopt manure treatment. Estimations of a reduced form of the spatial model with a SHAC procedure applied on 1988 and 2000 French hog production data confirm the role played by the spatial spillovers and the backward and forwards relationships. Results also suggest that manure management regulation does not work against the spatial concentration of hog production, but boosts the role played by spatial spillovers in agglomeration process |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1326&r=ure |
| By: | Hans Westlund; Kent Eliasson |
| Abstract: | Policies aiming at promoting entrepreneurship are in general formed on national levels, without any consideration to differences between urban and rural areas. Usually cities are provided with better and more modern infrastructure; cities have better supply of physical, financial and human capital and connected services, and cities have a more modern industrial structure in the sense that their shares of growing industry are higher. These circumstances indicate that policies for entrepreneurship, which in general are designed for urban areas, might not work as intended when they are implemented in rural areas. A first step to improving the efficiency of these policies could be to investigate the differences between cities and countryside regarding frequencies and types entrepreneurship. Based on a database containing socio-economic information on all residents in Sweden this paper examines a) The scope and structure of enterprise propensity in urban and rural areas respectively in Sweden. b) The importance of a number of attributes that may have an impact on individuals’ propensity to start an enterprise in the two area types. Besides total (active) populations of urban and rural areas, divisions are made in men and women, in age groups and in different manufacturing and service sectors. Variables on individual level being investigated are education, incomes and combination of incomes from various income sources. Variables on regional level being tested are population size and density, centers’ population density, average commuting distance, local employment level and demographics and relative density of firms. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1486&r=ure |
| By: | Viggo Jean-Hansen |
| Abstract: | Norwegian cities are small in a European context. But even in these medium sized cities one finds that the crowding out process during economic growth works out the way economic theory prescribes. In years where there is high economic growth the land rent tends to increase. This should suffice that the high value industries will have a higher demand for offices and activities close to the city centre. More labor is needed in the city both by the public and the private sector. But the new employment will be pushed out to the outskirts of the city. As the rent increases the shops selling cheap goods tend to be established outside the city centre as the rent for land increase. Freight transport activities serve the shopping malls and the wholesalers in the outskirts of the city. Freight activities become less frequent in the city centre during a boom. Does one find economic empirical data to support this? We have divided the three biggest cities in Norway (Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim) in one central part and one part for the rest of the city. We have looked at employment data for years from 2002 to 2007 for the parts of the cities. In Norway there was a slump in the economy in the beginning of decennium up to 2003. The following years (2004 – 2007) there were a boom in the Norwegian mainland economy. In this paper we have investigated the localization pattern of industries in the three cities. We have looked at which industries are the best survivors during the period of high economic growth in the cities. According to economic theory it is supposed that activities that need more space (as supermarkets and warehouses) will be forced out, but real estate agents and other business services will survive in the spatial competition in the center of the city. Our employment data for the three cities supports the theory. Industries with lower wages per employed are crowded out of the centre during the boom while the service sectors are moving in. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1615&r=ure |
| By: | Apostolos Baltzopoulos; Anders Broström |
| Abstract: | The presence of universities in a region has been found to be an important factor for regional economic growth. In search for the specific explanations of this phenomenon, the connection between universities and locally based entrepreneurship has attracted considerable attention. We investigate how universities may affect regional entrepreneurship through the localisation decisions of entrepreneurial alumni. Empirically, we use data on the background of all 35 187 young individuals who founded start-up firms in Sweden in the period 2003-2005, a third of whom attended a university, to estimate whether the choice of where to pursue tertiary education studies had significant impact on the location of their firm. Our results suggest that even when controlling for the spatial history of the individual founder, individuals have an increased propensity to set up in the region where they studied. This effect is found to substitute for both urbanisation economies and localisation economies as drivers of regional-level entrepreneurship. Thus, our analysis provides evidence on how universities affect regional economic development that complements the strong focus on spin-off activities by university researchers in previous studies. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1519&r=ure |
| By: | Wenjie Wu |
| Abstract: | Over 140 billion CNY (1GBP=10CNY) has been spent between 2000 and 2012 in Beijing on the construction of new rail transit lines. This massive public investment allows me to examine the consequences of transport improvements for land prices near rail stations. Using unique vacant parcel-specific data, I estimate the significant heterogeneity in the capitalization effects of rail transit development for multiple land uses in Beijing urbanised area. The results show that these transport improvements, identified by the parcel-station distance reductions, give rise to sizeable price premiums in the local residential and commercial land markets. Strikingly, the difference between the increase in the value of residential and commercial land parcels are not distributed evenly. These findings lend to support the evidence that public investment has an essential role to play in spurring the spatially targeted land market and provide implications for further land and transport policy making in China. |
| Keywords: | Land prices, transport improvement, Geographical Information System, China |
| JEL: | H41 Q51 R41 |
| Date: | 2012–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:sercdp:0116&r=ure |
| By: | Daniela Schettini; Carlos Roberto Azzoni; Antonio P√°ez |
| Abstract: | More competitive regions tend to present higher level of economic growth, with positive reflexes on social aspects. The different economic performances observed among regions are explained mainly by the spatial concentration of the economic activities. This paper aims to analyze the influence of space on the regional competitiveness behavior of the Brazilian manufacturing industry. In doing so, it uses a panel data of 137 mesoregions and industry sectors that are aggregated in four categories according to technology intensity, during 2000 to 2006. We apply the stochastic frontier of production methodology to obtain the measures of regional efficiency and the Markov spatial transition matrixes that analyze the dynamic of the transition of the regions among efficiency categories considering their local spatial context. We found evidences that there is a higher probability of the regions to become less competitive when the neighborhood is not considered. On the other hand, when considering spatial influences, we observed that the probability of a good neighborhood (more competitive) in stimulating the region’s efficiency is higher than the probability of a bad neighborhood (less competitive) in lowering its efficiency. In other words, the pull effect of the neighborhood in the competitiveness of the Brazilian regions is stronger than the drag effect. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1052&r=ure |
| By: | Vicente Ruiz; Lewis Dijkstra |
| Abstract: | To account for differences among rural and urban regions, the OECD has established a regional typology, classifying TL3 regions as predominantly urban (PU), intermediate (IN) or predominantly rural (PR). This typology has proved to be meaningful to better explain regional differences in economic and labour market performance. However, it does not take into account the presence of economic agglomerations if they happen to be in neighbouring regions. Remote rural regions face a different set of problems than rural regions close to a city, where a wider range of services and opportunities can be found. This paper suggests a refinement of the current typology to include a criterion on the accessibility to urban centres. The results show a clear distinction between remote rural regions and rural regions close to a city in terms of declining and ageing population, level of productivity and unemployment. This extended typology, which includes a measure of distance from cities for the population living in a rural area, has been first applied to Europe by the Directorate of Regional Policy of the European Commission and then to North America by the OECD. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1650&r=ure |
| By: | Patricia Suárez; Matías Mayor |
| Abstract: | The paper uses the theoretical framework of the Spatial Economics to analyze (1) the regional unemployment disparities in Spain for males and females in three different age categories and for economic sector. We use administrative regional aggregate data to explore the distribution of the unemployed in 8109 Spanish districts (using monthly 2005-2009 data). Furthermore (2), we connect this distribution with the efficient (or inefficient) location of Employment Offices in Spain. Due to existence of asymmetric information between job seekers and firms we think that an Employment Offices increase the employment opportunities therefore reduce local unemployment. We estimate a spatial panel model in order to explain the unemployment disparities including regional fixed effect and the distance to the closest Employment Office. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p958&r=ure |
| By: | Bernardo Furtado; Frank van Oort |
| Abstract: | This paper analysis two central influences on real estate urban market: (a) neighborhood as cognitively-perceived identity units, and (b) heterogeneity of preferences of households. In doing so, two methodological changes are applied. Firstly, a neighborhood spatial matrix is proposed and compared to regularly used matrices and, secondly, a spatial-quantile regression is tested. The results highlight the fact that spatial influence brought to regression models through weight matrix should be carefully used, and that the matrix’s choice might carry unobserved and unwanted effects into the estimation. Results also demonstrated that using information of neighborhood identity can optimize the understanding of city’s complex influence on real estate markets. Finally, the quantile estimation should always be tested against in real estate estimation, as preferences of households seem to differ significantly for different levels of prices. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p424&r=ure |
| By: | Torben Dall Schmidt; Peter Sandholt Jensen |
| Abstract: | In recent years, foreign labour has become an essential issue in Western Europe. Recent research suggests that foreign labour has implications for regional growth patterns and employment opportunities of native workers. Yet, few studies go into the dimension of the regional determinants of recruitment of foreign labour underlying these regional growth effects. Therefore, this paper considers determinants of the regional location of foreign labour. Specifically, we investigate the role of social networks for the spatial distribution of work permits in the context of the Danish regions. We first investigate motives for recruiting foreign labour by analysing the particular case of Southern Denmark relying on recently collected employer survey data with roughly 2,000 records. We also analyse on regional differences in work permits across all Danish regions. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p350&r=ure |
| By: | Jung Hun Yang; Dick Ettema; Koen Frenken; Frank van Oort; Evert-Jan Visser |
| Abstract: | The present paper presents a geosimulation agent-based model of firm development that is based on firms’ behavioural rules. The model describes growth, closure, spin-offs and relocation of firms in 21 industrial sectors in the Netherlands, based on a dataset of all individual firms in the Netherlands. An important aspect of the model is the potential interaction that exists between firms, which is represented by various agglomeration indicators. The indicators represent the effect of the distance to other firms, which may have implications fro market potential, agglomeration advantages and congestion/competition. By including positive and negative attraction effects a proper description of concentration and deconcentration tendencies is achieved. The interactions may take place on difference scales, depending on the type of effect (agglomeration advantage, competition for space) and economic sector. The interactions affect growth, closure and spin-off of the individual firms in the model. The model is applied to simulate the distribution of economic development in the Netherlands during a ten year period (1998-2007). The simulation results are then compared to existing 2007 data. This comparison confirms the effectiveness of the model. Simulation carried out with and without various positive and negative agglomeration factors indicate that including agglomeration factors into the model seriously adds to the quality of predictions. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1016&r=ure |
| By: | Luca Ruggiero |
| Abstract: | The work is the product of a critical reflection on the results of some of the most recent processes that affect the city and contribute to built the enigmatic and complex landscape of the twenty-first century city. The paper focuses, in particular, on the role that culture, architecture, innovation, creativity and tourism play in neo-liberal urban policies. These are often run by 'visionary leaderships' which invest heavily in initiatives, plans and projects which have the intent of conferring a sense of space and place to public areas and build vital and attractive cities and neighbourhoods. The central part of the work is dedicated to the analysis of the transformations in urban landscape conducted by architects and town planners and to the highly debated processes they activate with regard to residents and visitors. The differences in these processes of urban transformation are often significant, especially with regard to their value, social impact, force of attraction, creative, artistic and technological capacity and ability to shape the future of the city and its lifestyles. Not less discussed are the options for the creation, modification and use of urban space, its sustainability and quality of life. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1207&r=ure |
| By: | Ying Jin |
| Abstract: | Title: Impacts of road pricing upon travel demand in an integral city region: a case study of London and its surrounding regions Updated abstract: This paper aims to study ways in which the impacts of road pricing upon travel demand can be examined in the wider city region, with a view to inform the design and possible future adaptations of road charges. Its theoretical framework incorporates the medium to long term impact of transport costs (including road charging) upon business location and commuting patterns. A case study is carried out on London and its surrounding regions, through a review of existing evidence and a set of simulation tests using a land use/transport model that has been calibrated to represent realistic travel demand elasticities. The new feature of these simulation tests is that they account for business productivity effects as well as land use/transport interaction. A generic, city-region wide marginal social cost pricing scheme is estimated together with different land use development scenarios to identify directions and range of the effects. The model results show that the social marginal cost based road pricing scheme can have significant long term impacts upon travel demand if they trigger land use changes, which could either enhance or negate the initial travel time savings and reliability benefits. Note: an extended abstract has been previously submitted via email to convenor. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1482&r=ure |
| By: | Imre Lengyel |
| Abstract: | More and more scholars of regional science are interested nowadays in the question what role do clusters in city-regions play in the knowledge-based economy. This question can be dealt with from the functional or nodal regions point of view and one has to examine the factors that influence regional competitiveness. The answers are especially important for the Hungarian city-regions, since between 2007 and 2013 they are aimed with significant subsidies from EU regional development funds to improve their competitiveness. In this paper we outline our analytical framework: the pyramid model of regional competitiveness. After this the paper assesses the competitiveness types of the Hungarian functional subregions, as city-regions (LAU1). A complex methodology, with the help of multi-variable data analysing methods, is used throughout our statistical analysis to underlie the classification of city-regions. For the clusters mapping in these regions we apply the location quotient (LQ) method. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p313&r=ure |
| By: | Franz Kronthaler; Katharina Becker; Kerstin Wagner |
| Abstract: | Start-up activities are considered to be important for regional economic development and vary considerably between regions. As entrepreneurial activity in a region is strongly influenced by its regional conditions, we analyse the role of the conditions and their impact on start-up activities. The main objective of the paper is to identify the variables which are relevant for a typology of regions in terms of their start-up activity and to have a closer look on their region specific characteristics. For the analysis we use the spatial level of Swiss mobilité spatiale regions (MS). MS regions are functional units based on economic interaction and commuting movements. At this level, data is available which provide information about the endogenous entrepreneurial potential of regions. Furthermore, it is possible to distinguish between peripheral, semi-peripheral, urban regions and agglomerations. Cluster analysis and regression analysis are used to examine the relationship between regional conditions as influencing factors and real start-up rates. The selection of the indicators is based on a review of results of the theoretical and empirical literature on entrepreneurship. Cluster Analysis serves to compare different regions according to their structural potential for start-up activities. The method is used to form several homogeneous groups of Swiss labour market regions according to their individual structural potential and for comparative purposes. With the help of regression analysis we analyze whether the different types of cluster really explain start-up activity and if obstacles for entrepreneurial activity can be found. Results indicate that most of the regions use their potential for entrepreneurial activity. However, we also identify certain outliers with regard to the relationship of regional conditions and start-up activity. On the one hand, we observe regions with good structural conditions and high potential for new firm formation but low start-up rates. On the other hand, there are regions with unfavorable characteristics but relatively high start-up rates. Based on this analysis, we identify case specific variables influencing start-up activities under specific circumstances. These regions are potentially interesting cases for constructing regional policies. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p562&r=ure |
| By: | M¬™ Jesus Santa Maria Beneyto; JosÈ Miguel Giner PÈrez |
| Abstract: | In the last decades numerous studies on industrial districts have proved how concentrations of small firms located in the same area and specialized in the production of the same products contribute to the competitiveness and the economic development of this type of areas. In the recent years several works have emphasized the innovative capacity generated in these areas, in which the proximity of related industries has sustained processes of generation and diffusion of knowledge. Specifically, the marshallian concept of industrial atmosphere, the continuous linkages among firms and the processes of cooperation and competition between firms and local agents are elements that can generate competitive advantages for the firms located inside an industrial district. In addition, these elements also promote the generation of specific knowledge and localized knowledge spillovers and innovative processes. In the plastics industry, the high level of competitiveness, the high level of diversification and the flexibility to attend the demand of different industrial sectors are factors that can explain the great innovation effort and the sector dynamism to search for new business opportunities. The aim of this work is to analyze the characteristics of the innovative plastics firms in Spain and to explore if the belonging to an industrial district promote the innovative processes and increase firms’ innovation performance. To achieve this objective, the results from a survey made it to a sample of plastics firms in Spain will be analyzed. In addition, this work investigates if there are differences in the characteristics of the innovative firms depending on their location inside or outside an industrial district. This empirical analysis contributes to enhance the knowledge about the innovative processes carried out in the industrial districts and provides evidence about the impact of the spatial agglomeration of specialized firms on the innovative capacity. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p588&r=ure |
| By: | Arnstein Gjestland; David McArthur; Liv Osland; Inge Thorsen |
| Abstract: | It has been argued that gravity models are the most popular mathematical description of human interaction (Sheppard, 1984). In relation to housing prices, gravity based accessibility measures have been suggested as a generalization of modern polycentric labour market structures (Heikkila et al. 1989). Empirical applications of gravity based accessibility measures are, however, fairly resource-demanding. As a determinant of housing prices, one aim of this paper is therefore to compare the performance of one such gravity based measure with simpler measures of mobility. In contrast with the gravity based measures which account for the potential of interaction, the measures introduced in this paper are based on actual commuting patterns. The paper shows that the relationship between housing prices and patterns of commuting is fairly complex and we use a range of different methods to obtain robust conclusions. Finally we try to analyse the effect of long term changes in population on house prices and to study the effect on house prices of a large transport infrastructure investment. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p906&r=ure |
| By: | Alexander Kubis; Mirko Titze; Matthias Brachert |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the impact of industrial clusters on regional growth at level of German labour market regions within a regional convergence model. It focuses on vertically connected industrial sectors, which can emerge parallel to horizontal interconnections. Based on works of Schnabl (2000) it is possible to identify three different effects of industrial clusters on regional economic performance. Beside the effects of regionally concentrated economic sectors (horizontal clusters) and value-added production chains (vertical clusters) on the region itself, the paper segregates regional spillover effects of industrial clusters. Furthermore, the study allows the isolated examination of the impact of industrial clusters while taking regional convergence into consideration. In addition to the all-German process of convergence and the specific East German process, positive growth effects of industrial clusters are detected. Therefore industrial clusters present an opportunity to explain deficits within the process of East-West convergence. The relative absence of industrial clusters in East Germany influences the growth potential in a negative way. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p459&r=ure |
| By: | Petri Böckerman; Mika Haapanen |
| Abstract: | In the 1990s polytechnic education reform took place in Finland, which gradually expanded higher education to all Finnish regions; the polytechnics constituted a new non-university sector in higher education. This reform is used to study the causal effect of education on the inter-regional migration. First we consider the impact of the reform on the migration of graduating high school students, followed by an investigation of school-to-work migration. Instrumental variables estimators are implemented that exploit the exogenous variation in the local supply of polytechnic education. Large panel micro-data are used. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p994&r=ure |
| By: | Kingsley E. Haynes |
| Abstract: | Business support programs, represented by business incubators (BIs) and small business development centers (SBDCs), play an important role in assisting new or small firms, nurturing entrepreneurial culture, and fostering regional economic growth. For that reason, the location of these programs may interest regional planners or economic practitioners who have the incentive to create or attract these programs. Our previous studies have found that the presence of both types of business support programs is positively associated with the level of agglomeration and negatively associated with the level of business development. It is however unclear whether the local knowledge context may influence the local presence of BIs or SBDCs. This paper examines the role of knowledge in shaping the geography of BIs and SBDCs in the US using county-level data. Human capital, the university, and high technology are used as the proxies for knowledge. Their effects on the presence of BIs and SBDCs are investigated in binomial logistic regressions. We also control other county-specific characteristics by including three common factors derived via factor analysis from 27 demographic, social, and economic variables. This study highlights business support programs as the link between regional innovation systems and small or new firms. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1499&r=ure |
| By: | Christian Schmidt |
| Abstract: | In recent decades, many countries have experienced suburbanization processes in metropolitan areas that have lead to an increase in urban sprawl by creating a growing polarity between newly formed satellite communities and the central urban area. More than before, work and residence location diverged. In this context, commuting and migration are two fundamental ways of connecting an individual's place of work with his residence. These distinctive mobility modes represent temporary and permanent mobility, respectively. Deciding for any of the two incurs peculiar costs. Commuting requires recurring costs that the individual has to bear without permanently changing his residence. In contrast, migration relocates the place of residence and can therefore prevent periodical mobility costs. Due to this fact, migration can serve as an alternative to commuting in respect to connecting the place of residence with the work place. This paper represents work in progress on the individual decision between commuting and migrating to the place of work in face of uncertain commuting costs. Solutions for two initial states are derived on the basis of the real options theory. The threshold commuting cost levels at which it is optimal for the individual to relocate to the suburb when initially living in the metropolitan center and to relocate to the city center when initially living in the suburb are presented and compared to the classical net present value solution without uncertainty about commuting costs. The effect of uncertainty about the evolution of commuting costs on the optimal decision denotes a remarkable result of this model: higher uncertainty lowers the commuting cost threshold for outmigration to the suburb, while increasing it for inmigration to the city center. On the one hand, individuals initially not commuting but living in the city center deter a possible outmigration even under increasingly unfavorable rental cost conditions. On the other hand, individuals initially living in the suburb are willing to bear significantly higher commuting costs before eventually relocating to the metropolitan center. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1481&r=ure |
| By: | Evgeniya Kolomak |
| Abstract: | Aims of the study are to estimate 1) contribution of infrastructure capital in productivity growth in Russia, and 2) level and spatial extension of the spillovers for different categories of infrastructure. We measure stock of the traditional infrastructure sectors: railways, highways, communication. We use data for 79 Russian regions, covered period is 1992 - 2007. The basic idea of econometric estimates is to expand a production function including infrastructure capital stock. We examine several different categories of public capital. The log-linear Cobb-Douglas form of the production function gives empirical model. We assume existence of spatial spillovers of the infrastructure elements and dependence of regional productivity on public capital of neighboring regions introducing into the model spatial weights matrix and a spatial lag component. There are several problems of econometric estimates relating to the model. The first one is correct specification of the spatial dependence, what includes construction of the spatial weights matrix. The proposed strategy is to run series of regressions using different spatial weighs matrixes. The second one is common trends of output and public capital. One of the proposed ways to resolve the problem is to use some forms of differences. The third problem involves missing variables; panel data and taking of the differences to some extent lessen this problem. Another problem is causality: does absence of progress in infrastructure capital reduce economic growth or does low growth of output decrease the demand for infrastructure? The endogeneity poses question of instrumental variables, the choice of a spatial lag of the predicted values of the dependent variable or of spatially lagged exogenous variables is considered. Infrastructure capital is a public good however its effects can be distributed uneven among different sectors of economic activity. To take this fact into account the proposed set of growth model estimations are done for two alternative production functions focusing on gross regional product and on manufacturing sector only. The results are as follows: - estimates of contribution of infrastructure capital in productivity growth in Russia; - evidence of infrastructure externalities; - estimates of infrastructure spatial spillovers for different categories. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p471&r=ure |
| By: | Chia-Lin Chen; Peter Hall |
| Abstract: | This paper will present empirical evidence on the wider spatial-economic impacts of High Speed Trains (HSTs) at the intra-regional level. It represents follow-up research to a previous empirical study at inter-regional level, based on UKIC125- an upgraded HST system. The findings suggest that HST has had substantial and demonstrable effects in aiding this transition within a 2-hour travel limit of London, but that the effects have not been automatic or universal. The need for integrated planning combining transport, economic, and spatial issues to promote dynamic city-region development should not be overlooked. Particularly, the UK is currently situated at the critical turning point considering a long-term commitment to High Speed Two (HS2): whether, to what extent, and how the arrival of a HST hub in a city could act as the agent of change for transforming surrounding sub-regions. Thus, a finer-grained and deeper-probing analysis at the intra-regional scale is needed, in the form of comparative case studies of two post-industrial city-regions. Lille/Pas-de-Calais and the Manchester city-region are chosen, the first to examine the effects of the TGV after its arrival in 1994, the second to provide a prognosis for Manchester and its neighbouring towns after the projected arrival of HS2. In the Lille Métropole, the TGV brought about a dramatic change in economic fortunes. But, within the wider Nord-Pas de Calais region, two divergent developmental trajectories of traditional manufacturing industries have increasingly manifested themselves: Lille Métropole has increasingly strengthened its service-based growth, whereas the former coal area and coastal region seems not to have attracted knowledge-based development. In the Manchester city-region, the new generation of 300 k/hr HST lines will undoubtedly in their turn have major spatial-economic impacts as Manchester is brought closer to London with the dramatic shrinking of critical time-distance. The relationship between Manchester and its neighbouring towns may however be negative to poorly connected towns like Burnley which is reflected in its weak economic performance. Overall, this research aims to fill in the gap with empirical evidence of intra-regional impacts of HSTs and disentangle the complex forces and the developmental phases in the dynamic process of city-region regeneration. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p335&r=ure |
| By: | Jichung Yang; Daeyoung Park; Changmu Jung |
| Abstract: | In this paper, the spatial distributions of firm and entrepreneurship were investigated in relation with the productivity. To analyze the effect of manufacturing firms' detailed distribution patterns on the productivity of manufacturing industries, micro geographic data were used, which avoids systematic problems relating scales and borders of box unit that is administrative territories. First of all, agglomeration distances for every sub-industries were estimated, that is spatial boundaries of localization effect. Three main variables relating spatial distribution patterns of firms in same industrial classification, that are the number of firms, the average distance to other firms and disperse index from standard deviation of firms' Euclidian coordinates, are computed from Euclidian coordinates of firms in the agglomeration boundaries. Also, we checked the relationship between Entrepreneurships and productivity. And mixed effects were checked. These tests were applied to an exhaustive manufacturing firms data-set of Korea including Seoul Metropolitan Area provided by NSO. We can predict that for most sub-industries, (i) the number of firms of the same industrial classification in the agglomeration boundary has positive effect on the productivity, (ii) the average distance to other firms has positive effect below the specific distance and negative effect beyond that, and (iii) the more disperse the firms are, productivity gets decreased |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1428&r=ure |
| By: | Pia Nilsson |
| Abstract: | Cultural Landscape Characteristics and Heritage Values A Spatially Explicit Hedonic Approach This paper uses the hedonic approach to analyze the relation between cultural landscape characteristics and property values. The empirical model uses geographic information systems to create a model that adds spatially explicit variables of landscape structure to the classic hedonic variables. Nearly 5000 house transactions in south Sweden were studied to estimate the effects of cultural landscape attributes on transaction prices. The key empirical results show that cultural heritage sites generate a premium of 3-4% for properties located in the vicinity. The results also show that the percentage of land within communities devoted to local and national preservation areas leads to a considerable increase in house prices (up to 12%) comparing to communities that have less land devoted to preservation areas. JEL Classification: Q2; Q3; R14; R21 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p397&r=ure |
| By: | Anne Otto; Michaela Fuchs; Wolfgang Dauth |
| Abstract: | The description of geographical concentration and the search for its causes is at the focus of many studies. However, by not considering developments over an extended period of time, the majority of the studies mainly examine static relationships. This paper aims at filling this gap. We measure concentration in Western Germany for the time period from 1986 to 2006 with the Ellison-Glaeser index (EGI). In order to account for concentration processes at various levels, we investigate the long-run development of the EGI for NUTS3-regions and labour-market regions as well as for 43 two-digit-industries and 191 three-digit-industries. The Establishment History Panel provides detailed information about employment at the level of individual firms. The major part of the industries exhibits a larger degree of geographical concentration than one may expect when location decisions of firms are purely stochastic. This result holds true throughout our observation period irrespective of the applied spatial and industrial levels. Thus, regional concentration matters for about two thirds of all industries in Western Germany. However, despite concentration being significant, the value of the EGI is rather low for most of these industries. Since the mid 1980s, the shares of strongly localized and non-localized industries have been declining and increasing, respectively. Hence, dynamic changes of the industry-specific regional structure of economic activities have taken place at the lower and upper tails of the EGI distribution. A more detailed analysis of EGI rankings and changes is carried out for ten industry groups. All in all, sectoral shifts affect changes in industry-specific regional patterns. This holds true for old shrinking and stagnating industries and as well as for dynamic high-tech-manufacturing industries and business-related human-capital service industries. To confirm the descriptive findings in a multivariate setting, an econometric analysis is carried out. Using a multinomial logit model, we examine which forces lead to an increase, decrease or unchanged state of geographical concentration. Again, we find evidence that agglomeration externalities in old industries seem to have lost their importance. At the same time, the high-technology industries have not localized strongly enough to compensate for this effect. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p537&r=ure |
| By: | Carlos Marmolejo; Josep Roca; Carlos Aguirre |
| Abstract: | The changes on metropolitan areas characterized by the dispersion and concentrated decentralization of both employment and population has lead to a specialized research line addressed to analyze polycentrism. In this line there are two families of subcentre identification: the first based on the analysis of density, and other based on the analysis of mobility flows. Huge efforts have been paid, in the first family, to get robust models in statistical terms. Nevertheless, very little attention has been paid to the very object of analysis: employment density. In this paper a different approach to density calculus is proposed, it allows for prioritize, as subcentres, those municipalities that have features close to the urban paradigm of central cities in Southern Europe: have residents, are attractive in labor terms because retain resident employed population, and at the same time, attract commuters; and impact on the overall density function and have functional relations with other municipalities. The efficacy of the proposed density is tested in the metropolitan areas of Barcelona and Madrid. The analysis suggest that the municipalities prioritized as subcentres using this 'compound density' excels in modifying both the employment and demographic metropolitan density functions, and are more diverse, concentrate more central activities, and strengthen functional relations with other municipalities in comparison to the results of standard density. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p42&r=ure |
| By: | Marta R. Casanova; Vicente Orts |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we evaluate the spatial location patterns of Spanish manufacturing firms and we assess the different tendencies to cluster in each industry relative to the whole of manufacturing. To do this, we use a distance-based method (Marcon and Puech, 2003; Duranton and Overman, 2005), more concretely the Ripley’s K function, which measures concentration by counting the average number of neighbours of each firm within a circle of a given radius. This method allows us to treat space as continuous, analysing simultaneously multiple spatial scales and avoiding the shortcomings of the administrative scale. In addition, we employ a polygonal envelope to improve the delimitation of our area of study, substituting the rectangular shape used by other authors and thus avoiding the nuisance of empty spaces. We apply this method to Spanish manufacturing sectors at two-digit and four-digit level, isolating like this the different behaviours of spatial distribution of each subsector caused by 'spillovers' characteristic of each activity and also preventing compensation effects due to previous aggregation. Furthermore, we examine the co-localization between horizontally-linked and vertically-linked industries to assess the importance of these spillovers across industries and, finally, we try to answer what type of establishment, depending on its size, is the driver of the Spanish industrial agglomeration. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1227&r=ure |
| By: | Marco Migliore; Salvatore Amoroso; Valeria Cardaci; Mario Catalano |
| Abstract: | In the last years we have observed a sub-urbanization process or 'sprawl' process (low density inhabitant models), caused by new economic and production conditions, by a free diffusion of new habitant models in territory, by new organization models of social relationships and by one-side power of road mode and in particular the private use. Commuters need to reach quickly own destinations and the traffic and parking problems in central areas increase mainly the importance of multi-modal displacements in an integrated transport system between public and private mode. Planner role should re-balance modal choice in favour to public transport and motivate passenger intermodality integrating the private car with transit. The optimal location and design of modal shift nodes for potential users involved in multimodal transfers in a urban and metropolitan context, is one of the most important issues in transport system design and planning. Several algorithms have been developed to face this issue. The main idea was to locate such nodes in areas of adequate size, well connected to the road network and public transit in order to minimize the time required for the transfer, taking into account the variation of transport demand in the various stages of decision-making process (generation, distribution, modal choice and transfer route). The aim of the proposed research is to analyze the attractiveness towards passenger modal shift nodes in relation to their potential territorial role and the optional services they can offer, which are relevant in vast urban areas. In particular, the metropolitan area of Palermo, and its outskirts which is taking the connotations of a large expanded city, will be a good case study to verify the effectiveness of the proposed strategy. The results define the operational criteria for the optimum location of passengers modal shift nodes in an environment characterized by a spread urban area composed by many municipalities, taking into account the role each node has in the territory and its ability to influence the transport demand in space and time. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1606&r=ure |
| By: | Jinfeng Wang; Xuhua Liu; Hongyan Chen |
| Abstract: | China has been experiencing urbanization at an unprecedented rate over the last two decades. This study analyzes the impact of urbanization on land occupation. Cities are clustered by their functions and development stages, which is illustrated by a cluster tree, a dynamic tree that depicts the evolution of cities. The evolution tree in one year is used to predict the state of a city in a future time period. Another application of the evolution tree is to predict urban-type relevant phenomena, such as urban occupation. It is found that comprehensive cities, business cities, and manufacturing cities have higher urban expansion rates than tourist cities, with a few exceptions that focus on both industry and tourism. Meanwhile, the speed and extent of city land growth are dominated by industrialization stages and economic patterns, as well as leap-development. The methodology presented in this study is especially suitable for identifying transition paths of a stochastic process in a complex dataset of 253 cities in China. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1360&r=ure |
| By: | Laura Fregolent; Stefania Tonin |
| Abstract: | In this paper we describe and analyze an Italian case of urban sprawl and its urban growth for understanding the development of a “metropolitan sprawled system”. The portion of Veneto Region that is part of our case study cover about 3700 square km, for a total of 145 municipalities. The manifestations of physical and morphological sprawl came as a result of specific cultural and political situations and economic development, such as rising incomes, and were also facilitated by the local topography. The most important changes occurred in this area over the past 30 years, starting from the 1970's: between 1970 and 1990, the population increased somewhat, but the urbanized and developed land area increased significantly. The main aim of our paper is to find out if low-density development patterns are more expensive and if local public spending is influenced by different urban forms expansions. We measure sprawl with some indicators suggesting in the literature such as urban density, population density and the territorial fragmentation. Data for the economic analysis come from local balance sheets of 145 municipalities for the year 2007. In particular, we collect the costs of the main public services sustained by the municipalities such as public transport, road and street maintenance, waste management, and water and sewer services. Adopting regression analysis, we estimate the impact of urban sprawl on different current expenditures, controlling for other variables such as local taxes paid by citizens, central government aids, territory characteristics, and more others. We find that low density development patterns are in general more expensive, in particular when municipalities have to provide education services, solid waste collection and other environmental and urban management services. Our analysis wants to highlight the threats pose by sprawl in terms of urban sustainable development patterns and to put in evidence the costs of an unbalanced growth in order to let public government to re-orient their policies versus the containment of the urban growth process. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p534&r=ure |
| By: | Thomas Papathomas |
| Abstract: | The population distribution in the Greek region shows strong spatial disparities. The depopulation of entire areas, coupled with the excessive population growth of the two largest cities (Athens and Thessaloniki) as well as the intense spatial disparities within the cities are significant challenges in managing our country; the main instrument to achieve this management is spatial planning. At the same time, the population is a variable which comprises a deciding factor in the procedure of spatial planning. Exploring the characteristics of the population of a region and predicting the evolution is not an end in itself for analysis, their usefulness, however, lies on the fact that part of the characteristics of urban space is determined by size, demographic and social characteristics of the population concentrated in this space. The purpose of this work is to study how the population variable is included in spatial planning. In order to answer to the above question we will study the technical specifications of the Greek plans trying to understand and specify which characteristics of the population are considered in the design and how. Also, if there are differences between the two main stages of spatial planning (analysis phase, final proposal phase) in relation to the population study. We will study 4 specific cases of randomly chosen masterplans (the corresponding plans of the Greek legislation) in order to try to verify the early feedback which will come up. The conclusions are interesting and highlight some of the weaknesses and shortcomings of the Greek plans and the Greek system of design. Finally, some suggestions are presented which we believe they can improve the current weaknesses. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1171&r=ure |
| By: | Bart Sleutjes |
| Abstract: | This paper looks at the factors that influence an entrepreneur’s decision to stay or move out of a neighbourhood. In general, new and relatively small firms tend to have a strong connection to their local environment and hardly ever move across large distances. In the Netherlands, 75% of all moving firms even stays within the same municipality, to business parks or to other neighbourhoods (RPB, 2007). Aspects of the building (e.g. size) are the most likely reason to move, but does the neighbourhood itself matter as well? We look to what extent neighbourhood aspects influence or have influenced the decision to stay or move, both on the push and the pull side. These aspects may be related to the local physical environment or the safety situation, but also to the local social community. There is recent evidence that localized firm support network contacts contribute positively to firm success (Sleutjes & Schutjens, 2009). Local personal and professional relationships may tie firms to their local environment. If certain neighbourhood characteristics or localized networks turn out to be pull or push factors for entrepreneurs, this might interest policy makers aiming at stimulating the neighbourhood economy by attracting and retaining entrepreneurs within certain urban neighbourhoods. Basically, three questions will be answered in this paper: 1. To what extent do social and physical neighbourhood characteristics play a role in a firm’s decision to stay or move? 2. How do localized firm support networks influence a firm’s decision to stay put within a certain neighbourhood or not? 3. To what extent do moving firms keep in touch with local network contacts from their former neighbourhood? We conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews among 40 entrepreneurs from five similar Dutch neighbourhoods. The sample is equally divided between firms that stayed and firms that recently moved out of the neighbourhood (20/20). The survey provides detailed information on the characteristics and the performance of firms, as well as network contacts, neighbourhood attachment, location choice, and the valuation of location aspects. We make use of qualitative methods in order to analyze our data. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p690&r=ure |
| By: | Rita Santos; Walter Leal; Evando Mirra |
| Abstract: | The innovation systems perspective is primarily concerned with the knowledge flow and diffusion and its positive impact of stimulating economic growth. In innovation systems observed at the regional level there is a tendency of technologically dynamic production to become spatially concentrated in clusters, where individuals and organizations possessing specialized knowledge and technological capabilities. Consequently, results appear as collective efficiency, competitive advantage and economic benefits. During the 1980s and early 1990s, Brazil set up an important telecommunications cluster in Campinas region, fostered by government policies, and evolved around a telecom R&D Centre. Several small high-tech firms were established, grew, competed and cooperated with the local infrastructure and multinational corporation (MNC) subsidiaries. These, in turn, increased their local technological efforts and engaged in joint technological programs with local partners. In this paper the relation between innovation and knowledge is illustrated by the high-technology cluster of Campinas. It also discusses clustering enabling technology for environmental sustainability issues and regional implications. Keywords: development; knowledge spillovers; region; innovation systems; sustainability |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1539&r=ure |
| By: | Marian Rizov; Paul Walsh |
| Abstract: | The focus of the paper is on evaluating the productivity gap between rural and urban locations in the UK using micro data. We build a structural model of the unobservable productivity emphasising the link between productivity and spatial density of economic activity and adapt the semi-parametric estimation approach proposed in Olley and Pakes (1996) to estimate the parameters of production functions at firm level, within 4-digit UK manufacturing industries, for the period 1997 - 2001. We allow market structure to differ by endogenous export status and location choices and model productivity as a second-order Markov process which greatly enhances our ability to obtain unbiased and consistent estimates of TFP measures at firm level. We aggregate the firm TFPs by location category following the 2004 DEFRA definition of rural and find that aggregate productivity systematically differs across urban, rural less sparse and rural sparse locations as the magnitudes of the differentials are 13.2 percent and 18.0 percent, respectively. Our results are in line with several recent studies. Next, we decompose aggregate productivity into productivity index and industry composition index. The productivity index is the highest in urban locations suggesting that productivity is strongly influenced by density of economic activity and proximity to economic mass. Because industry composition index is positively correlated with productivity index it is evident that locations with high productivity are also characterised by industrial structure enhancing productivity. Further, analysing changes in the decomposition indexes over two periods, before and after implementation of the Euro by the UK main trading partners, reveals substantial heterogeneity in responses across location categories under increased competitive pressure. The main finding is that there is a tendency of rural sparse locations catching up with the urban and rural less sparse location categories in terms of aggregate productivity over the period of analysis. We also find evidence that increased competitive pressure as a result of changes in trade conditions after implementation of the Euro by the UK’s main trading partners has acted as a substitute for the role of density of economic activity in enhancing industry composition, especially in rural sparse locations. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p162&r=ure |
| By: | Berliant, Marcus; Peng, Shin-Kun; Wang, Ping |
| Abstract: | This paper demonstrates that a pollution tax with a fixed cost component may lead, by itself, to stratification between clean and dirty firms without heterogeneous preferences or increasing returns. We construct a simple model with two locations and two industries (clean and dirty) where pollution is a by-product of dirty good manufacturing. Under proper assumptions, a completely stratified configuration with all dirty firms clustering in one city emerges as the only equilibrium outcome when there is a fixed cost component of the pollution tax. Moreover, a stratified Pareto optimum can never be supported by a competitive spatial equilibrium with a linear pollution tax that encompasses Pigouvian taxation as a special case. To support such a stratified Pareto optimum, however, an effective but unconventional policy prescription is to redistribute the pollution tax revenue from the dirty to the clean city residents. |
| Keywords: | pollution tax; agglomeration of polluting producers; endogenous stratification |
| JEL: | D62 R13 H23 |
| Date: | 2012–07–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:40250&r=ure |
| By: | Christian Dreger; Konstantin Kholodilin; Michael Artis |
| Abstract: | The degree of comovement of economic activity across states or regions is an issue of utmost importance to policymakers. Asymmetric business cycles are often seen as an impediment to the formation of a common currency area. However, it has been argued that a common monetary policy in itself could reduce the cyclical asymmetry. We examine real business cycle convergence for 41 euro area regions and 48 US states. By looking at the regional dimension, a larger information set can be exploited and might offer new insights. Regions tend to be more open to trade than countries and the degree of specialisation is usually higher than at the national level. If diverging trends cancel out in the aggregate, policy conclusions based on national evidence could be misleading. Regional comovements may be caused not only by common business cycles, but also by other factors due to location. They can be linked to industrial structures and migration, but can also reflect non-economic factors like habits, heritage, and culture. Spatial spillovers have been largely neglected in previous studies, thereby creating omitted variable bias. A panel model allowing for spatial correlation is a convenient way to capture these effects. This analysis is also relevant from a monetary policy point of view. By comparing the synchronization of economic fluctuations in US states and comparable euro area regions, the perspectives of a common monetary policy in Europe can be assessed. The US provides a natural benchmark in this respect. Both the US and the euro area share similar socio-economic characteristics, regarding the size, the level of development, culture etc. The results obtained by a panel model with spatial effects indicate that the impact of national business cycles for the regional development has been rather stable over the past two decades. Hence, a tendency for convergence in business cycles often detected in country data is not confirmed at the regional level. The pattern of synchronization across the euro area is similar to that across US states. Although cyclical heterogeneity is detected, it does not indicate a serious impediment to a common monetary policy of the ECB. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p317&r=ure |
| By: | Simone Strauf |
| Abstract: | The importance of creative industries and the creative sector for economic growth and regional development found its way more and more into scientific discussions. These discussions mainly focus on the influence of creative industries on the innovative ability (innovative milieu),on the competitiveness, and on the labour market of regions and nations. Most prominent within this field is the approach of the 'creative class' used to explain the success and the development of regions and nations. Terms and definitions of creative industries and the cultural sector are so far not consistent and sometimes include different businesses. The meaning of the cultural sector becomes more evident by focussing on the regional level. Infrastructure facilities and cultural events are part of the cultural sector and are located in nearly every area, in agglomerations as well as in rural areas. This paper will concentrate on the role of infrastructure facilities and cultural events, and will point out their contribution and their potential for the location itself and the regional development. The author will use empirical data from infrastructure facilities in Germany and Switzerland (Konzert- und Kongresshaus Luzern, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden) and two amateur theatres in Switzerland, which are located in rural areas (Einsiedler Welttheater, Landschaftstheater Ballenberg). Based on these four case studies the paper will show how different cultural facilities and activities can contribute to several aspects of regional development. As a result the paper will state that cultural infrastructure facilities and activities have positive effects on the regional added value as well as on the image of a region, on networks and competences within a region and on the identity of a region. Especially these so called intangible effects have positive effects on the location attractiveness and the competitiveness of the region. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p267&r=ure |
| By: | Veronique Schutjens; Niels Bosma; Jolanda Hessels; Mirjam Van Praag; Ingrid Verheul |
| Abstract: | The decision to become an entrepreneur is in essence an individual decision. But even when the endowments of inhabitants are taken into account, some regions have persistently higher entrepreneurship rates than others. Proposed explanations for this regional variation are numerous: market potential, unemployment rates, knowledge spillovers and agglomeration effects. Regional differences in entrepreneurship have also been linked to the availability of role models (Fornahl 2003; Sternberg 2009; Malecki 2009). It can be argued that in regions with high rates of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial role models are abundant. These role models may serve as good examples of entrepreneurial activity and inspire individuals in the region to become entrepreneurs or attract other entrepreneurs to the region, thereby reinforcing the entrepreneurial process. We take a new approach by combining existing approaches, i.e., the geographical and individual-level studies of entrepreneurship in empirically exploring the importance of role models for early-stage entrepreneurship. We use a rich data set of over 300 owner-managers of young firms across four different sectors for three regions in the Netherlands. For each of the regions, a random sample was drawn from the registration data base of the Dutch Chamber of Commerce. Semi-structured interviews were held with entrepreneurs in Utrecht, Amsterdam and Rotterdam between March and October 2009. The first descriptive results suggest that role models are indeed an important phenomenon that deserves further attention. About 45% of the entrepreneurs indicated that the start-up decision was influenced by another entrepreneur, mostly by providing a positive example. Some 70% of these respondents have received tangible support from these exemplar entrepreneurs at start-up, whereas 40% indicate that they would not have started the business if they would not have had this example. So, according to the respondents, role models are important and our first analyses seem to support the idea that entrepreneur characteristics affect the value attached to specific types of role model. These results have implications for the organization, timing and target group of support initiatives, network meetings and the involvement of specific established (regional) exemplar entrepreneurs in the early-stage entrepreneurship arena. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p531&r=ure |
| By: | Nicolas Bonnet |
| Abstract: | We address the role of innovation networks on growth of territories in the Canadian space (TER WALL et BOSCHMA, 2009). We rely on an analysis of labor market areas for the period 1996 - 2008 on the basis of patent applications filed jointly by several inventors so as to develop the networks of cooperation. An analysis of such networks on the basis of these geography areas can provide some additional explanatories on the core-periphery model, which appears between the labor market areas that innovate and those that develop economically. The working hypothesis is therefore as follows. If technological change is undeniably the macro-economic factors of growth (ROMER, 1990), the level of flow of knowledge spillover between cities and particularly the degree of centrality of each of them within the collaborative network, has a differential impact on local economic development between urban areas (GORDON et McCANN, 2000). This working hypothesis is based on the observation that innovation at the local level does not necessarily lead to economic development of territories in which it operates. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1571&r=ure |
| By: | Ho Yeon KIM |
| Abstract: | Recently, the so-called creative industry is gaining attention as a new engine of regional economic growth. Using this new industrial classification, many countries are starting to promote the cultural creation activities with the purpose of seeking out new directions in regional development. The synergy effects can also be attained by promoting the traditional sectors to the creative industry. This concept is useful not only for mega cities like Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing and Shanghai, but also for smaller local cities such as Kitakyushu, Fukuoka, Busan, Incheon, Tianjin, and Yantai. Since capital and human resources are rather limited in these local cities, applying the said concept can exert newfound energy for urban development. Although there is an old industrial culture of manufacturing embedded in Kitakyushu City, for example, the facilities and institutes of some other cultures and sports have been promoted separately. In order to reap the full benefit, it is needed to tear down the barriers between them, and combine the existing industries, facilities, and support organizations in a more systematic way. In this paper, we will explore these aspects by using census data as a general guide and interviews with selected cultural and sports organizations as well as entrepreneurs as a case study. Specifically, we will investigate the city planning practice and growth policy regarding cultivation of creative industry, and investigate possible cooperation among the cities in Pan Yellow-Sea region based on cultural or sports activities. Regarding general study, we recount the industrial classification of existing census data according to the definition of the creative industry by the UK (see London’s Creative Sector: 2004 Update and Creative Industries Economic Estimates Statistical Bulletin), adding the tourism industry. Based on this definition, we can clarify the trends of creative industry at the country level and city level of Japan, China and South Korea after 1990. It would reveal the true potential of the creative industry as a long-term facilitator of the regional economy. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1484&r=ure |
| By: | Christian A. L. Hilber; Teemu Lyytikäinen |
| Abstract: | We estimate the effect of the UK Stamp Duty Land Tax on household mobility using micro data. Exploiting a discontinuity in the tax schedule as a quasi-experimental setting, we isolate the impact of the stamp duty from other determinants of mobility. Our empirical strategy essentially compares similar households with self-assessed house values on either sides of a cut-off value where the tax rate increases from 1 to 3 percent. We find that a higher stamp duty strongly negatively affects a household's propensity to move: the 2 percentage-point increase in the stamp duty may reduce mobility of homeowners by around 40 percent. This adverse effect is mainly confined to short-distance and non-job related moves. |
| Keywords: | Stamp duty, real estate transfer tax, transaction costs, household mobility |
| JEL: | D23 H21 H27 J61 R21 R31 R38 |
| Date: | 2012–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:sercdp:0115&r=ure |
| By: | Uwe Blien; Van Phan |
| Abstract: | 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall there is still a strong division between the economies and labour markets of eastern and western Germany. In the last few years, however, unemployment has been reduced especially in the East, even in times of economic crisis. Within eastern Germany a strong variation of labour market situations is visible, which has been relatively stable in time. A centre-periphery-structure can be understood by those approaches of regional economics which have the property of path dependency like the New Economic Geography. In the paper the development of unemployment is analysed in a spatial econometrics framework which uses a three-equations background (in the spirit of Elhorst). The results show convergence processes (beta- and sigma-convergence) which are not very strong. An industry structure with an emphasis on manufacturing helps to reduce unemployment. In the analysis spatial autocorrelation is revealed of being significant. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p935&r=ure |
| By: | Inga Britt Werner; Kerstin Klingborg |
| Abstract: | As generally in Sweden, the municipality of Stockholm owns a major proportion of the rental housing stock, through its housing companies. At present tenants are offered to buy the real estate units from the municipal housing companies, in the form of tenant-owners associations. This extensive process of conversion of tenure will have major influence on the Stockholm housing market, also in respects such as the relationships between residents and between residents and the society’s institutions. The aim of the study is to analyze whether social capital, here in forms of trust and norms as well as the resulting collective action and conflicts, changes with conversing tenure. The design of the study is quasi experimental. Ten buildings in five neighborhoods are chosen pair wise; one already converted into tenant-owners associations and one assumed to continue being owned by the municipal housing company. Data are collected through telephone interviews at two occasions: spring 2008 and spring 2010. Interviews with key persons of the management staff in the five neighborhoods are carried out to compare the two kinds of tenure with design principles of effective institutions (Ostrom 1990). This paper analyzes the results of the first round of interviews: 300 telephone interviews with residents and 15 face to face interviews with management staff. Analysis methods for data from the interviews of residents are cross tabulations with Chi-square and Mann-Whitney tests, factor and regression analyses. Results indicate that residents forming tenant-owners associations have more trust in neighbors in the neighborhood and in politicians at local and municipality levels but less trust in the housing company and the neighborhood police than those continuing to rent. Also indicated are local versions of social capital not only related to the conversion process. Interview results indicate that the studied rental housing institutions differ from the ideal design principles referring to Ostrom. For example, the first of her design principles: clearly defined boundaries, seems to be problematic for the housing companies. Unauthorized subletting and high mobility rates contribute to uncertainty of who has the right to use common resources, leading to conflicts and dwindling norms. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1534&r=ure |
| By: | Francesco Antonio Anselmi |
| Abstract: | In the seventies the policies of regional economic development in the OECD and in Europe were joined by the correction of economic (growth rates of GDP and income unbalanced) and technical differences and by inadequate allocations of human, financial, and infrastructural resources. Regional policies were based on the following points: a)Massive financial assistance (to develop infrastructures and public services) to the poorest regions; b)Creating artificial poles of economic development at regional level; c)Creation ex-nihilo of technology; d)Attempts to keep alive in declining industries to protect local employment. After twenty years of operations the results have been disastrous, and many countries in the OECD and EU have been questioned, on the usefulness of continuing to adopt them and today has become oriented towards a new paradigm, even in light of the phenomenon of globalization,. that rests on five pillars> 1)Regional policies directed to all regions from poorer to richer. 2) Measures to mobilize all means to put in a position to maximize the opportunities for development of all regions, through the formation of territorial capital, that allows to develop a multiplier of the investment. 3) The central government must ensure the maintenance of the quality of infrastructure, of public services and an environment conducive to the development of enterprises. 4) Actions on the level of infrastructure of intangible nature. These must be related to the dissemination of knowledge (education, training) of technology and innovation, measures aimed at the development of social capital; and all measures aimed at protecting of environment. 5)A regional policy developed nationally that must be consistent with the policies put in place, in regions and cities, with the processes of decentralization of responsibility accompanied by fiscal resources for their implementation. The objective of this research is to analyse some aspects of these new pillars aimed at overcoming regional economic, technical and infrastructural disparities and to ensure sustainable development promoting new methods and practices of strategic techniques in innovations oriented in cohesion and in regional competitiveness, through a process of integration of economic, social, cultural and environmental activity. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1314&r=ure |
| By: | Xavier Vence; Manuel Gonzalez |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to contribute toa better understanding of the Knowledge Intensive Services spatial distribution across the European Union(EU) regions(NUTSII), linking recent research approaches on innovation and structural change with approaches to regional economics. As a means of conducting this research, we classify economic activities according to six sectors based on their knowledge/technology intensity. Our results show that the higher the knowledge/technology content of the economic activity, the higher the concentration level of the activity. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1377&r=ure |
| By: | Ron Boschma; Rik Wenting |
| Abstract: | There is little understanding of how clusters evolve, and where. While dynamic analyses of clusters hardly exist, this is especially true for spatial clustering of service industries. We take an evolutionary perspective to describe and explain why the Dutch banking cluster clustered in the Amsterdam region. This analysis is based on an unique database of all banks in the Netherlands that existed in the period 1850-1993, which were collected by the authors. We examine the extent to which spinoff dynamics, merger and acquisition activity and the location of Amsterdam had a significant effect on the survival rate of Dutch banks during the last 150 years. Doing so, we make a first step in providing an evolutionary explanation for why Amsterdam is the leading banking cluster of the Netherlands. Our analyses demonstrate, among other things, that Amsterdam banks were disproportionally active in acquiring other banks, leading to a further concentration of the banking sector in the Amsterdam region. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1158&r=ure |
| By: | Eric de Noronha Vaz; Peter Nijkamp; Marco Painho; Mario Caetano |
| Abstract: | The Algarve faces unprecedented challenges resulting from increase of urban sprawl and population density along its coastal perimeters. A growing loss of ecosystems and natural landscapes have led to major asymmetries between the interior of the Algarve and the littoral areas. The depletion of natural resources taken for granted during the sixties, are conveying to the degradation of landscape, while the formerly beautiful region of the Algarve is losing its tourist attractions, largely explored since the latter. Loss of agricultural land to urban areas, has not only been a reality in Portugal, but is a common problem in peri-urban Europe and is overshadowing sustainable development. This paper aims to analyze the land-use change tendencies for the Algarve region from the beginning of the nineties up to 2020. By using a multi-scenario perspective of weight drivers such as agriculture, coastal proximity, urban proximity, population density and road networks, an Analytical Hierarchy Process will be applied to form three growth patterns for urban propensity within the coming 10 years and expanding over a total time frame of 30 years. The novelty of this approach is shared by the usage of story-lines which generate three distinct scenarios: More Ecological, Business as Usual and Economic Reasoning (maximization of economic growth). While story-lines are naturally qualitative, this methodology proposes a quantitative validation of qualitative information, giving a much more accurate result of current trends of urban growth and environmental change in the Algarve. The projection of future land-use is managed through the CORINE Land Cover spatial databases and iterations of cellular automata with the storylines, which shall allow the projection of future urban growth. By understanding the different path-tendencies of urban growth for the region, better decision-making can be done, as to avoid unbalanced city growth, bringing forth more sustainable cities within natural landscapes. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p403&r=ure |
| By: | Stein Ostbye; Sylvain Barde |
| Abstract: | Knowledge spillovers have recently been analysed by Barde (2009) and Ostbye (2010) in a spatial general equilibrium framework. Both studies lack explicit micro foundations for the spillovers – spillovers just take place and depend on firm density. The models must therefore be seen as reduced forms that may potentially be consistent with several structural interpretations. In this paper, the aim is to go some way in offering plausible micro foundations. We consider two alternatives: knowledge dissemination through knowledge embodied in labour moving between firms following Combes and Duranton (2006) and knowledge creation and dissemination through research and development (R&D) following d’Asprémont and Jacquemin (1988). |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p794&r=ure |
| By: | Fredrik Carlsen; Kare Johansen; Lasse Sigbjorn Stambol |
| Abstract: | European labour markets display large variations in unemployment rates across regions as well as between education groups. Insufficient labour force mobility is widely considered the main culprit behind regional unemployment disparities, but few studies have examined the link between interregional mobility and variation in unemployment rates across education groups. This paper employs administrative registers covering the entire Norwegian population to compute annual time series from 1994 to 2004 of migration flows and regional labour market conditions by educational level for 90 travel-to-work areas. We find that geographical disparities in unemployment rates are decreasing in education level, whereas the response of migration to fluctuations in regional unemployment rates is increasing in education level. Our results suggest that low regional mobility of low educated workers contributes to high unemployment disparities across regions and education groups as well as high overall unemployment. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p693&r=ure |
| By: | Peter Svensson; Magnus Klofsten; Henry Etzkowitz |
| Abstract: | What the future holds for the industrial cities of the past is a life and death question for many municipalities. Researchers, policy makers and ordinary citizens deal with issues related to developing appropriate strategy for renewing a declining industrial city. Searching the industrial landscape for an existing firm to relocate or establish a branch plant, with an offer of subsidies, is typically the first idea for life support. Developing a new economic base from advanced research is often the next thought for resuscitation. In this paper we study how a small city region, formerly dependent upon old labour-intensive industries, has developed a knowledge-based renewal strategy inspired by ideas emanating from a superseded local economy. Prior research has shown that there are four stages of development in a knowledge-intensive region; inception, implementation, consolidation, and renewal, and at the first stage government and academia take initiative (Etzkowitz & Klofsten, 2005). Later on, the initiative is transferred to industrial actors that identify and exploit the opportunities of the new knowledge. In this process knowledge input is a central aspect of regional development, and stakeholders are active in constructing assets for knowledge production (Cooke & Leydesdorff, 2006; Cooke et al, 2007). We further develop the inception phase of the model through of a triple helix “spaces” strategy for regional renewal, with particular focus in this paper on the consensus space. A longitudinal case study is used to explicate the dynamics of change among university-industry-government actors, including consensus building within the city and with its neighbour city. Our study show that the keys to success were (1) cross-institutional entrepreneurship, aggregating regional and national resources to realize a bespoke locally generated strategy as opposed to the adoption of the usual list of high-tech hot-topics e.g. IT, biotech, alternative energy and (2) striking a balance between intra-regional competition and collaboration in order to achieve common objectives and avoid stasis arising from hyper-competitiveness. Comparisons are made to other relevant cases to infer a theoretical model of regional renewal through hybridization of old and new industrial and knowledge elements. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1513&r=ure |
| By: | Stephanie Truchet; Jean-Marc Callois; Francis Aubert; Virginie Piguet |
| Abstract: | Among different determinants, amenities play a major role in the location of tourism activities. In Tourism Economics, an extensive literature investigates the influence of amenities either on destination choice made by tourists or on economic development, generally at a regional or national level. This paper aims at analysing the influence of amenities on the location of hotels at local level. In a first part, after a presentation of the context of our work and a brief survey of existing literature on the link between amenities and tourism, we introduce and describe the different amenities features that will be analysed. In a second part, using a micro-economic model of hotel entry inspired by urban economics literature, we analyse the influence of amenities characteristics on a tourist bid-rent function and then on the number of hotels entering the market. The third part will be dedicated to an estimation of the effect of amenities on the creation of new hotels at the French 'Bassins de vie' level, which are functional economic areas. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p904&r=ure |
| By: | Axel Schaffer; Jan Rauland |
| Abstract: | There is broad consensus among economists that regions’ competitiveness heavily relies on their ability to produce innovative goods and services (Baumol 1967, Romer 1990, Grossman and Helpman 1991, Barro and Sala-i-Martin 1997, Los and Verspagen 2006). Main drivers of innovation include, but are not limited to, human and cognitive capital (Quelle), R&D expenditures (Quelle), industrial clusters and structure (Quelle) and foreign direct investments (Quelle). Most empirical studies confirm the presumed positive correlation of these inputs and regional innovativeness, measured for example by patent applications. At the same time, regions operating at similar input level show significant differences in the degree of innovativeness. These differences can, to some extent, be explained by the regions efficiency in using their available input factors (Quelle). The presented paper aims, in a first step, to identify this efficiency by using an outlier robust enhancement of the data envelopment analysis (DEA), the so-called order-α-frontier analysis (Daouia and Simar 2005, Daraio and Simar 2006), for a sample of more than 200 EU regions (NUTS 2). The findings of this model suggest that the regions’ efficiency is partly affected by a spatial factor. Therefore, the study foresees to decompose regional efficiency into a spatial and non-spatial part by introducing a geoadditive regression analysis based on markov fields. The spatial part reveals differences of the efficiency for greater areas. Regions located in efficient areas, for example, are likely to be efficient as well, since they benefit by the efficiency of neighboring regions. In contrast, the non-spatial effect gives an idea on a region’s efficiency compared to the neighboring and nearby regions. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1108&r=ure |
| By: | Richard Lang; Dietmar Roessl |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a systematic literature overview of existing research on social capital in relation to housing and neighbourhood management. A growing body of research documents the significance of social capital for the social cohesion and well-being of neighbourhoods. Thus, in recent years, social capital has become a key concept for both, practitioners and academics dealing with issues of housing and neighbourhood management. However, as a result of its widespread use, social capital has also developed into a rather heuristic concept, generating controversy about its conceptualisation and measurement. Consequently, published articles show a high level of heterogeneity in their social capital approaches and thus, raise the demand for a review of current research in housing and neighbourhood management. Applying the method of systematic literature review, this article first identifies different schools of social capital research in the current research on housing and neighbourhood management. In a second step, theoretical as well as empirical contributions, within these research streams, are analysed and evaluated with regard to content and methodology. Finally, the paper aims to identify possible benefits and pitfalls of the different conceptualisations of social capital when studying housing areas and drawing implications for their management. Our findings highlight a lack of consensus on what social capital is, and how it should be defined in the context of housing and neighbourhood management. From the review, it is evident that researchers primarily focus on solidarity norms and patterns of social and political participation on the neighbourhood level, thus, treating social capital as a collective asset. However, extending the concept from its theoretical roots in social networks can lead to major conceptualisation and measurement problems. Thus, without clarifying the relationship between variables on the individual and collective level, the usefulness of social capital as an analytical concept for the study of housing areas is likely to be limited. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1619&r=ure |
| By: | Raffaele Paci; Emanuela Marrocu |
| Abstract: | Firms productivity is crucially influenced by knowledge spillovers generated either by other firms located nearby or by direct contacts with consumers or by foreign demand in the case of traded products. In this paper we propose a new channel of efficiency-enhancing knowledge diffusion, which can be exploited by local firms to extract relevant information on consumer preferences: direct contacts with tourism flows. Tourists have the peculiar feature of being external consumers, who directly arrive to the destination region and this represents a remarkable advantage for the local enterprises, as the latter can exploit the new information and increase the overall efficiency level of the local economy. More specifically, we examine, within a spatial estimation framework, tourism flows as determinants of regional total factor productivity, controlling also for other intangible factors (such as human, social and technological capital) and for the degree of accessibility. We apply the analysis to a sample of 199 European regions belonging to the EU15 member countries, plus Switzerland and Norway. The empirical results show that tourism flows enhance regional efficiency and that a positive role is also played by intangible assets, infrastructures and spatial spillovers. Keywords: tourism, information, customer knowledge, total factor productivity, European regions JEL: L83, D83, O33, R10 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p493&r=ure |
| By: | Michaela Trippl |
| Abstract: | This paper deals with innovation activities and the pattern of knowledge linkages in the food industry located in the metropolitan region of Vienna. Drawing on 20 qualitative interviews with local companies and knowledge providers (universities and other research organisations) it is shown that in the Vienna food sector innovation has a high importance as competitive strategy. Furthermore, we demonstrate that Vienna’s innovative food companies embrace a wide range of different knowledge sources. Analysing the geography of linkages to these sources, reveals that most of them are extra-local in nature. This finding has to be interpreted against the background of an ongoing reconfiguration of the regional innovation system (RIS). Vienna’s RIS is in a process of transformation, becoming increasingly oriented on promoting young high-tech industries and providing only few impulses for innovation in older and more traditional sectors such as the food industry. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p133&r=ure |
| By: | Martin Rosenfeld; Albrecht Kauffmann |
| Abstract: | In many European regions, globalization and interregional competition have resulted in a collapse of old traditional industries and strong economic development problems. Policymakers in some of these regions are trying to change the path of development in the direction to attract businesses from the field of tourism, in many cases with the help of money from the national government or the EU-level. The general question is whether this strategy could be successful. The paper reports on an empirical study for the German state of Saxony. In many Saxonian regions, following the German re-unification, a strong de-industrialization has taken place. Since the 1990s, in Saxony, the field of tourism had been one major sector for creating new local infrastructure. E. g. in areas with exhausted opencast workings, where the mining industry had formerly been the main source of income, policymakers have begun to change the region into a new lake district and to build infrastructure like waterways, marinas etc. Millions of Euros have been spent to build new bike paths throughout the state or to construct completely new local tourist attractions. The paper’s first section gives an overview on tourism industry in Saxony and on public investment in infrastructure for supporting this sector. The second section has the task to identify specific location factors which are relevant for tourism industry. This is done on the base of existing theoretical and empirical studies. The third section is evaluating the impact of public investments for supporting tourism industry in different parts of Saxony; this is based on quantitative data and qualitative interviews with local experts. One major result is that infrastructure in the field of tourism may only have positive effects on regional development if a region is well-equipped with relevant complementary factors, e. g. with a service-oriented mentality within the population. In many cases, the grants from the national to the local level have been spent for infrastructure which is mainly used by the local population, not by tourists. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1179&r=ure |
| By: | Liv Osland; Kenneth Gibb; Gwilym Pryce |
| Abstract: | This paper attempts to address three questions: (1) How unequal is access to employment and the wellbeing associated with it? (2) What is the money value consumers place on access to employment? and (3) How does the inequality of access to employment correspond to the geographical pattern of variation in social deprivation? On the basis that house prices, once adjusted for property type and size, reflect variation quality of life across space, econometric estimates of the impact of employment access on house prices can be used to simulate the impact on inequality of wellbeing. With this rationale in mind, we use the Osland and Pryce (2009) house price model to derive an appropriate measure of Access Welfare – the wellbeing associated with locating at a given distance to employment – and to put a money value on that welfare. The model also allows us to incorporate the negative externalities associated with living in close proximity to centres of employment, and the complexities that arise from the existence of multiple employment centres of varying size. We use Gini and Atkinson coefficients and kernel density estimation to analyse the inequalities observed. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p717&r=ure |
| By: | Ida Kristoffersson; Leonid Engelson |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes how different user groups are affected by changes to the present congestion pricing scheme in Stockholm. The Stockholm congestion pricing scheme has shown that pricing of transport systems can reduce congestion and increase accessibility in the city centre. The pricing scheme can however be improved when it comes to ability to mitigate congestion without unnecessarily affecting user groups whose contribution to congestion is minor. A large number of theoretical studies have been made on equity effects of congestion pricing. Eliasson and Mattsson (2006) extend the theoretical literature with a quantitative methodology for evaluation of equity effects of real-world pricing schemes. In the mentioned paper, Eliasson and Mattsson conclude that analysis of equity effects have to be carried out for specific cities and specific congestion pricing and refund schemes to be able to draw any conclusions on whether a congestion pricing policy is regressive or progressive. We study effects of modifications of the congestion pricing scheme using a recently developed dynamic transport model for Stockholm called SILVESTER. Choice of departure time is modeled in SILVESTER, which is very important (but often omitted) since both congestion and the charge one has to pay is time-dependent. Car travel times and time spent in queues are calculated using mesoscopic traffic simulation. SILVESTER models car users, but they can switch to public transport, which makes it possible to evaluate the mode switch effect induced by a specific congestion pricing scheme. Possible modifications to analyze include changes to charged amounts, timetable and locations where the charge is levied. Regarding user groups, this paper analyzes effects for three different group categories: income, household type and occupation. SILVSTER allows for analysis of how costs and benefits are distributed across origin-destination-pairs and trip purposes. In order to compare costs and benefits for user groups, the share of trips that each group performs are calculated per origin and trip purpose. Furthermore, the effects of congestion charges for different user groups are, to a large extent, dependent on how revenues are used. This paper therefore also compares two refund strategies: lump-sum and improvement of public transport. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1455&r=ure |
| By: | David McArthur; Inge Thorsen |
| Abstract: | This paper uses panel data on migration flows between municipalities in Norway from 2000-2008. The relatively new method of fixed effects vector decomposition (fevd) is used to estimate parameters for time-invariant spatial structure variables as well as for labour market factors such as unemployment rates, income and house prices. We compare several model specifications. Results on employment/unemployment are fairly consistent across models. Results on other variables, for instance income and house prices, are less robust. We also experiment with several measures of spatial structure, which adds considerably to the explanatory power of the model, as expected. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p532&r=ure |
| By: | Burak Beyhan |
| Abstract: | Although the literature on industrial clusters and districts emphasizes the role of labor mobility in the diffusion of innovation and tacit knowledge, relatively little academic effort supported by strong empirical evidences has been made in order to reveal the association between labor mobility and innovation in an appealing way. Likewise, the experimental studies outlining the spatial characteristics of labor mobility and innovation inside a cluster are nearly absent. In terms of its inner spatial configuration, the cluster itself is a black box for not only economists but also for geographers and planners especially when the interplay of labor mobility and innovation is considered. Most of the studies either tend to concentrate on a single cluster without informing us about the actual relevance of space inside the cluster or compare the clusters in a region (or country) again without developing a proper measure for the comparisons of the respective clusters in terms of the spatial characteristics of the labor mobility and innovation inside them. In this regard, the basic pursuit of this paper is both to develop and utilize simple measures in order to account for the relevance of space in different configurations of innovation and labor mobility inside an industrial cluster by making use of the parameters and analysis developed for Social Network Analysis (SNA), Space Syntax (SS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). What is especially remarkable in this study is the preference for free and open source software and establishment of author’s own algorithms. In an attempt to reveal the spatial contexts of the labor mobility and innovation occurring inside a cluster, firstly streets involved in Siteler, an industrial cluster in Ankara and specialized in furniture production, are divided into segments according to some intuitive criteria. Subsequently, a series of analysis is conducted by employing parameters of SNA, SS and GIS. What is evident from this paper is that labor mobility and innovation inside Siteler is strongly imprinted with the spatial configuration of streets in the cluster. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p421&r=ure |
| By: | Gary Cook; Naresh Pandit; Hans Loof; Bˆrje Johansson |
| Abstract: | This paper addresses two questions: what, if anything, is the influence of geographic concentration of economic activity on patterns of foreign direct investment; what is the relationship, if any, between geographic concentration of economic activity, multinationality and innovation. The paper identifies the consensus view which is emerging in the literature, based on both theory and evidence, that strong clusters are likely to be attractive for inward direct investment and that they promote innovation. The paper tests whether this relationship is evident in Great Britain using data derived from the UKÃs Annual Foreign Direct Investment survey and the UKÃs Community Innovation Survey 2007. It addresses a surprising gap in the emerging literature by also examining the relationship between cluster strength and outward direct investment, thereby testing PorterÃs (1990) claim in The Competitive Advantage of Nations, that advantages gained in strong clusters would be the foundations of international competitiveness. The paper also distinguishes between two different types of agglomeration economy, localisation economies based on collocation of firms in related lines of activity, and urbanisation economies based on the overall concentration of economic activity in a particular region, a distinction most of the emerging literature in International Business has not made clear. The first set of models examine the propensity to engage in outward direct investment and the geographic pattern of foreign ownership of firms active in Great Britain and find that both are positively related to cluster strength, with localisation economies being more important than urbanisation economies. T wo models of innovation are estimated, the first examines what factors influence firms to be innovative and the second what influences innovation effort as measured by R&D intensity. In both cases there is evidence that regional agglomeration promotes innovation and that there are stronger effects flowing from own industry agglomeration than from broader regional scale. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1489&r=ure |
| By: | Florian Noseleit |
| Abstract: | Several theoretical approaches to explaining economic growth focus on externalities arising from interactions between economic agents. A frequently discussed source of such externalities is regional diversity of the industry structure. A large number of empirical studies support the argument that regional diversity can be beneficial to regional employment, innovation, and economic stability. It is not particularly surprising that diversity in the industry structure can be assumed to depend, in part, on the activity of new businesses. To date, however, little is known about the roles and paths new businesses take in the diversification of the industry structure. The central questions that this paper attempts to answer are how the market selection process influences the diversity of entries and how start-up activity influences diversity in the region and beyond. For an analysis of diversity patterns, we use regional data for West Germany over a 27-year period that includes specifics about employment at the industry level and allows us to distinguish and follow entry cohorts over time. Compared with the large amount of literature analyzing whether diversity or specialization is conducive to regional development, the literature discussing trends of regional diversification is rather limited. The preliminary results of this study can be summarized as follows. On the whole, regional diversity moderately increased over the last decades. Regional diversity and region size are related via an inverse u-shape. Establishment scale is negatively related to diversity. In addition, evidence supports that regional diversity increases with the number of entries but decreases with the number of exits. Modest specialization is positively associated. Certain empirical regularities for the role of entries are: Employment diversity in entries is increasing over time at the national level, while diversity at the regional level is decreasing on average. This antipodal development of diversity can be explained by a market selection favoring a diverse set of specializations at the regional level. Despite the decrease in regional diversity in entry cohorts over time, these entries contribute to an increase in total regional diversity due to a selection within entry cohorts that substantially differs from the existing regional industry structure. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1117&r=ure |
| By: | Michaela Fuchs; Udo Brixy |
| Abstract: | Empirical research on agglomeration and regional economic growth puts high emphasis on the impact of specialization, diversity, and competition on regional employment dynamics (Glaeser et al. 1992, Henderson et al. 1995, Blien et al. 2006, Fuchs 2009). However, Beugelsdijk (2006) and Raspe/van Oort (2008) argue that this relationship should most profoundly hold at the micro or firm level. This paper centres on the labour demand of individual plants and assesses the influence of regional features in direct contrast to plant-specific characteristics as well as conventional labour-demand determinants. Hence, it contributes to the sparse literature on the importance of regional character-istics for firm performance and additionally integrates research from industrial as well as labour economics. The analysis is based on the IAB Establishment Panel, a comprehensive data set on German plants. For the years from 2004 to 2008 it encompasses observations on roughly 8,000 plants. The regional variables are added on the NUTS3-level. First econometric results confirm the basic hypotheses derived from labour-demand theory: wages exert a significantly negative and output a positive influence on the number of employees. Among the plant-specific characteristics, it is mainly plant size, exporting behaviour and R&D / innovation activities that foster employment. There are also distinctive differences regarding the single sectors. Last but not least, the regional environment plays a decisive role for plant-level labour demand. The size of the region the plant is located in, the degree of sectoral concentration as well as of competition within a sector have a positive and highly significant impact. By contrast, accessibility to highways, specialization, and diversity seem to be of minor relevance |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p243&r=ure |
| By: | Florian Noseleit; Rene Söllner |
| Abstract: | In this paper we study the impact of diversity on regional growth by extending the existing literature in such that we differentiate between industry diversity and human capital diversity. In order to measure human capital diversity we construct a regional measure based on individual occupational data. In fact, based on panel data for German regions we find empirical evidence that regions with higher degrees of human capital diversity exhibit higher GDP-per-capita and employment growth, as well as higher patent-output per R&D-worker. So far the empirical literature whether regional specialization or regional diversification encourage knowledge spillover and therefore promote regional growth mainly focused on the diversity of the regional industry structure and thus disregards that knowledge transmission merely occurs between individuals. This was already described by Jacobs (1969), and is also recognized by Glaeser et al. (1992) who emphasize the importance of interaction between people in close geographical distance for innovation. Nevertheless, the existing literature typically relies on the regional industry diversity as an indicator for the breadth of the local knowledge base. However, we argue that the diversity of skills and knowledge at the individual level rather than the diversity of industries reflects the scope of the local knowledge base and the potential for spillover. A more fruitful approach should therefore take a more disaggregated view on this topic by looking at the diversity of skills and abilities at the level of individuals. We apply two strategies to assure that human capital diversity is not just a proxy of the regional industrial structure. First we calculate a variable for the regional industry diversity equivalent to the occupational diversity using regional industry employment shares at the three digit industry level. Second we incorporate regional employment shares of 27 out of 28 aggregated industries as additional explanatory variables in our regression. Furthermore, skill complementarity and substitutability in production, as well as differences in the importance of knowledge spillovers should be addressed with a detailed consideration of changes in the regional industry structure. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p245&r=ure |
| By: | Edward L. Glaeser |
| Abstract: | America’s local governments spend about one-eighth of our national income, one-fourth of total government spending, and employ over 14 million people. This paper surveys the large and growing economics literature on local governments and their finances. A primary difference between local and national government is the ease of labor mobility within countries, which disciplines local governments and means that heterogeneous service levels can be beneficial, but mobility also challenges local attempts at redistribution. The empirical literature on mobility responses to local government is distinguished, but remains a pressing area for future research. We have sophisticated models of local spending, tax policy and institutional design, but research is often far less developed on even basic questions of costs and benefits of core local public services. |
| JEL: | H0 H2 H23 H71 |
| Date: | 2012–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18244&r=ure |
| By: | Yraida Romano; Nicola Colaninno; Jorge Cerda; Josep Roca; Malcolm Burns |
| Abstract: | The European political discourse has denounced the increase in land consumption in Spain, resulting from contemporary processes of urban development. The occupation of land deriving from demographic dynamics generates different patterns of urban growth, defining spatial structures with different degrees of fragmentation of urbanised areas. This study analyses the spatial relation of urban growth in Spain over the period 1956-2006 in three dimensions; land occupation, population density and the fragmentation of artificialised urban areas. The methodology consists of the construction of a number of specific indicators of land occupation (%), population density (net and administrative), and fragmentation (Shannon’s evenness), in order to apply a relational statistical analysis (change over time and change between variables), as well as examine the likely future performance of these three indicators The results indicate that in general in the areas studied the decrease in the net density and the rates of expansion of artificialised land have been greater than the rate of population growth. However the spatial fragmentation has reduced over the period under review. Finally it needs to be highlighted that the descriptive analysis identified landscapes of special performance (outside the overall tendency), which cannot be detected under the integrated ‘relational’ focus. Although the results do not indicate the value of one method with respect to the other, it can be confirmed that that the integrated focus is more complete in its conception and its capacity to explain complex phenomenon, than the partial vision offered by the indicators. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p880&r=ure |
| By: | Markus Grillitsch; Christoph Höglinger; Franz Tödtling |
| Abstract: | The competitiveness of many of today’s industries largely depends on the ability to innovate. Innovation is nowadays regarded as a result of an open and interactive knowledge process, demanding from companies to generate, absorb and apply knowledge relying both on internal and external sources. Companies often maintain links to a large variety of knowledge sources and partner types on different geographic levels and they use different mechanisms for acquiring knowledge from these sources. In addition, the location of companies is thought to have an important impact on innovativeness through potential regional knowledge links and accessibility to interregional ones. The location of a company in a “thick” Regional Innovation System (RIS) should lead to a better performance as compared to a location in a “thin” RIS. Conceptually, the paper aims to develop a better understanding of the relationships and dynamics between internal knowledge and learning through external knowledge sourcing. The derived presumptions are tested by developing and applying a multivariate model that describes the impact of the above-mentioned factors on the innovativeness of firms. The importance of internal knowledge, the variety of knowledge sourcing on regional, national and international levels, the importance of cooperation as a transfer mechanism as well as the location of companies are identified as key determinants of innovativeness in knowledge-based sectors. The paper draws on data from the ICT sector in three regions in Austria. Overall, 110 personal interviews and questionnaires were collected from companies of this sector. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p676&r=ure |
| By: | Ana Isabel Moreno Monroy; Michiel Gerritse |
| Abstract: | The informal sector absorbs on average 50% of employment in developing countries. However, it has not been considered in New Economic Geography (NEG) models that try to explain urbanization and agglomeration in developing countries. In a first attempt to bridge this gap, we develop a NEG model that incorporates the informal sector. Empirical evidence shows that the informal sector is mainly composed of relatively small firms that are unskilled labor intensive, face capital restrictions and that, given scale limitations, do not trade interregionally or internationally. Thus, besides an increasing returns to scale manufacturing sector, our model allows for an informal services sector with constant returns to scale and high transport cost. We investigate competitive as well as complementary roles for the informal sector and the manufacturing sector. To do so, we model competition on the demand side by allowing substitution between manufacturing and informal sector goods and complementary linkages on the production side, in the form of input requirements in manufacturing from the informal sector. Labor is mobile between industries and locations. The model predicts where informal employment flourishes. An informal sector arises at every location, but depending on manufacturing transport cost and preferences, the industrial or the rural location hosts the larger share of informal production. Vice versa, the size and characteristics of the informal sector have an effect on the long run outcome of the model. Not only does the informal sector influence the model’s centripetal forces, but informal supply shocks (and regulation) may also determine the selection of one of multiple long run equilibria. Thus, an expanding informal sector can have both structural and long-run consequences for economic activity. In terms of policy, the paper shows that recommendations regarding rural-urban migration in developing countries are sensitive to agglomeration effects. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p661&r=ure |
| By: | Geraldine Ryan; Bernadette Power; Noreen McCarthy; Paul Braidford |
| Abstract: | Objectives: Business transfers are posing a particular problem for several European countries as the age distribution of business owners rises and as the number of firms transferred within families’ declines. This paper explores firm, market, and regional differences in firms which are expected to be transferred in the British Isles against those that are expected to be disposed of. It also examines whether there are regional differences in the types of businesses which are expected to be transferred across the British Isles. Prior Work: Previous research in this area has primarily examined intergenerational succession in family businesses (Bennedsen et al. 2006), while the research into management-buyouts and trade-sales has focused on the entrepreneur’s mode of entry (Parker and Van Praag, 2006). Martin et al. (2002) finds evidence that spatial differentiation exists in the vulnerability of firms to age related business transfer failure. In this paper we examine whether businesses located in relatively more economically vibrant regions within the British Isles, whether due to urban economies (Gordon and McCann 2005) or agglomeration economies (Parr 2002) or the level of entrepreneurial talent (Markley, 2006) in the region, have a lower probability of a business transfer failure. Approach: Interview evidence on the expected end-game strategy of entrepreneurs facing the risk of age related transfer failure was obtained from firms in a number of regions in the British Isles, namely the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England (800 cases). A model is developed which predicts how firm, market and regional characteristics influence whether a firm is expected to be transferred or not. Preliminary Results: Entrepreneurs who expect to dispose of the assets of the business on their retirement have a significantly lower probability of having a high level of entrepreneurial talent in the region and a higher probability of having a high level of GVA per head in the region than entrepreneurs who expect to transfer their businesses. A higher level of entrepreneurial talent (as measured by stock of businesses per resident) and a lower of GVA per head are more likely in rural regions. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1094&r=ure |
| By: | Guilherme Resende |
| Abstract: | The goal of this paper is to carry out two outcome evaluations of the northeast regional fund (FNE) in Brazil. With this aim, the paper assembles two types of outcome evaluation often implemented separately in the evaluation literature. The results of the micro- and macro-evaluations show that although there is a positive and statistically significant impact of the FNE industrial loans on job creation at the (micro) firm level, this impact is still too limited to have any significant effect on GDP per capita growth at the municipal (macro) level and thus reduce the regional inequalities in Brazil. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p853&r=ure |
| By: | Toshiharu Ishikawa |
| Abstract: | When a manufacturing firm projects to construct a factory, the firm searches a factory's location in large geographical area. The manufacturer does not determine immediately the factory's location site since the manufacturer could not have enough information of economic situation of possible location sites. Thus, the manufacturer makes sphere of searching area small step by step. In this firm's searching processes, the following four steps may be taken: 1) Decision of a prospective region, 2) Selection of a possible area in that region, 3) Selection of a city in that area, 4) Determination of a site in the city. This paper proposes that in the first step, chaotic phenomena have the possibility to be used to identify a prospective region, and then, the retailers' location networks laid in the region plays a significant role in the selection of a possible area in the region. This paper elucidates how a firm specifies a factory's location within large geographical area. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p102&r=ure |
| By: | Jan Rouwendal; Peter Nijkamp |
| Abstract: | According to Oswald's hypothesis homeowners experience more problems in finding a new job after becoming unemployed because their moving costs are higher than those of renters. Empirical research has revealed that this effect is counteracted by the job search behavior of unemployed homeowners: they accept a job on the local labor market, that is, a job that does not force them to move to a different residential location, more frequently than unemployed renters. One possible explanation of this result is that the local labor market is larger for homeowners than for renters, in the sense that they are willing to accept longer commutes. This suggests that the longer commutes of homeowners (a well known empirical fact) are partly caused by higher moving costs. In this paper we analyze the validity of this explanation by investigating the relationship between homeownership and commutes while controlling for other variables, and possible effects of selection and heterogeneity. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1623&r=ure |
| By: | Anat Tchetchik; Aliza Fleischer; Israel Finkelshtain |
| Abstract: | Historically, rural areas have been the place where most of the population lived and made its living. As a result of various economic, demographic, social and cultural changes, the second half of the 20th century was characterized by structural change in many western rural regions. Within this transition the countryside evolves as a location for leisure, recreation and tourism (LRT). Today, rural LRT is a rapidly growing industry, considered as 'panacea' to the economic and social problems of many rural communities. However, being crucially dependent on the fragile rural environment, an excessive growth of the industry may results with negative externalities, which may destroy the very same amenities that attract visitors in the first place. Accordingly, many EU countries regulate and support the rural LRT since the 1990s. Focusing on the industry's popular product; rural accommodations (RA), one possible negative result at the village level occurs as the attractiveness of localities as well as agglomeration economies create incentives for more and more households to enter the industry up to a level that harms the club good amenities of the village. A sustainable development that maintains optimum density is hence required. In this pioneer study, a conceptual and empirical framework to address this issue is provided, and the density in the RA industry is analyzed. For this purpose, a regional equilibrium model, which accounts for agglomeration effects, club-good effects as well as product differentiation, was developed. The model was estimated using data on the Israeli rural accommodations market from 2000. Significant evidences for the existences of club-good and agglomeration externalities were found and quantified in the consumer preferences and the production of rural accommodations, respectively. Using simulation mechanism a justification for regulation in the RA industry at the very local level is provided and calibrated |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p359&r=ure |
| By: | Nicholas Spaull (Department of Economics, University of Stellenbosch) |
| Abstract: | Although racial segregation has been abolished for 18 years now, schools which served predominantly White students under apartheid remain functional, while those which served Black students remain dysfunctional and unable to impart the necessary numeracy and literacy skills students should be acquiring by this level. The present study provides an overview of this dualistic nature of the primary education system in South Africa, with special attention paid to the bimodality of student performance. It argues that there are in fact two different education systems in South Africa and thus two different data-generating processes. These two sub-systems can be seen when splitting student performance by former-department, language, or socioeconomic status. The implications of such a dualistic schooling system are also elucidated, with special emphasis on government reporting and econometric modeling. The recently released SACMEQ III dataset is used for the econometric modeling. The study finds that when modeling student performance separately for the wealthiest 25% of schools on the one hand, and the poorest 75% of schools on the other, there are stark differences in the factors influencing student performance which are large and statistically significant. Only 5 of the 27 factors are shared between the two models for mathematics, and 11 of the 29 factors for reading. This suggests a bifurcated system where the process which converts inputs into outputs is fundamentally different for each sub-system. Ultimately the paper has two logical conclusions: 1) Observing averages in South African education is uniquely misleading and overestimates the educational achievement of the majority of students, and 2) Modeling a single schooling system when there are in fact two school systems can lead to spurious results and misleading policy conclusions. |
| Keywords: | Primary schooling; South Africa; SACMEQ; educational inequality, student performance |
| JEL: | I20 I21 I28 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sza:wpaper:wpapers165&r=ure |
| By: | Thomas Vanoutrive |
| Abstract: | The link between economic activity and freight transport is a classic issue in regional science. A subtopic is the impact of economic activity on the demand for maritime transport through ports. Understanding this relationship contributes to a better understanding of the dynamics of port throughput, which is important for infrastructure planning and other strategic decisions. This paper focuses on the port of Antwerp (Belgium) and applies some different methods to model port throughput. Moreover, we discuss the differences between commodity groups and the impact of neighbouring ports on the model results. As a result, the results will also be relevant for other ports. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p881&r=ure |
| By: | Giovanni Russo; Peter Nijkamp; Aura Reggiani; Federico Tedeschi |
| Abstract: | This paper offers an exploratory investigation of the effects of inbound commuter flows on employment in regional labour markets in Germany. For this purpose, we distinguish three channels that could transmit the effects concerned: a crowding-out mechanism, and two labour demand effects (the first is an aggregate demand effect, while the second is a positive externality on vacancy creation). To this end, we develop a stepwise commuting impact model. Our results bring to light that, on the whole, commuter flows have a positive and robust effect on both employment and the number of jobs in the receiving labour market districts, but a distinctly negative effect on the share of jobs filled by resident workers. We then interpret the implications of our results, and, finally, we suggest ways in which the analysis could be improved and expanded. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1376&r=ure |
| By: | Sebastian Zenker; Sibylle Petersen |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to determine why and under which condition residents enter into a strong and committed relationship with their place of living. We will present a model which outlines how cities could strengthen the resident-city identification by increasing the perceived place complexity. The model translates the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) approach of the general field of marketing (Customer-Company Identification) to the field of place marketing and combines it with theory development in Social Identity Theory and Theory of Organizational Identification. We hypothesize that a strong residents-city identification results from identity fit between the city prototype and the self-concept of the resident. The proposed model outlines the important role of the perceived place complexity as moderating variable. We propose that higher perceived complexity of a city allows for higher perceived fit between the self and the city, higher optimal distinctiveness, and higher perceived attractiveness of identification with the city. The question of how to increase identification with a place is crucial for place marketing and urban governance. Based on a review of existing research in social science we will outline the positive effects of identification on commitment, resilience towards negative information, selective information seeking and satisfaction. Practical implications for place marketers and potential for future empirical research are discussed. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p99&r=ure |
| By: | Giovanni Millo |
| Abstract: | In the spatial econometrics literature, spatial error dependence is characterized by spatial autoregressive processes, which relate every observation in the cross-section to any other with distance-decaying intensity: i.e., dependence obeys Tobler's First Law of Geography ('everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things'). In the literature on factor models, on the converse, the degree of correlation between cross-sectional units depends only on factor loadings. Standard spatial correlation tests have power against both types of dependence, while the economic meaning of the two can be much different; so it may be useful to devise a test for detecting 'distance-related' dependence in the presence of a 'factor-type' one. Pesaran's CD is a test for global cross-sectional dependence with good properties. The CD(p) variant only takes into account p-th order neighbouring units to test for local cross-sectional dependence. The pattern of CD(p) as p increases can be informative about the type of dependence in the errors, but the test power changes as new pairs of observations are taken into account. I propose a bootstrap test based on the values taken by the CD(p) test under permutations of the neighbourhood matrix, i.e. when 'resampling the neighbours'. I provide Montecarlo evidence of it being able to tell the presence of spatial-type dependence in the errors of a typical spatial panel irrespective of the presence of an unobserved factor structure. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p752&r=ure |
| By: | Michael Fortunato; Theodore Alter |
| Abstract: | Pennsylvania is a state whose rural cities and towns – once prosperous centers of manufacturing and agricultural production – have seen steady economic declines in these sectors due to macro-economic restructuring. Global economic forces have resulted in the loss or downgrade of many local jobs, population declines, the loss of educated youth to growing metropolitan areas, and the abandonment of small businesses from many small downtowns. Despite these trends, most small towns and cities still retain a substantial core of new business activity. These entrepreneurs hold the promise of reviving the lagging local economy by providing new jobs and critical products and services that are targeted to local tastes and needs. Understanding what led them to start a business in a declining area can lead to the development of new strategies to entice more entrepreneurs to locate a business in the area to stimulate local economic development. This report uses interviews with forty-two entrepreneurs in eight small towns across Pennsylvania to understand what specific factors motivated their decision to locate in areas traditionally marked by economic decline. The report reveals the surprising fact that most small town entrepreneurs are not natives, but were attracted to the area for other reasons. The report also explores which factors were more important to the location decision – personal, individualist factors or factors within the local social and physical environment. A conceptual framework of the location decision in Pennsylvania is developed, and real strategies for bolstering local entrepreneurship, especially in areas formerly engaged in manufacturing, are drawn from the findings. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1505&r=ure |
| By: | Roger Bivand |
| Abstract: | Ecologists are often interested in studying the relationship between species and the environment, and between changes in the environment and changes in species occurrence. They consider that the spatial scales of the data generating processes for both the environmental and species variables matter, and that observed spatial dependence may be a 'red herring', because the process scales of variables have not been captured appropriately. In studying regional growth, one is often obliged to use administrative entities that may not correspond to the scales of data generating processes. The paper will review the red herring controversy in macroecology, and relate it to the discovery of spatial regimes in connection with the club-convergence hypothesis. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p482&r=ure |
| By: | Javier Garcia; Marti Parellada; Néstor Duch |
| Abstract: | The challenges posed by globalization have led to a rapid increase in the demand for higher education and, at the same time, many countries are earmarking more resources and efforts to foster their population’s skills level and knowledge. Nowadays higher education is playing a crucial role in countries’ economic development. In fact, higher education is perceived as being sufficient to allow countries to compete in a globalised economy and enhance leadership in knowledge sectors. In the last decades many countries have increased the incentives for and pressures on universities to become more involved in their regions. In response, the universities have developed the so-called Third Mission whereby they collaborate with its milieu in the more direct way. The objective of this paper is to know whether the university presence contributes to encourage the regional economic outcomes. Exploiting the geographic and temporal variation in the foundation of Spanish regional universities after to 1980, we use difference-in-difference approach to estimate its effect on regional economy. The data base includes information for the total Spanish public university system. Our paper contributes to the literature on universities and economic growth, adding more specific data related with university activity. We find little evidence that university presence increases the regional economic growth. We also estimate the effect of the university activity on the creation of knowledge spillover. However, the results vary widely across different regions. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p911&r=ure |
| By: | Erik Louw; Sylvia Jansen |
| Abstract: | Most studies on firm relocation focus on firms that did relocate. The reasons why they moved and why they settled somewhere else, are always seen as the location factors. The assumption behind this is that firms which did relocate assessed their former location unfavourable compared to their production requirements, while firms that did not relocate were more favourable to their location. By means of longitudinal panel survey data on firms in the Netherlands we investigate whether this assumption is valid. First we focus on the location assessment and investigate which location factors are most important in the overall assessment. Next we analyse changes of the location assessment over time. Secondly we analyse stated and revealed relocations in relation to the locations assessment and firm performance (measured in the level of employment). This paper concludes with a discussion on the notion of location factors. Particularly we will focus on their role in the relocation decision process which basically is a matching process between spatial production requirements put forward by firms and locational properties and characteristics of productions sites |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p636&r=ure |
| By: | Michel Dimou |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to study the impacts of wars and conflicts on city-size growth and city-size distributions. It follows recent empirical work from Davis and Weinstein (2002), Bosker and al (2008) and Dimou and Schaffar (2009) who tried to understand how wars affected the Japanese, the German and the Balkan cities-size distributions. The paper initially focuses on theoretical aspects by examining the main theories which consider the way exogenous shocks affect urban growth. Then, it uses non-parametrical methods and Markov chains in order to study city-size dynamics in the Balkan peninsula during then 1981-2005 period. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p260&r=ure |
| By: | Theresa Grafeneder-Weissteiner |
| Abstract: | Recently, there has been wide interest in the “economics” of population aging. Demographic change has crucial consequences for economic behavior; it e.g. implies that consumption and investment decisions vary over the life-cycle. The latter has important implications for economic growth, whereas the former is decisive for the location of economic activity as emphasized in the New Economic Geography (NEG) literature. Both growth and agglomeration processes are, however, themselves interlinked, since technological spillovers, being the engines of endogenous growth, are often localized. This linkage has inspired the development of frameworks that combine (endogenous) growth features with NEG models to study the joint process of creation and location of economic activity. All these models focus, however, on the consequences of increased economic integration while ignoring any potential effect of demographic change. This paper closes the gap by incorporating an overlapping generation structure into Baldwin (2001) 's NEG model with learning spillovers and thus allows to investigate how lifetime uncertainty impacts upon growth and agglomeration. The main results are twofold. First, nonzero mortality rates support a more equal distribution of productive factors by introducing an additional dispersion force that countervails the agglomeration tendencies resulting from endogenous growth through localized knowledge spillovers. For sufficiently high interregional knowledge spillovers, the turnover of generations can even prevent regions from unequal development. Moreover, lifetime uncertainty considerably reduces the possibility of agglomeration being the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Second, nonzero mortality rates lower both the symmetric equilibrium's as well as the core-periphery's growth rate. As long as learning spillovers are not purely localized, this decrease is, however, more pronounced for the core-periphery outcome. Thus, in sharp contrast to standard NEG findings, agglomeration is not necessarily conducive to growth. This also implies that there might not be any trade-off between fostering an equal distribution of productive factors and high economic growth which would result from e.g. increased economic integration if agglomeration were unambiguously pro-growth. Baldwin, R. E., Martin, P., and Ottaviano, G. I. P. (2001). Global income divergence, trade, and industrialization: The geography of growth take-offs. Journal of Economic Growth, 6:5-37. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p834&r=ure |
| By: | Torben Dall Schmidt; Aki Kangasharju; Daniel Rauhut |
| Abstract: | Population changes are decisive for growth performances. This has been shown in a number of country studies, using time series data. The analysis is here extended in two dimensions: 1) the importance of demographics for growth is taking in to account a regional dimension allowing for spatial error structures in dynamic panel model and 2) doing the analysis in an international comparative set-up testing for the differences in effects under different national contexts. The countries considered in the paper are Nordic countries, which has the advantage of comparing rather similar countries in terms of institutional, social and legislative systems, but with quite different types of geographic structures. It therefore allows for an analysis of the importance of population change for regional growth patterns in rather similar welfare systems but for countries what vary considerably in size and geographic structures. The analysis build on harmonized data for the Nordic countries covering the period 1994-2006. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p922&r=ure |
| By: | Francesca Medda; Luca Cocconcelli |
| Abstract: | The economic growth of the Baltic Region after independence has largely been realised through numerous reforms and capital market liberalisation. The Estonian economy in the past two decades was highly leveraged and characterised by the increase in real estate prices. This market had the pattern of a bubble. Our objective in this work is to evaluate through standard econometric analyses the effects of the speculative trend in real estate prices in Tallinn. In particular, we examine the presence and development of speculative bubbles in the financial and real estate markets. The analysis is extended in order to evaluate how the Estonian land fiscal system failed to prevent the market distortion. We demonstrate in the conclusion that a more rigourous implementation of the Estonian land tax could have diminished the effects of the boom and bust dynamics in the real estate market in Estonia. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p302&r=ure |
| By: | Angus Holford |
| Abstract: | Almost 300,000 entitled children do not participate in the UKs Free School Meals (FSM) programme, worth up to 400 per year. Welfare take-up can be stigma and lack of information. This paper uses a school-level dataset and fixed-effect instrumental variables strategy to show that peer-group participation has a substantial role in overcoming these barriers. Identification of endogenous peer effects is achieved by exploiting a scheme which extended FSM entitlement to all children in some school cohorts. Results show that in a typical school a 10 percentage point rise in peer-group take-up would reduce non-participation by almost a quarter. |
| Date: | 2012–07–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ese:iserwp:2012-12&r=ure |
| By: | Mozhdeh Taheri; Marina Van Geenhuizen |
| Abstract: | Abstract-The importance of new knowledge in innovative activities of firms and the impact of these activities on economic development of regions have been acknowledged in many studies. In particular, universities and firms that are established on university knowledge, spin-off firms, function as nodes and channels through which new knowledge is diffused into the wider (regional) economy. New knowledge is a strategic resource of competitive advantage for young high-tech firms. Of course, many of these firms are based on new technical knowledge but they may lack market and managerial knowledge and skills. An important way of learning on these different aspects is through social networks and business networks, with a local (national) and/or international coverage. Many studies have attempted to understand the characteristics of networks of young high-tech firms, but a detailed picture and understanding of the time and space dimension of models of learning relationships are rare. What may be true is that a well-developed local learning network performs as an important condition for establishing international learning relationships, indicating a stepwise model. The theory of ëborn globalsà indicates, however, international learning from the start of the firm. This paper explores the learning models of university spin-off firms, including some aspects of absorptive capacity, with a focus on various combinations of local and global knowledge networks and changes in these combinations by age of the firms. The analysis draws on a sample of 100 spin-offs from two universities: TU Delft University in the Netherlands and Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim in Norway. Resource based views and organizational learning theory will be applied to design an analytical model of young high-tech firmsà shaping of learning connections and improving of innovation performance. The empirical part of the paper will include descriptive and explanatory results, the latter derived from correlation analysis. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1661&r=ure |
| By: | Norbert Schanne |
| Abstract: | The development of employment and unemployment in regional labour markets is known to spatially interdependent. Global Vector-Autoregressive (GVAR) models generate a link between the local and the surrounding labour markets and thus might be useful when analysing and forecasting employment and unemployment even if they are non-stationary or co-trending. Furthermore, GVARs have the advantage to allow for both strong cross-sectional dependence on ``leader regions' and weak cross-sectional, spatial dependence. For the recent and further development of labour markets the economic situation (described e.g. by business-cycle indicators), politics and environmental impacts (e.g. climate) may be relevant. Information on these impacts can be integrated in addition to the joint development of employment and unemployment and the spatial link in a way that allows on the one hand to carry out economic plausibility checks easily and on the other hand to directly receive measures regarding the statistical properties and the precision of the forecasts. Then, the forecasting accuracy is demonstrated for German regional labour-market data in simulated forecasts at different horizons and for several periods. Business-cycle indicators seem to have no information regarding labour-market prediction, climate indicators little. In contrast, including information about labour-market policies and vacancies, and accounting for the lagged and contemporaneous spatial dependence can improve the forecasts relative to a simple bivariate model. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1044&r=ure |
| By: | Elif Alkay |
| Abstract: | Firms locate in different areas for different reasons. However, some of them tend to move a new place in order to achieve alternative goals. For instance, the manufacturing survey in 2005 reflects that 30 per cent of the manufacturing firms in the Istanbul Metropolitan Area would like to relocate. Consistently, this paper considers two research questions: the first one is which factors do increase the probability of relocation tendencies of manufacturing firms? The second one is do factors that increase or decrease the probability of relocation tendencies change according to firm size and varying manufacturing sectors? Therefore, the aim of the study is to investigate what guides relocation decisions of manufacturing firms’ according to firm size and varying sectors. Investigation is done by applying conditional logit model. In the first step, the reasons for relocation tendency are explored initially in relationship to the age of the firm, tenure, total employment and total capital. Added explanation then considers the physical conditions of production site: total size of the production site, age of the building and the type of the building. The analysis is expanded by adding location effects in the third step. Location effect of input transport cost, location effect of output transport cost and location effect of labor market is analyzed to demonstrate how they increase the likelihood of a firm relocation decision. Further, environmental characteristics are added to elaborate their impact on the probability of a firm relocation decision. It is expected that consistent variables would provide a significant source of explanation in any model. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p563&r=ure |
| By: | Ana Angulo; Fernando Lopéz; Jésus Mur |
| Abstract: | The seemingly unrelated regressions (SUR) equations are a traditional multivariate econometric formulation employed in very different fields including, obviously, spatial analysis. The basis of the approach is very well known due to the initial works of Zellner (1962), Theil (1971), Malinvaud (1970), Schmidt (1976) and Dwivedi and Srivastava (1978). In this paper, we address the case of a SUR model that involves spatial effects, under the configuration of a given number of equations, G, a finite number of crosssections, T, and a large number of spatial units, R. The problem that we pose is testing for the presence of spatial effects, as in Mur and López (2008), and to select the most adequate spatial model for the data, as in Mur et al (2010). Following these papers, we also assume a maximum-likelihood framework that facilitates the obtaining of simple Lagrange Multipliers, with good behaviour in small-sized samples. Then, we focus on the assumption of constancy (among equations, between cross-sections) of the parameters of spatial dependence. In a standard framework, these coefficients are allowed to vary between equations but not in time. In general terms, this is an unnecessary assumption to start with the econometric modelling. For this reason, we extend the discussion to the problem of the instability of the coefficients of crosssectional dependence, both in a spatial dimension and among equations. We present the results of a small Monte Carlo experiment to study the behaviour of the Lagrange Multipliers developed in order to analyze the assumption of parameter stability. Finally, an application of these techniques to the case of the European regional employment, at NUTS II level and disaggregated by sectors of activity, in the period 1980 to 2008, is also included. We specify a SUR model where each equation corresponds to a sector of activity. Provisional results indicate that there exist strong symptoms of instability in the spatial structure of the equations, although this structure appears to be stable in time. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p487&r=ure |
| By: | Esteban Fernandez-Vazquez |
| Abstract: | The traditional approach to estimate spatial models bases on a preconceived spatial weights matrix to measure spatial interaction among locations. The a priori assumptions used to define this matrix are supposed to be in line with the “true” spatial relationships among the locations of the dataset. Another possibility consists on using some information present on the sample data to specify an empirical matrix of spatial weights. In this paper we propose to estimate spatial cross-regressive models by generalized maximum entropy (GME). This technique allows combing assumptions about the spatial interconnections among the locations studied with information from the sample data. Hence, the spatial component of the model estimated by the techniques proposed is not just preconceived but it allows incorporating empirical information. We compare some traditional methodologies with the proposed GME estimator by means of Monte Carlo simulations in several scenarios and show that the entropy-based estimation techniques can outperform traditional approaches. An empirical case is also studied in order to illustrate the implementation of the proposed techniques for a real-world example. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p503&r=ure |
| By: | Eriksen, Tine Louise Mundbjerg (Aarhus University); Nielsen, Helena Skyt (Aarhus University); Simonsen, Marianne (Aarhus University) |
| Abstract: | Bullying is a widespread social phenomenon. We show that both children who are being bullied and children who bully suffer in terms of long-term outcomes. We rely on rich survey and register-based data for children born in a region of Denmark during 1990-1992, which allows us to carefully consider possible confounders. Evidence from a number of identification strategies suggests that the relationship is causal. Besides the direct effect bullying may have on the child in the longer run, we show that an additional mechanism can arise through teacher perceptions of short-run abilities and behavior. |
| Keywords: | victimization, perpetrator, crime, education, health, mental health |
| JEL: | L14 I21 |
| Date: | 2012–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6718&r=ure |
| By: | Anabela Ribeiro; Jorge Silva |
| Abstract: | Cross-border regions’ development is one of the EU major current concerns. These regions are usually less dynamic socio-economically and correspond to peripheral areas within each country. Some of these regions have recently benefited from the existence of new roads, which investment was mainly possible through the European financial programme of Transnational Transport Networks, TEN-T. Almost twenty years after its implementation start, and after initial observations on the impacts, some development problems get unexpectedly worst. Moreover, the accessibility role in regional development is not effectively accounted in the actual scientific production and the work devoted to this issue is not significant, even less if devoted to cross-border accessibility. An investigation is starting now in Portugal, using statistical spatial analysis (including spatial regression analysis and spill over analysis), to evaluate how accessibilities from each side of the border influence the other side, and how corresponding municipalities influence each other socio-economically. Using socioeconomic data from the all cross-border extension between Portugal and Spain a model will be calibrated, able to measure the relation between accessibility and development. In an early stage, it is important to look through the behaviour of both sides of the border separately, preparing the modeling process with accuracy. This initial study also prepares the setting for a more complete study including both sides of the border, therefore including Spanish data. This paper presents the spatial behaviour for a set of socioeconomic development variables including accessibility, in all the Portuguese municipalities in the border (including first and second neighbours) and for the periods of 1981-1991 and 1991-2001. This spatial behaviour analysis lead to two main conclusions: some tendencies were previously detected intuitively and this study just confirms it. Other interesting tendencies in the relationship between accessibility and development on the border region were only detected by using spatial analysis techniques. These latter tendencies represent important criteria to account for on the management and planning of existing and future transport infrastructures between the two countries. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p456&r=ure |
| By: | Roel Rutten; Irawati Dessy |
| Abstract: | The literature on trust, control and knowledge creation in seems to be moving towards a consensus. Trust is necessary to create an open atmosphere for knowledge creation while control acts as a safeguard against malfeasance. Networks that neglect either one often create less knowledge, such as new skills and products. Temporary networks, however, may have to depend more on control than on trust since their temporary nature may reduce the opportunity to develop trust. This paper contributes to the literature on trust, control and knowledge creation by empirically examining these variables in temporary innovation networks in the Eindhoven region in the Netherlands. Previous research showed that these networks contribute to regional economic development. This paper explores the mechanism through which this happens. Temporary innovation networks may lack trust in case the partners had no previously collaboration. They may therefore rely more heavily on control. On the other hand, these networks are formed with a specific purpose and may have mechanism to compensate for a lack of trust. The research question of this paper is: How do trust and control affect knowledge creation outcomes of these networks? Several factors that may affect this causal relation will be taken into account: - Previous relations among partners, - Mutual dependency among partners, - Level of agreement on project goals. The data for this research were collected in 2005. The paper develops several theoretical patterns on how trust and control affect knowledge creation among the members of the temporary networks and how this yields knowledge creation outcomes. Different levels of trust and control have different effects on the willingness to share knowledge and the use of communication modes. Control encourages formal communication that emphasizes the exchange of codified knowledge, while trust encourages informal communication that emphasizes the exchange of tacit knowledge. Both are necessary to produce knowledge creation outcomes. The paper develops several theoretical patterns that ar matched to empirical patterns derived from selected networks (cases) in the Eindhoven region. The results show that a combination of moderate control and high levels of trust produce the highest levels of knowledge creation outcomes. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p535&r=ure |
| By: | Boo Edgar; Adli Abouzeedan; Thomas Hedner |
| Abstract: | Scenario planning is a tool that can be used to project and promote innovation activities in organizations. The more disruptive the innovation is, the more beneficial effects will be expected to come out of utilizing a scenario planning process. This planning approach may be considered when discussing innovation in relation to regional development as well as in respect to the introduction of novel and potentially radical innovations. In this paper, we discuss the utilization of scenario planning to promote innovation in a regional development context. Scenario planning may provide possibilities for creating various alternative but plausible outcomes (scenarios) of the future and may further provide the possibility to examine them in depth. Scenario planning considers the uncertainties and driving forces that may have an impact on the dynamics of regional development. In the paper we discuss the policies and strategies which are required to promote and enhance the application of the scenario planning technique in initiating and sustaining progress and development in the Nordic region. Keywords: Scenario planning, innovation, regional development, plausible outcomes, regional development. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1294&r=ure |
| By: | Knut Sandberg Eriksen |
| Abstract: | Road improvements lead to benefits in the form of e.g. reduced travelling time, improved traffic safety and reduced emissions. These improvements do not only benefit the actual road users, but they are also “spreading” into the local community or neighbouring communities through several types of effects e.g. enlarged labour markets. There may be “wider” benefits, meaning that the total net benefits of the project are greater than the sum of net benefits of the road users. Actually the question is not whether these “wider” benefits exist, but whether they are of any practical importance or if they might as well be ignored in ordinary economic evaluation. During several decades economists have tried to investigate the hypothesis with varying results depending on model as well as on data. The present paper follows up our two earlier studies, where we have tried to establish whether road investments contribute to economic growth, which our earlier studies give little support for. Previously we have analysed data for industry sector or for geographical regions. This time we have sufficient data for analysing industry sector within each region. Our approaches are inspired by an article by John G. Fernald presented in 1999. Four models are analysed, based on data from Statistics Norway, for the period 1997-2005. The models have the same design, only the size of time-lags varies. The analyses show that out of four models only one produces significant results. In this model productivity growth is lagged two years behind road investments to allow for the improvements to be completed. What we find is that significance is high, but the size of the productivity coefficients is rather small, just around 1 2 percents, depending upon the cost shares. Models with other time-lags produce insignificant and diverging results. The time variable is highly significant with a positive sign, thus indicating that road investments are becoming more productivity enhancing over time. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1613&r=ure |
| By: | Anca Dachin; Daniela Constantin; Zizi Goschin; Constantin Mitrut; Bogdan Ileanu |
| Abstract: | Among the EU countries, Romania displays the highest share of rural population (45%), most of it employed in agriculture. Moreover, there is a significant variation between the eight NUTS 2 regions with regards to the urban distribution and dynamics, with important intra-regional differences between the constituent counties. This paper proposes an inquiry into the capacity of urban centres to contribute to rural development in Romania from R&D and innovation perspective. First, the rural-urban gap is discussed, pointing at the consequences of the delay in implementing the reform of the production system in agriculture in terms of employment and income. Then, the positive influence of towns and cities on raising the share of employment in non-agricultural activities in rural areas is demonstrated by means of the available statistical data. Further on, the analysis of the regional dimension of R&D and innovation shows an increasing polarisation both between and within the eight development regions. The main conclusion is that the regions or counties with predominantly agricultural activities developed in subsistence households are not enough prepared to access R&D and innovation results. This conclusion is also confirmed by a regression model that analyses the influence of rural areas on regional growth. The above findings are examined in correlation with the expected positive contribution of the current rural development programme as well as of the regional operational programme and competitiveness sectorial programme funded by the EU. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1236&r=ure |
| By: | Jonas Westin |
| Abstract: | The purpose of the presentation is to analyze the labor market effects of a congestion charge when commuters have continuously distributed value of time. Since a congestion charge raises the cost of commuting to work, it can decrease employment at the extensive margin in a similar way as an income tax. Without any form of revenue recycling, the resulting welfare loss from the decreased employment can even exceed the Pigouvian welfare gain from internalizing the congestion externality. A common conclusion in the literature, when comparing different revenue recycling schemes, is that it in general is more effective to use the revenues to cut taxes in the labor market compared to subsidizing public transport or returning them in a lump-sum transfer. A critical assumption in many of the previous cost-benefit analyses of congestion charges is however that there only exists a single value of time. This is somewhat surprising since one of the main features of a congestion charge is that it sorts people according to their value of time, given the existence of feasible transport alternatives. This paper intends to challenge this conclusion by analyzing how previous results hold if we, instead of using a representative individual, consider a population with a continuously distributed value of time. The model used in the paper is created with the Stockholm congestion charging trial in mind, but the analysis can just as well be applied to any city with a well developed public transport service. In the paper a simple traffic model is embedded within a general equilibrium framework where a large number of individuals with different values of time choose labor supply at the extensive margin and mode of transportation. In contrast to previous models, a modal-choice approach is used to model how the value of time for different individuals affects their choice of travel mode. The disaggregated travel demand model makes it possible to analyze how self-selection of mode choice affects labor supply, total welfare and the relative performance of the different revenue recycling schemes. Special attention will also be given to the distributional impacts of the different recycling schemes. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1458&r=ure |
| By: | Egle Tafenau; Tiiu Paas |
| Abstract: | The interaction of inequality and growth and the direction of causality in this relationship have been an extensively discussed topic with several questions but without clear answers both in the theoretical and empirical literature. The current paper contributes mainly into the new economic geography (NEG) literature by focusing on the member states of the European Union. The purpose of the paper is to shed light on the effect of the economic development level and speed of growth on the relationship between economic growth and regional inequality. The research hypothesis of a significant interrelation between regional inequality and economic growth is discussed based on the models of NEG. The empirical part of the paper relies on the regional data of the 27 European Union member states at the classification level NUTS 3 over the period 1996–2006. The results of the empirical analysis allow us to conclude that regional inequality has a pro-cyclical character: regional inequality is as a rule higher in countries and time periods when economic growth is faster. However, this relationship varied between the countries of the EU-27 during the period under observation, depending on the development level. While in the Western European countries regional inequality and economic growth are negatively related, in the Eastern European countries regional inequality increases in the periods of fast economic growth. Relying on the NEG models, such differences can be explained by a different weight of internal and foreign markets in trade relations of countries and regions. Possibly the result also refers to disparities in congestion costs in Western and Eastern European core regions. We conclude that growth enhancing policy measures should be implemented at a different regional scale, depending on the level of economic development and growth of the countries. Growth supporting policies in poor countries should first of all concentrate on achieving sustainable national growth, not on reducing regional disparities. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p938&r=ure |
| By: | Rafael Boix Domenech; Luciana Lazzeretti; Francesco Capone; Lisa De Propris; Daniel Sanchez |
| Abstract: | The creative economy is a holistic and multidisciplinary concept that deals with the interaction between economics, culture and technology, and centred on the production of creative contents in goods and services. One of the most relevant dimensions of creativity is the territorial one. Despite the emphasis put on the theoretical definition of creativity, the measurement of creative industries and the use of these concepts in macro units as well as in isolated case studies, it is necessary to strengthen comparative research for the identification and analysis of the kind of creativity embedded in the territory, its determinants and its patterns of concentration. This compared research relies on the measurement of the creative industries and the identification of their territorial patterns of distribution in the local production systems of five European countries: Italy, France, the United Kingdom, Spain and Portugal. Creative local production systems are identified in these countries departing from local labour markets as territorial units, firms and jobs in creative industries, and focusing on two different kinds of creative industries: traditional cultural industries and technology-related creative industries. The results show that creative industries are more important in some countries like Italy and the United Kingdom, and that their spatial patterns of distribution are significantly different across countries, where three basic models emerge: distributed, concentrated and polarized. The implications of these patterns on the analysis of creative industries as well as on the design and implementation of policies are discussed. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1501&r=ure |