|
on Economic Geography |
| By: | Miren Lafourcade; Jacques-François Thisse |
| Abstract: | The paper surveys the main contributions of new economic geography from the point of view of transport analysis. It shows that decreasing transport costs is likely to exacerbate regional disparities. However, very low transport costs should foster a more balanced distribution for economic activities across space. Thus, the spatial curve of development, which relates the degree of spatial concentration to the level of transport costs, would be bell-shaped. The paper also provides a detailed discussion of the main determinants of transport costs, which remain fairly large in most countries. It concludes with a discussion of some policy implications. |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pse:psecon:2008-02&r=geo |
| By: | Lehmer, Florian; Ludsteck, Johannes (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]) |
| Abstract: | "This paper analyses extensively the effects of inter-regional mobility on the earnings of skilled workers. We interact returns to inter-regional migration with employer changes to separate the two effects and find that inter-regional mobility results in positive additional returns as compared to job mobility within a region in general. Partitioning the sample by experience level and tracing the exact paths of migration, it turns out that both the contemporaneous returns and the wage-growth effects exhibit large differences: for young workers we find the highest contemporaneous returns and the largest wage growth effects. Further analyses show that these returns to migration are strongly influenced by the characteristics of both the region of origin and the region of destination. In contrast to results from economic theory, the returns to inter-regional migration are most significant for people who move to rural districts in agglomerated areas. Altogether, the results indicate that switching to a different workplace in a similar region type pays more than moving to a different type of region." (author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| JEL: | J61 R23 |
| Date: | 2008–02–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:200806&r=geo |
| By: | Yongbok Jeon |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this study is to empirically test the validity of Kaldor’s laws of economic growth in China between 1978 and 2004 and to provide an alternative explanation of sources of Chinese economic growth in a Kaldorian perspective. First, in a spatial econometrics perspective using a regional data set, the present paper empirically verifies that Kaldorian hypotheses on economic growth hold in China during the sample period. Second, it suggests the empirical findings as proving the validity of a demand-side approach. Third, taking this implication, this study provides a more detailed alternative explanation of the sources and processes of economic growth in China during the sample period. Finally, considering a striking finding of the lack of spatial (regional) dependence among Chinese provinces, it also discusses the role of local governments in the development process in China. This study is expected to contribute to the literature as being one of the first studies that identifies sources of Chinese economic growth in demand side. |
| Keywords: | Economic growth in China, Kaldor’s laws, effective demand, Chinese local governments |
| JEL: | O11 O14 O53 R58 |
| Date: | 2008–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uta:papers:2008_04&r=geo |
| By: | Wennberg, Karl (Dept. of Business Administration, Stockholm School of Economics); Lindqvist, Göran (Dept. of Business Administration, Stockholm School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the long-term survival and performance of new entrepreneurial firms, comparing firms located within regional clusters with those located outside of clusters.We use matched employee-employer databases to investigate all Swedish firms started in the telecom and consumer electronic s, financial services, information technology, medical equipment, and pharmaceuticals and biotech sectors (N = 4,397). We follow these firms from 1993 to 2002 and measure their contribution to local economic vitality in term of job creation, payment of taxes, and payment of salaries to employees. <p> Controlling for factors such as firm size, age, and absorptive innovative capabilities, we find strong empirical evidence that being located within a cluster has positive effects on the survival of new firms. We also find that clustered firm creates more jobs, higher tax payments, and higher wages to employees. The effects are consistent across alternative measures of agglomeration and different regional levels. <p> Thid study contributes to the literatures on entrepreneurship and economic geography. By measuring the economic contributions of clustered and non-clustered firms, the empirical evidence also provides support for basing economic policies on clusters. |
| Keywords: | Clusters; Entrepreneurship; Economic Development |
| Date: | 2007–06–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhb:hastba:2008_003&r=geo |
| By: | Fullerton, Thomas; Molina, Angel; Ibarreche, Santiago |
| Abstract: | Regional debates over which metropoitan economy is the dominant growth pole in multi-city areas can be intense. Such discourse is frequently voiced with regard to economic expansion in the El Paso, Texas, USA - Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico borderplex economy. To date, no empirical analyses have been carried out to address that question. Granger causality tests are applied to various cross-border data to shed light on that question and others regarding the nature of regional growth in this international setting. |
| Keywords: | Border economic growth; applied econometrics; population; employment. |
| JEL: | R15 M21 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:7033&r=geo |
| By: | Robin Cowan; Natalia Zinovyev |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes empirically the channels through which university research affects industry innovation. We examine how the opening of new science, medicine and engineering departments in Italy during 1985-2000 affected regional innovation systems. We find that creation of a new univer- sity department increased regional innovation activity 3-4 years later. On average, an openning of a new department in a region has led to a ten per- cent change in the number of patents filed by regional firms. Given that this effect occurs within the first half decade of the appearance of a new depart- ment, it cannot be ascribed to improvements in the quality and quantity of graduates. At the same time, traditional measures of academic research activity can explain only around 30 percent of this effect. |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2008-02&r=geo |
| By: | Ken, Crucita |
| Abstract: | Belize got its Independence when the region was going through an economic crisis with debt burden and traditional export prices reduction. The northern region, once the most important economically, faced major challenges which prompted the introduction of fiscal incentive programs to alleviate the growing unemployment and decreasing economic activity. As an international border, it also faced, during the eighties and nineties, the effects of the Mexican peso devaluation. However, Mexico also constituted its mayor market for the establishment of the Commercial Free Zone. The northern region economy has only partially recovered from the major structural changes that Belize has gone through in its post independence period. |
| Keywords: | Regional development; Belize |
| JEL: | R1 O5 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:7118&r=geo |
| By: | Marie CORIS (GREThA-GRES) |
| Abstract: | The objective of this article is to investigate the dynamics of relocations at the micro-economic level. By proposing a grid of “dynamics of proximities”, we focus on the coordination issues which seem to be missing from most of analyses carried about relocations. We apply our framework to software development activities. The proposition we develop in this paper is the following: mobility, ICT use and modularity reduce the need for geographical proximity and favour relocations but, in order to succeed, relocations need to have the support of organisational and institutional proximities to ensure effective coordination between entities and individuals. |
| Keywords: | relocation, software development, dynamics of proximity, coordination |
| JEL: | F23 L23 L86 R30 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grs:wpegrs:2008-03&r=geo |
| By: | Marie CORIS (GREThA) |
| Abstract: | The objective of this article is to investigate the dynamics of relocations at the micro-economic level. By proposing a grid of “dynamics of proximities”, we focus on the coordination issues which seem to be missing from most of analyses carried about relocations. We apply our framework to software development activities. The proposition we develop in this paper is the following: mobility, ICT use and modularity reduce the need for geographical proximity and favour relocations but, in order to succeed, relocations need to have the support of organisational and institutional proximities to ensure effective coordination between entities and individuals. |
| Keywords: | relocation, software development, dynamics of proximity, coordination. |
| JEL: | F23 L23 L86 R30 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grt:wpegrt:2008-03&r=geo |
| By: | Berliant, Marcus; Watanabe, Hiroki |
| Abstract: | The methodology used by theories to explain the size distribution of cities takes an empirical fact and works backward to first obtain a reduced form of a model, then pushes this reduced form back to assumptions on primitives. The induced assumptions on consumer behavior, particularly about their inability to insure against the city-level productivity shocks in the model, are untenable. With either self insurance or insurance markets, and either an arbitrarily small cost of moving or the assumption that consumers do not perfectly observe the shocks to firms' technologies, the agents will never move. Even without these frictions, our analysis yields another equilibrium with insurance where consumers never move. Thus, insurance is a substitute for movement. Even aggregate shocks are insufficent to generate consumer movement, since consumers can borrow and save. We propose an alternative class of models, involving extreme risk against which consumers will not insure. Instead, they will move. |
| Keywords: | Zipf's Law; Gibrat's Law; Size Distribution of Cities; Extreme Value Theory |
| JEL: | R12 |
| Date: | 2008–02–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:7090&r=geo |
| By: | J. Ignacio Conde-Ruiz; Juan Ramón García; María Navarro |
| Abstract: | España ha pasado en muy poco tiempo de ser un país de emigrantes a un país de inmigrantes. El flujo medio anual de entrada en este nuevo siglo es de 600.000 al año (en la actualidad la inmigración representa el 10,5% de la poblacion total, frente al 2,2% que representaba en el año 2000). Esto ha permitido situar la tasa de crecimiento poblacional en su nivel más alto de la historia. Ademas, el fenomeno no ha sido homogéneo en todo el territorio nacional, más del 55% del stock de inmigrantes se concentra en 3 CCAA (Madrid, Cataluña y la Comunidad Valenciana). El objetivo de este articulo es calcular, mediante un ejercicio contable los efectos de la inmigracion sobre la renta per capita por regiones de la economia española. Para ello analizaremos los efectos de la inmigracion sobre los tres factores que determinan la renta per capita (factor demográfico, tasa de empleo y productividad). Vemos que la inmigracion ha tenido un efecto positivo sobre los dos primeros, pero negativo sobre la productividad. En términos cuantitativos, para el conjunto de España la inmigracion ha tenido un impacto neto neutro sobre la renta per-cápita (0,05 puntos en promedio anual). A nivel regional encontramos diferencias significativas. Por un lado, observamos comunidades como La Rioja, Murcia, Castilla la Mancha, Canarias y Andalucía, donde el impacto global de la inmigración sobre la tasa de crecimiento de la renta per capita ha sido muy positivo. Pero por otro lado, encontramos regiones como Madrid, Navarra, Cataluña, Baleares o Aragon para las cuales el balance ha sido negativo. El impacto de la inmigracion sobre el PIB es mucho más positivo. A nivel nacional más del 38% del crecimiento medio del PIB anual se puede asignar a la inmigracion. Ademas, el impacto sobre el PIB regional es muy positivo en todas las CCAA. |
| Date: | 2008–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fda:fdaddt:2008-08&r=geo |