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on Economic Geography |
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Issue of 2017‒04‒30
twelve papers chosen by Andreas Koch Institut für Angewandte Wirtschaftsforschung |
| By: | Carl Gaigne (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) - CESAER); Hans R.A. Koster (VU University Amsterdam - Faculty of Economics and Business Administration); Fabien Moizeau (Universite Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne - Equipe Universitaire de Recherche en Economie); Jacques-Francois Thisse (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | We develop a new model of a "featureful" city in which locations are differentiated by two attributes, that is, the distance to employment centers and the accessibility to given amenities, and we show how heterogeneous households in income are sorted out across the urban space. Under Stone-Geary preferences, the spatial income distribution is governed by a location-quality index which reffects the interaction between the amenity and commuting cost functions. The residential equilibrium typically involves the spatial separation of households sharing similar incomes. Using data on Dutch cities, we show that there is a causal relationship between the amenity level and consumer income, suggesting that richer households sort themselves into high amenity locations. We do not find strong evidence that employment accessibility leads to income segregation, suggesting that the standard monocentric city model without amenities is a poor predictor of the social structure of cities. |
| Keywords: | cities, social stratication, income, amenities, commuting |
| JEL: | R14 R23 R53 Z13 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:162/ec/2017&r=geo |
| By: | Shamnaaz B. Sufrauj (Department of Economics, University Of Venice Cà Foscari); Giancarlo Corò (Economics, Languages and Entrepreneurship, University Of Venice Cà Foscari); Mario Volpe (Department of Economics, University Of Venice Cà Foscari) |
| Abstract: | Labour market rigidity is known to hamper the proper adjustment of an economy, thus, making it less resilient to shocks. This paper investigates the characteristics and resilience of the regional labour flow network in Veneto, a region famous for its industrial districts and the expertise of its workforce. A unique database of inter-firm worker mobility is used and the made-in-Italy relatedness to other industries is quantified. Descriptive results suggest that permanent-contract workers are more mobile within-sector than fixed-term contractors. The latter are more mobile across sectors. A finer disaggregation of the made-in-Italy industries shows that textile, food and woodwork are highly related to leisure-retail, logistics-wholesale and agriculture. These results can orient policy-making in getting faster labour reallocation. Network analysis establishes a number of stylised facts about labour flow networks, in particular, a hierarchical organisation of flows and a preference for workers to move from low-connected to high-connected firms and vice-versa, i.e. disassortativity. Unlike previous research, this paper identifies clusters of a non-spatial nature, that are, based on the intensity of labour flows. Regression analysis shows that labour mobility, both in and out, is beneficial for firms. However, being located inside labour clusters negatively affects firm performance. Interestingly, when these clusters include MNEs, they benefit. These results combined suggest that variety of connections prevails over standardisation. |
| Keywords: | Labour mobility, network analysis, skill-relatedness cross-industry linkages |
| JEL: | J24 J62 L14 R23 F23 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ven:wpaper:2017:06&r=geo |
| By: | Franziska Pudelko (Department of Geography, Philipps University Marburg); Christian Hundt (Department of Geography, Ruhr University Bochum) |
| Abstract: | The paper empirically investigates the economic resilience of Western German regions in the wake of the Great Recession of 2008/2009. In particular, the focus is laid on the influence of regional agglomeration economies (arising from specialization, related and unrelated variety) and the explicit sudivision of short-term resilience into resistance and recovery. The necessity to distinguish between different factors and phases is well documented by means of the OLS regression results as all three types of agglomeration economies reveal varying, if not opposing directions of influences across the resistance and recovery phase. A pregnant example refers to regional specialization. Not only does it show a negative impact on resistance while exerting a positive influence during the recovery phase, but it is also mediated by the regional share in manufacturing workforce. This workforce reveals opposing phase-specific facts itself. hence, ignoring the two-component structure of short-term resilience entails the risk of imprecise, if not false conclusions on the driving mechanisms stabilizing and/or destabilizing regional economies in times of crisis. |
| Keywords: | regional economic resilience, resistance, recovery, agglomeration economies, industry structure |
| JEL: | R11 R12 E32 |
| Date: | 2017–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pum:wpaper:2017-01&r=geo |
| By: | Martin Beraja; Andreas Fuster; Erik Hurst; Joseph Vavra |
| Abstract: | We argue that the time-varying regional distribution of housing equity influences the aggregate consequences of monetary policy through its effects on mortgage refinancing. Using detailed loan-level data, we show that regional differences in housing equity affect refinancing and spending responses to interest rate cuts but that these effects vary over time with changes in the regional distribution of house price growth and unemployment. We then build a heterogeneous household model of refinancing and use it to explore the aggregate implications for monetary policy arising from our regional evidence. We find that the 2008 equity distribution made spending in depressed regions less responsive to interest rate cuts, thus dampening aggregate stimulus and increasing regional consumption inequality, whereas the opposite occurred in some earlier recessions. Taken together, our results strongly suggest that monetary policy makers should track the regional distribution of equity over time. |
| JEL: | E21 E32 E5 R1 R2 |
| Date: | 2017–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23270&r=geo |
| By: | Pierre-Philippe Combes (Univ Lyon, CNRS, GATE L-SE UMR 5824, 93 chemin des Mouilles, F-69130 Ecully, France; Sciences Po, Department of Economics, 28, Rue des Saints-Pères, 75007 Paris, France. Also research fellow at the CEPR.); Sylvie Démurger (Université de Lyon, Lyon, F-69007, France ; CNRS, GATE Lyon St Etienne,F-69130 Ecully, France. Also research fellow at IZA, Bonn, Germany); Shi Li (School of Business, Beijing Normal University, China; IZA, Bonn, Germany) |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the evolution of productivity gains from Chinese cities over time, from 2002 to 2013. In 2002, rural migrants were exerting a strong positive externality on natives' earnings, which were also higher when access to foreign markets through access to sea was higher. In 2007 and then further in 2013, city size (employment density but also land area) has become the crucial determinant of productivity whereas market access, internal or external, plays no direct role. Rural migrants still enhance natives' earnings, though the effect is more than hal f lower than in 2002. Urban gains, and their evolution over time, are very similar on total and per hour earnings. Skilled workers and females seem to gain slightly more from cities than unskilled workers and males. |
| Keywords: | urban development, agglomeration economies, wage disparities, migration, China |
| JEL: | O18 R12 R23 J31 O53 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gat:wpaper:1709&r=geo |
| By: | KONDO Keisuke |
| Abstract: | Recent studies on the empirics of agglomeration economies have assumed a two-step channel of the urban wage premium in which agglomeration increases total factor productivity (TFP) and results in higher wages. Therefore, the present study empirically examines the validity of this two-step channel via TFP and investigates other channels of the urban wage premium by using matched employer-employee data in the Japanese manufacturing sector. The findings show that the standard wage regression approach used in the literature captures not only the TFP channel of the urban wage premium but also other effects (e.g., firm size effects on wage). Furthermore, when this TFP channel is quantified, the city size elasticity of wage becomes smaller than those in the existing literature. The implication of this study is that, by exploiting the features of the Japanese employment system, it is possible to obtain interesting results concerning the urban wage premium, especially in regard to basic pay and bonuses. |
| Date: | 2017–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:17047&r=geo |
| By: | Gabriel Rissola (European Commission – JRC); Fernando Hervás (European Commission - JRC); Milena Slavcheva (European Commission - JRC); Koen Jonkers (European Commission – JRC) |
| Abstract: | The present case study pursues to identify key success factors in Espoo innovation ecosystem, with a particular attention to the role of Aalto University, with a view to inform policies aimed at supporting the strengthening and emergence of existing and new place-based innovation ecosystems in other EU regions and cities, as well as of entrepreneurial universities. It starts by defining what a place-based innovation ecosystem is intended to be, and identifies a conceptual framework that can operationalise the study of concrete cases. The study continues with a presentation of the main local actors and pre-existing enabling factors, progressively moves to the catalysers that have made this innovation garden flourish (notably the reforms that enabled the emergence of Aalto University with its particular governance model) and finally analyses its Quadruple Helix collaboration model and the way the whole ecosystem is orchestrated. |
| Keywords: | place-based, territorial, urban, innovation ecosystem, smart specialisation, entrepreneurial university, quadruple helix, orchestration |
| Date: | 2017–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc106122&r=geo |
| By: | Thierry Mayer (Département d'économie); Florian Mayneris (Institut de recherches économiques et sociales); Loriane Py (Banque de France) |
| Abstract: | In this article, we study the impact of a French enterprise zone program—the ‘Zones Franches Urbaines’ (ZFUs) policy—on establishment location decisions and on labor market outcomes. Our main identification strategy, which combines spatial and time differencing, shows that conditional on locating in a municipality that hosts a ZFU, the policy has a positive and sizable impact on the probability to locate in the ZFU part rather than in the non-ZFU part of municipalities. However, the impact is highly heterogeneous across zones, industries and firms. We also show that this positive effect is entirely due to within-municipality diversion effects. Regarding labor market outcomes, the policy has a positive effect on employment, especially for low-wage workers. As for wages, the effect is null for low-wage workers, and negative for high-wage ones. |
| Keywords: | Firm location; Enterprise zones; Employment; Wages; Spatial differencing |
| JEL: | R12 R38 R58 |
| Date: | 2015–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/3l4arseauo82kr3cm0qr8uihmg&r=geo |
| By: | Thomas Brenner (Department of Geography, Philipps University Marburg) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides two things. First, it gives an overview on the existing top-down methods for the identification of clusters (Section II). Second, it presents a new method that has been recently introduced by Scholl and Brenner (2016) in a basic version. However, the existing version of this approach is limited and does not take full advantage of its potential. The approach is further developed here and its characteristics and the procedure of its use are presented and discussed in detail (Section III). |
| Keywords: | Cluster, cluster identification, spatial methods |
| JEL: | C43 R12 L60 |
| Date: | 2017–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pum:wpaper:2017-02&r=geo |
| By: | Cristina Bernini (University of Bologna); Alessandro Tampieri (University of Bologna and CREA, Université du Luxembourg) |
| Abstract: | We investigate how the city of residence influences subjective well-being. We build up a happiness function that considers city characteristics as determinants of well-being, and we combine individual and city level data through a multi-level analysis. We exploit the dataset HADL on Italian metropolitan area over the period 2010 to 2013. We find a strong variability across cities of the aspects of life that explain subjective well-being. Even accounting for a rich set of individual level variables, the location retains a role in shaping life satisfaction. Surprisingly, economic and familiar aspects explain happiness more at city level than at individual level. |
| Keywords: | Subjective well-being; happiness function; metropolitan area; multilevel models; city amenities. |
| JEL: | I31 R10 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:luc:wpaper:17-07&r=geo |
| By: | Alireza Ermagun; David Levinson (Nexus (Networks, Economics, and Urban Systems) Research Group, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Minnesota) |
| Abstract: | This study introduces the network weight matrix as a replacement for the spatial weight matrix to measure the spatial dependence between links of a network. This matrix stems from the concept of betweenness centrality and vulnerability in network science. The elements of the matrix are a function not simply of proximity, but of network topology, network structure, and demand configuration. The network weight matrix has distinctive characteristic, which are capable of reflecting spatial dependence between traffic links: (1) The elements are allowed to have negative and positive values, which capture competitive and complementary nature of links, (2) The diagonal elements are not fixed to zero, which takes the self-dependence of a link upon itself into consideration, and (3) The elements not only reflect the spatial dependence based on the network structure, but they acknowledge the demand configuration as well. We verified the network weight matrix by modeling traffic flows in a 3x3 grid test network with 9 nodes and 24 directed links connecting 72 origin-destination (OD) pairs. The results disclose models encompassing the network weight matrix outperform both models without spatial components and models with the spatial weight matrix. This leads inexorably to the conclusion that the network weight matrix represents a more accurate and defensible spatial dependency between traffic links, and thereby augments traffic flow prediction. |
| Keywords: | Spatial Weight Matrix, Spatial Econometrics, Traffic Flow, Traffic Network |
| JEL: | R40 C21 C22 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nex:wpaper:networkweightmatrixintroduction&r=geo |
| By: | Juan Tomas Sayago-Gomez (Regional Research Institute, West Virginia University) |
| Abstract: | This technical document is a guide for using Google APIs to find information for research purposes. First, I apply the code to find the elevation at a given set of coordinates for specific locations. Second, I apply the code to find the street distances between two or more sets of coordinates. All the codes and sample files are available in the zip file attached to this guide. |
| Keywords: | geocode, elevation, distance matrix |
| JEL: | Y10 R00 |
| Date: | 2017–04–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rri:wpaper:2017td01&r=geo |