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on Economic Geography |
| By: | Gomellini, Matteo (Department of Economic History, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Missiaia, Anna (Department of Economic History, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Pellegrino, Dario (Department of Economic History, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University) |
| Abstract: | Globalization can create winners and losers at the spatial level within national economies. 1bis paper examines the economic impact of international trade on local economies in the case of late nineteenth-century Italy. We combine data on foreign trade at the national level with census data on manufacturing employment, and with our new estimates of agricultural employment by crop at the provincial level. Crossing this information, we compute two measures of trade exposure at the local level, namely import penetration and export ratio. We then perform a panel analysis to test whether changes in trade exposure explained provincial GDP growth. First, we detect that import penetration of agricultural products was associated with lower growth of Southern provinces. Second, we :find that Northern provinces were more able to benefit from positive export dynamics in the manufacturing sector. The latter finding might stem from a higher degree of mechanization among Northern manufacturing firms. These results suggest that trade exposure could have been a factor contributing to widening the (already existent and growing) North-South gap. |
| Keywords: | First; Globalization:; lntemational; Trade:; Regional; Development:; Italian; Economic; History |
| JEL: | F14 N13 N73 N93 R11 |
| Date: | 2022–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunhis:0030&r=geo |
| By: | Apablaza, Mauricio; Sehnbruch, Kirsten; González, Pablo; Méndez, Rocío |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a multidimensional synthetic index for measuring the quality of employment using the Alkire–Foster method. The results generated by this index highlight important differences between Chile's regions, but also a process of convergence, which has been mostly driven by regulatory changes and public policy rather than economic growth. The paper shows how much a synthetic index can contribute to regional analysis and how it can inform policymakers by focusing attention on the most vulnerable workers in regional labour markets. |
| Keywords: | labour markets; Latin America; quality of employment; regional convergence; regional studies; grant number GP1\100170 |
| JEL: | J40 J48 N56 R23 |
| Date: | 2022–10–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:117192&r=geo |
| By: | Georgios TSIACHTSIRAS; Deyun YIN; Ernest MIGUELEZ; Rosina MORENO |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the effect of the High Speed Rail (HSR) network expansion on local innovation in China during the period 2008-2016. Using exogenous variation arising from a novel instrument - courier’s stations during the Ming dynasty, we find solid evidence that the opening of a HSR station increases cities’ innovation activity. We also explore the role of inter-city technology diffusion as being behind the surge of local innovation. To do it, we compute least-cost paths between city-pairs, over time, based on the opening and speed of each HSR line, and obtain that an increase in a city’s connectivity to other cities specialized in a specific technological field, through the HSR network, increases the probability for the city to specialize in that same technological field. We interpret it as evidence of knowledge diffusion. |
| Keywords: | high speed rail, innovation, technology diffusion, patents, specialization |
| JEL: | R40 O18 O30 O33 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grt:bdxewp:2022-24&r=geo |
| By: | Choi, Jaedo; Shim, Younghun |
| Abstract: | We study how the adoption of foreign technology and local spillovers from such adoption contributed to late industrialization in a developing country during the postwar period. Using novel historical firm-level data for South Korea, we provide three empirical findings: direct productivity gains to adopters, local productivity spillovers of the adoption, and complementarity in firms' adoption decisions. Based on these findings, we develop a dynamic spatial model with firms' technology adoption decisions and local spillovers. The spillovers induce dynamic complementarity in firms' technology adoption decisions. Because of this complementarity, the model potentially features multiple steady states. Temporary adoption subsidies can have permanent effects by moving an economy to a new transition path that converges to a higher-productivity steady state. We calibrate our model to the microdata and econometric estimates. We evaluate the effects of the South Korean government policy that temporarily provided adoption subsidies to heavy manufacturing firms in the 1970s. Had no adoption subsidies been provided, South Korea would have converged to a less industrialized steady state in which the heavy manufacturing sector’s share of GDP would have been 15 percentage points lower and aggregate welfare would have been 10% lower compared to the steady state with successful industrialization. Thus, temporary subsidies for technology adoption had permanent effects. |
| Keywords: | Technology adoption, industrialization, knowledge spillover, path dependence, big push |
| JEL: | O14 O33 O53 R12 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:115438&r=geo |
| By: | Ebba Mark; Ryan Rafaty; Moritz Schwarz |
| Abstract: | The United States, much like other countries around the world, faces significant obstacles to achieving a rapid decarbonization of its economy. Crucially, decarbonization disproportionately affects the communities that have been historically, politically, and socially embedded in the nation's fossil fuel production. However, this effect has rarely been quantified in the literature. Using econometric estimation methods that control for unobserved heterogeneity via two-way fixed effects, spatial effects, heterogeneous time trends, and grouped fixed effects, we demonstrate that mine closures induce a significant and consistent contemporaneous rise in the unemployment rate across US counties. A single mine closure can raise a county's unemployment rate by 0.056 percentage points in a given year; this effect is amplified by a factor of four when spatial econometric dynamics are considered. Although this response in the unemployment rate fades within 2-3 years, it has far-reaching effects in its immediate vicinity. Furthermore, we use cluster analysis to build a novel typology of coal counties based on qualities that are thought to facilitate a successful recovery in the face of local industrial decline. The combined findings of the econometric analysis and typology point to the importance of investing in alternative sectors in places with promising levels of economic diversity, retraining job seekers in places with lower levels of educational attainment, providing relocation (or telecommuting) support in rural areas, and subsidizing childcare and after school programs in places with low female labor force participation due to the gendered division of domestic work. |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2211.12619&r=geo |
| By: | Gopal, Sucharita; Fischer, Manfred M. |
| Abstract: | This paper employs a spatial Durbin panel data model, an extension of the cross-sectional spatial Durbin model to a panel data framework, to estimate the impact of a set of demographic and economic factors on state-level opioid-related mortalities in the US. The empirical model uses a pool of US states over six years from 2014 to 2019 and a nearest-neighbor matrix that represents the topological structure between the states. Calculation of direct (own state) and indirect (cross- state spillovers) effects estimates -- based on Bayesian estimation and inference -- reflects a proper interpretation of the marginal effects for our nonlinear model that involves lags of the dependent variable vector. The study provides evidence for the existence of spatial effects working through the dependent variable vector and points to the importance of larger indirect effects of Asian and Hispanic/Latino minorities on the one side and the population age groups 35-44 years and 65 years and older on the other. This finding echoes the first law of geography that "everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things" (Tobler 1970). Space -- largely neglected in previous research -- matters for gaining a valid and better understanding of why and how neighboring states contribute to opioid- related mortality in the states. |
| Keywords: | Spatial Durbin panel data model; Bayesian econometrics; Markov Chain Monte Carlo; direct (own state) effects; indirect (cross-state spatial spillover) effects; inferential statistics |
| Date: | 2022–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wus046:31653118&r=geo |
| By: | Stark, Oded; Pang, Yu; Fan, Simon |
| Abstract: | We study a developing countries setting in which agglomeration efficiency of urban production attracts rural-to-urban migration, whereas urban pollution deters rural-to-urban migration. By means of a general equilibrium model we study the formation of policies aimed at striking a socially optimal balance between supporting efficient levels of urban agglomeration and mitigating urban pollution in the presence of endogenous rural-to-urban migration. We show that without government intervention, although rural-to-urban migration contributes to agglomeration economies, it does not improve social welfare because it also exacerbates environmental degradation. We also show that urban pollution problems cannot be resolved by means of environmental regulation alone: for example, an emissions tax aimed at curbing urban pollution can backfire as and when it increases the appeal of rural-to-urban migration. A policy of emissions tax in conjunction with a subsidy to rural individuals is an effective means of enhancing urban productivity while reducing urban pollution. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics and Policy, Labor and Human Capital, Public Economics |
| Date: | 2022–11–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:ubzefd:329522&r=geo |
| By: | Khrystyna Huk; Ayaz Zeynalov |
| Abstract: | This research is devoted to assessing regional economic disparities in Ukraine, where regional economic inequality is a crucial issue the country faces in its medium and long-term development, recently, even in the short term. We analyze the determinants of regional economic growth, mainly industrial and agricultural productions, population, human capital, fertility, migration, and regional government expenditures. Using panel data estimations from 2004 to 2020 for 27 regions of Ukraine, our results show that the gaps between regions in Ukraine have widened last two decades. The disparities can be explained by natural resource distribution, agricultural and industrial productions, government spending, and migration. We show that regional government spending is highly concentrated in Kyiv, and the potential of the other regions, especially the Western ones, has not been used sufficiently. Moreover, despite its historical and economic opportunity, the East region did not perform significant development during the last two decades. The inefficient and inconsistent regional policies played a crucial role in these disparities. |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2211.05666&r=geo |
| By: | Bruno Conte; Klaus Desmet; Esteban Rossi-Hansberg |
| Abstract: | A unilateral carbon tax trades off the distortionary costs of taxation and the future gains from slowing down global warming. Because the cost is local and immediate, whereas the benefit is global and delayed, this tradeoff tends to be unfavorable to unilateral carbon taxes. We show that this logic breaks down in a world with trade and migration where economic geography is shaped by agglomeration economies and congestion forces. Using a multisector dynamic spatial integrated assessment model (S-IAM), this paper predicts that a carbon tax introduced by the European Union (EU) and rebated locally can, if not too large, increase the size of Europe’s economy by concentrating economic activity in its high-productivity non-agricultural core and by incentivizing immigration to the EU. The resulting change in the spatial distribution of economic activity improves global efficiency and welfare. A unilateral carbon tax with local rebating introduced by the US generates similar global welfare gains. Other forms of rebating can dilute or revert this positive effect. |
| JEL: | F18 H23 O13 O44 Q56 R11 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30678&r=geo |
| By: | Setthasuravich, Prasongchai; Sirikhan, Kulacha; Kato, Hironori |
| Abstract: | This study explores spatial patterns in the digital divide and its determinants at a sub-district level in Thailand. This study's design is based on the Spatially Aware Technology Utilization Model, which is used to construct a conceptual model of the digital divide from a geospatial perspective in Thailand. A spatial econometric approach was used to analyze the data set of basic household necessities information from 2021 provided by the Community Development Department of Thailand. The results show a positive spatial autocorrelation of the household internet access divide (HIAD) across Thailand's sub-districts. This spatial clustering tended to be high-high in the sub-districts located in the northeastern and northern regions, with low-low agglomerations in the central region of Thailand. In addition, the spatial econometric analysis results indicated that the HIAD may be influenced by demographic, economic, educational, government ICT prioritization, social capital, transportation, and disaster-related variables of neighboring sub-districts in Thailand. This study provides both theoretical and policy implications to enrich geographic knowledge of the digital divide, specifically in the context of developing countries. |
| Keywords: | Digital divide,Digital inequality,Spatial analysis,Internet use,Determinant,Cluster,Thailand,Sub-district |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:itse22:265668&r=geo |