Starting from the framework proposed by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) − which conceptually links nature's services with human wellbeing − we design and also apply empirically what we have called the total economic value calculating matrix (TEVCM) to estimate the monetary value of the annual flow of benefits provided by Chile's national system of protected areas (NSPA). The calculated economic value of this flow amounts to US$2.55 billion per year. We also analyse the relevance and usefulness of the methodology we propose and use the valuation exercise presented to extract some normative lessons regarding nature conservation in Chile as well as in developing countries rich in natural resource endowments.

Contradictory to the theoretical proposition, Chinese exporters are overall less productive than non-exporters. This study explores the productivity puzzle of Chinese exporters using a plant level dataset which includes the large industrial firms during the period of 1998–2007. Based on total factor productivity (TFP) estimated by the semi-parametric method proposed in Olley and Pakes, this study confirms productivity puzzle of Chinese exporters. The productivity puzzle however does not remain after controlling for firm locations. This result is robust for different model specifications and productivity measurements. Further analysis indicates that productive firms would favour the domestic market particularly when they can enjoy local protection. Export spillover effects would help less productive firms to enter the international market. Ownership and scale economies however condition the impacts of local protection and spillover effects. This paper suggests that local protection and spillover effects can influence the export decision of Chinese firms, providing a complementary contribution to the related literature.

In this note, we investigate the finite-sample properties of Moran's I test statistic for spatial autocorrelation in tobit models suggested by Kelejian and Prucha. We fill a void in the theoretical literature by investigating the finite sample properties of this test statistic in a series of Monte Carlo simulations, using data sets ranging from 49 to 15,625 observations. We find that the test is unbiased, has considerable power and approximates the asymptotic normal distribution even for medium-sized sample sizes, empirically confirming the theoretical results of Kelejian and Prucha. However, some caution is needed, since the statistic turns out to be sensitive to misspecification in the form of heteroscedasticity. In such instances the test over-rejects the null hypothesis, mistaking heteroscedasticity for spatial autocorrelation.

This paper presents an agent-based model of an Italian textile district where thousands of small firms specialize in particular phases of fabrics production. It reconstructs the web of communication between firms as they arrange production chains. In turn, production chains result in road traffic between the geographical areas on which the district extends. The reconstructed traffic exhibits a pattern that has been observed, but not foreseen, by policy-makers.

We estimate the respective importance of spatial sorting and agglomeration economies in explaining the urban wage premium for workers with different sets of skills. Sorting is the main source of the wage premium. Agglomeration economies are in general small, but are larger for workers with skills associated with non-routine job tasks. They also appear to involve human capital accumulation, as evidenced by the change in the wage of workers moving away from denser regions. For workers with routine jobs, agglomeration economies are virtually non-existent. Our results provide further evidence of spatial density bringing about productivity advantages primarily in contexts when problem-solving and interaction with others are important.

China has promised large cuts in CO₂ emissions by 2020, which is likely to have differential effects across regions. We know little about the regional effects of pollution reduction. We make a contribution to filling this gap using a small theoretical model with two regions, features of the Chinese economy and the right to emit CO₂ as a factor of production. We find regionally differentiated effects on income, welfare and output and explore government policies designed to reduce these effects. The effects of fiscal policies depend crucially on whether one or both regions respond and on whether output or welfare is targeted. Boosts to productive capacity do better in terms of output but not welfare.

This paper extends the seminal Blanchard and Katz regional labour market model to include interaction effects using a dynamic spatial panel data approach. Three key contributions of this extended model are: (i) the unrealistic assumption that regions are independent of one another no longer has to be made, (ii) the magnitude and significance of so-called spillover effects can be empirically assessed, and (iii) both the temporal and spatial propagation of labour demand shocks can be investigated. Using annual data from 1986–2010 for 112 regions across eight EU countries, both the non-spatial and spatial models are estimated. It is found that the majority of the spillover effects are highly significant. Consistent with economic theory, the impact of a region-specific demand shock is largest in the region where the shock instigates. The shock also propagates to other regions, especially impacting the first and second-order neighbours.

In this paper a ‘search and matching’ framework is used to examine the impact of advances in information technology on regional inequalities. While the relevant literature analyses the impact of technological progress with respect to changes in regional productivity, we take an alternative perspective: changes in the arrival rate of job offers and employment opportunities. Simulation experiments complement the theoretical framework, while some empirical evidence using a sample of NUTS 2 and NUTS 3 regions in Europe, is also presented.

This paper examines the spatial patterns and determinants of China's interprovincial skilled migration by using data from 2005 one per cent population sample survey. While the coastal region benefits from the influx of skilled labour, the rest of China suffers from severe brain drain. Estimates from zero-inflated negative binomial gravity models indicate that employment opportunities, especially interregional wage differentials, play a dominant role in attracting skilled labour, and that the impact of amenities on skilled migration turns out to be small and less clear. Findings suggest that China's skilled people prioritize their career prospects over the quality of life in the migration decision-making process.

Location modelling is employed in urban and regional planning to site facilities that provide services of some sort. Issues to be considered usually include the number of facilities to locate, where to site those facilities and how demand is to be served. Given the geographic nature of location problems, a key issue is how to represent facilities and demand in geographic space. Traditionally, spatial abstraction as discrete demand is assumed as it simplifies model formulation and reduces computational complexity. However, errors in derived solutions are likely not negligible, especially when demand varies continuously across a region. This paper discusses a single facility location problem that considers demand to be continuously distributed and allows a facility to be located anywhere in space, the continuous Weber problem. An approach for dealing with continuous demand is proposed that is integrated through geographical information system (GIS) functionality. Empirical results highlight the advantages of the developed approach and the importance of solution integration with GIS.

This paper investigates the theory of spatial discrimination for general demands and general transportation costs in a barbell model, where markets' locations are assumed to be at opposite endpoints of a line. Duopoly firms in the Bertrand model always differentiate maximally, whereas in the Cournot model the market demand structure is not so critical, but the functional form of the transportation cost plays a crucial role in determining equilibrium location. Non-maximal distance appears in the Cournot equilibrium when a convex transportation cost is allowed, bringing about the findings that the equilibrium consumer surplus may be higher and the equilibrium profits may be lower under Cournot competition than under Bertrand competition.

We modify a previously suggested GMM estimator in a spatial panel regression model, which has recently received considerable interest in empirical applications, by taking into account the difference between disturbances and regression residuals. Consistency and asymptotic normality of the estimator are derived. Analytic results, simulation evidence and an empirical application to Indonesian rice data illustrate the improvement in finite samples.

In recent years a growing body of literature has begun to consider the possible presence of path dependence in the development processes of countries. This phenomenon has always been recognized in regional and urban studies because the path of development almost naturally follows a history-dependent spatial diffusion influenced by both physical geography and the quality of institutions. In this paper, I consider the case of firm and employment concentration in Italy and its impact on local development. A large and growing literature has argued in favour of persisting effects of past institutions on current outcomes. Hence, in order to identify the impact of firm and employment density on income, I use instruments from the history of a set of Italian cities: namely the presence of a university and status as a free-city state in the Early Middle Ages. I first show that those two variables had an important effect on the process of urban development between 1300 and 1861, together with favourable geographic conditions. Then, when I use these instruments to predict firm and employment density, I find that the elasticity of income to firm and employment density is in the interval 0.08–0.13. This result is interpreted as providing evidence of the historical roots of agglomeration economies in Italy.

We revisit the Hotelling duopoly model with linear transportation costs, introducing network effects and brand loyalty. We show that, while network externalities destabilize prices, the lock-in effect generated by exogenous switching costs, if sufficiently high, eliminates the incentive to undercut, thereby restoring the existence of the pure strategy equilibrium in prices, and the corresponding minimum differentiation principle.

This paper generates new evidence for England and Wales on the importance of labour pooling as a source of agglomeration economies. Estimates of worker and firm productivity are obtained from longitudinal worker and firm micro-data and used to test the hypothesis that denser labour markets increase the quality of the matching between employees and employers across labour markets. Our findings provide evidence supportive of a positive relationship between the quality of the employee-employer matching and the economic size of labour markets.

This paper tries to ascertain whether spatial contagion operated in international migration across neighbouring provinces in Spain during the 1998–2009 period. After a general depiction of the international migration distribution in Spain, the study focuses on the role played by space and, particularly, on the possible existence of geographical contagion effects. For this aim, two novel indexes of spatial contagion, based on a spatial Markov chain approach, are proposed. Two main results are drawn from the analysis: first, that spatial clustering exists in the distribution; second, that there are contagion effects, positive contagion among provinces surrounded by high-immigration provinces being the most significant.

Measures of economic well-being are often needed for geographically small areas, as economic indicators may be distributed unevenly among the subsets of relatively small regions. We consider small area estimation of average equivalized income. Disposable household income data are usually available only for a sample of households, typically too small to provide reliable estimates for small regions. We consider a small area estimation technique that is robust to outliers, produces results consistent with design weighted estimates obtained for larger areas and yield maps with approximately no shrinkage. The proposed methodology is applied to the Local Labour Systems in Tuscany (Italy).

We test whether social networks at the origin, measured by religious affiliation, affect out-migration. The basic idea is that a social capital loss is attached to the decision to out-migrate, and said loss increases migration costs because benefits received from the local network at the origin disappear. To test this hypothesis, we estimated conditional and mixed logit models for the decision to out-migrate. The results supported the hypothesis: members from religious organizations with strong intra-community and weak intercommunity ties tended to out-migrate less than others. This result was highly significant and robust to model specification and estimation methods.

The objective of the paper is to analyse the local determinants of innovation in a small European metropolitan region. First, we examine the extent to which geographic space is a determinant of innovation for five intra-regional units. Second, we investigate whether innovation is dependent on accessibility to the mean centre. In both cases we examine innovation propensity and innovation output using microdata from the Community Innovation Survey carried out in Luxembourg. The paper provides evidence of a link between the effects on innovation at the intra-regional level of firms' profiles and agglomeration externalities.

Regional growth dynamics deviate from a normal distribution. Using industry-specific employment data for German regions, we find that the asymmetric exponential power distribution best accounts for the high frequency of extreme positive and especially negative growth events. This research confirms previous studies on growth rates of firms, industries and countries and fills the research gap at the level of regions. Furthermore, we show that even in the case of prolonged time lags, regional industry-specific employment growth rates are far from being normally distributed, move towards a Laplacian shape and that knowledge intensive industries increase the regional economies' risk of being affected by extreme events of growth and decline.

This paper estimates wage curves for formal and informal workers using a rich individual level data for Turkey over the period 2005–2009. The wage curve is an empirical regularity describing a negative relationship between regional unemployment rates and individuals' real wages. While this relationship has been well documented for a number of countries including Turkey, less attention has focused on how this relationship differs for informal versus formal employment. This is of utmost importance for less developed countries where informal employment plays a significant role in the economy. Using the Turkish Household Labour Force Survey observed over 26 NUTS 2 regions, we find that real hourly wages of informal workers in Turkey are more sensitive to variations in regional unemployment rates than wages of formal workers. This is true for all workers as well as for different gender and age groups.

We combine firm-level innovation data with area-level Census data to examine the relationship between local workforce characteristics, especially the presence of immigrants and local skills, and the likelihood of innovation by firms. We examine a range of innovation outcomes, and test the relationship for selected subgroups of firms. We find a positive relationship between local workforce characteristics and average innovation outcomes in labour market areas, but this is accounted for by variation in firm characteristics such as firm size, industry, and research and development expenditure. Controlling for these influences, we find no systematic evidence of an independent link between local workforce characteristics and innovation.

Using a dynamic computable general equilibrium model of the Chinese economy we investigate the economic effects of relaxing China's household registration system over the period 2008 to 2020. The modelling results show that reducing the institutional restriction to rural labour movement will encourage rural workers to move from agricultural and rural non-agricultural sectors into urban sectors. This enhanced labour movement will not only increase China's GDP and real consumption of households but it will also raise the real wages of agricultural and rural non-agricultural workers. Although the real wage of rural migrant workers will increase at a slightly lower rate than in the baseline scenario, rural migrant workers remain considerably better paid than agricultural and rural non-agricultural workers.

This paper uses an extended case study of Japan to illustrate how surnames, or family names, can be used as a basis for regionalization. We undertake a comparison between inductively surname regions of Japan with areal geographies based upon both contemporary and historical prefecture (administrative) units. The work is seen as using highly disaggregate framework data to evaluate the integrity of the areal units that are used in regional science. It also is relevant to understanding population distributions, past and present, and the consequences of local, regional and national residential mobility and migration.

This paper explores the location choice of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in China, shedding special light on the role of agglomeration of same-nationality firms. We examine how this role differs according to firms' productivity. Furthermore, we compare the location choice of Japanese and Taiwanese MNEs in China, taking into consideration that Taiwanese MNEs experience less uncertainty in investing in China due to Taiwan's linguistic and cultural advantages. When considering firms' productivity, we find that less productive Japanese firms prefer to locate close to larger same-nationality agglomerations while there are no differences in location choices in the case of Taiwanese firms.

Recent literature suggests two mechanisms through which the start-up of new firms contributes to economic development: the growth of start-ups and competition among incumbent firms induced by the start-ups. While existing studies derive the competition effect indirectly, this paper deploys a direct measure, called market mobility, to approximate the induced competition effect. The empirical results are consistent with the idea that both effects are important in explaining the long-term economic impact of start-ups. First, the most successful start-ups grow to become high-growth firms, and second, the entry of new firms stimulates incumbent firms to perform better.

We investigate Zipf's Law on the size distribution and Gibrat's Law on the growth of sub-national populations in China, India and Brazil. We reject Zipf's Law for India, but not for China and Brazil; a log normal distribution also fits Brazil well, but not China and India. Gibrat's Law holds for Brazil; that is, lagged population is the best predictor of current population in Brazil. In China, market potential is an important predictor of population growth, while in India both crop area and market potential are important. Our results show that there is a diversity of experiences across countries, and we speculate that this diversity maybe caused by differences in the characteristics of the three countries.

This paper examines determinants of couple migration in a model that accounts for self-selection of migrant couples. The study is based on a sample of married couples from the Swedish population. The model incorporates controls for earnings of both spouses preceding the move, and explicitly addresses unmeasured heterogeneity in the family decision to migrate. Two statistical formulations are presented. In the first version, migration is measured as a dichotomous move/stay decision. A second formulation replaces the dichotomous indicator with the distance moved by migrants. Results suggest that family migration is selective of relatively low earning wives with unmeasured potential for strong earnings.

This paper analyses the effect of skill heterogeneity on regional patterns of production and housing in the presence of pecuniary externalities within a general-equilibrium framework. The analysis allows for interregional commuting. Low-skilled workers choose to live and work in the periphery, the medium-skilled commute to the core, and the highly-skilled live and work in the core. At the regional level, individual choices imply that the average skill level of employees is higher in the core regions than in the peripheral regions. In particular, in the peripheral regions, the average skill level of employees is lower than the average skill level of residents, some of whom commute to the core.

I examine how unit tax and ad valorem tax affect firm location in a monopolistic-competition model with asymmetrically sized regions and a quasi-linear preference. Tax revenue is evenly distributed to all workers or evenly distributed to the workers residing in the region generating the tax revenue. When a homogeneous good is traded, despite reimbursement systems, the ad valorem tax retains the firm share, while the unit tax accelerates firm agglomeration in the larger region. When the homogeneous good is nontradable, despite taxation schemes, the intraregional distribution retains the firm share, while the interregional one accelerates agglomeration in the larger region.

Two important objectives in hedonic price analysis are to predict sale prices and delineate submarkets based on geographical and functional considerations. In this paper, we applied Bayesian models with spatially varying coefficients in an analysis of housing sale prices in the city of Toronto, Ontario to address these objectives. We evaluated model performance and identified patterns of submarkets indicated by the spatial coefficient processes. Our results show that Bayesian spatial process models predict housing sale prices well, provide useful inference regarding heterogeneity in prices within a market, and may be specified to include expert market opinions.

We investigate the effect of local market conditions on the indirect effects of new business formation measured as their impact on employment in incumbents. Based on organizational ecology theory, we derive and test hypotheses about the magnitude of these indirect effects. The indirect effects are larger in highly populated regions, in regions with a high share of small firms, and in regions where there is high similarity between the industry structure of entries and that of the incumbents. The results show that indirect effects of new businesses emerge through competition with incumbents and underline the importance of regional conditions. We draw conclusions for policy and make suggestions for further research.

This paper examines the Nash equilibrium prices of stores in a spatial search model. By assumption, a large store is certain to have the particular product a consumer wants, whereas a small store has it with probability w. Large and small stores alternate with each other on a circular roadway. Consumers must search by visiting stores. In the Nash price equilibrium, large stores charge higher prices than small stores. Perhaps surprisingly, all Nash equilibrium prices are lower than in the corresponding perfect-information-no-search model (for a given value w). This last result is also demonstrated in a model with only small stores.

Empirical studies on the evolution of concentration, specialization or localization of economic activity have provided ambiguous results that strongly depend on the researcher's choice of the reference. This paper develops a decomposition method for Theil indices of localization that clarifies where this ambiguity originates from. The method allows expressing the difference between absolute and relative Theil indices of localization in terms of Theil indices that are subject to straightforward interpretation. Illustrations show that the divergence of absolute from relative localization in the EU-15 and in UK manufacturing is largely a statistical artifact inherited from the peculiarities of the industry classifications.

Two hundred ICT companies based in Germany were interviewed to find out which regional and company specific factors may have a measurable direct impact on corporate growth.

The analysis found that firm age and size, export ratio, expenditure on research and development, product innovation, venture capital and concrete co-operation between companies seem to have a direct effect on the growth of ICT companies. Surprisingly, the presented ordered probit cross section analysis indicates that active participation in an ICT cluster is associated with low growth perspectives of ICT firms.

Regional disparities in unemployment rates are large and persistent. The literature provides evidence of their magnitude as well as of the role of certain factors in explaining the unemployment gap between regions. Most of these studies, however, adopt an aggregate approach and so do not account for the individual characteristics in each region. This paper, by drawing on micro-data from the Spanish wave of the Labour Force Survey, seeks to remedy this shortcoming. An appropriate decomposition of the regional gap in the average probability of being unemployed enables us to distinguish between the contribution of differences in the regional distribution of individual characteristics from that attributable to a different impact of these characteristics.

This study evaluates the relationship between the spatial distribution of broadband providers and the presence of knowledge intensive firm clusters in US counties. Results highlight this relationship is heterogeneous and localized. In some places, broadband appears to be an essential link that enables knowledge firms to strategically locate in lower cost counties and in close proximity to major knowledge centres. In other places, the availability of broadband Internet connections are unable the negative externalities associated with locations in more remote areas of the country. From a policy perspective, this suggests that broadband should be viewed as a key component, but not the only component, of comprehensive local economic development plans.

A sense of belonging is a crucial factor determining the identification of the firms in industrial districts. From the social capital perspective, this paper analyses how the structural and relational dimensions of social capital determine a firm's sense of belonging to the industrial district. The study analyses a sample of 213 companies belonging to two Spanish industrial districts. Results of the survey offer an important contribution to the specific literature by finding the explanatory factors with which to distinguish between groups according to their level of embeddedness in the district.

This critical review focuses on the development of spatial competition models à la Hotelling in which the location choice of firms plays a major role. We start by quantifying the research in this field by using bibliometric tools. Thereafter, this study identifies the main research paths within spatial competition modelling. Specifically, the type of strategy (Bertrand vs. Cournot competition), the assumptions that are made in respect to the market (linear vs. circular), production costs, transportation costs, the number of firms and the type of information (complete vs. incomplete) and their effects on the location equilibria are also discussed.

In this paper we combine two strands of the empirical literature on agglomeration economics. We calculate two indices to identify local industries where agglomeration externalities could be expected to be particularly strong. The main part of the paper is an econometric analysis using a dynamic panel data model to test whether dynamic employment growth is indeed stronger in these observations. Spatial dependence is taken into account by including spatially lagged exogenous variables. We use panel data on all Western German employees subject to social security from 1989 to 2006 in 326 districts and 191 industries. We find evidence that long run employment growth is significantly more persistent in industrial agglomerations.

The authors employ spatial econometrics techniques and annual averages data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics for 1990–2004 to examine how changes in the minimum wage affect teen employment. Spatial econometrics techniques account for the fact that employment is correlated across states. The authors find a combined direct and indirect effect of minimum wages on teen employment to be −2.1 per cent for a 10 per cent increase in the real effective minimum wage. Ignoring spatial correlation underestimates the magnitude of the effect of minimum wages on teen employment.

In the last twenty years, universities' efforts to collaborate with industry and foster knowledge transfer have increased progressively. Many of these efforts have been directed at firms located at a distance from the university, and sometimes in a different country. Based on an original database of interviews with 197 Italian university departments, this paper determines the effects of geographical location, research performance and researcher mobility on the frequency of university-industry collaborations and on the probability of departments engaging in distant collaborations.

This study analyses determinants of business relocation and identifies regional characteristics which attract relocating firms. Results indicate that the relocation decisions of firms are sector-dependent, and the migratory behaviour of firms in knowledge-intensive sectors notably differs from that in less knowledge-intensive sectors. Predominantly low-tech and medium-low-tech manufacturing and less knowledge-intensive service firms paying high average salaries have a higher probability to move out of their present location. For less knowledge-intensive service firms, the average municipal wage negatively affects their propensity to relocate, while those located in municipalities with high sector-specific wages have an increased likelihood to move. Relocating firms are generally attracted by densely populated municipalities with high wage levels, and primarily service firms are drawn to municipalities which are specialized in the firm's own sector and appeal to individuals. Sector-specific wages may either attract, or deter firms, suggesting that this variable may capture both the cost and the quality of the locally available workforce.

This paper examines the differences in the drivers of short and long distance firm relocations by conducting an event history analysis on a panel dataset of Dutch firms. Our findings indicate that short distance relocations (within municipalities and labour markets) are triggered by growth and the corresponding need for more space, while longer distance relocations are mainly influenced by regional characteristics. The spatial concentration of similar or related firms, a higher level of urbanization and R&D intensity keep firms from leaving their labour market region, but firms are more inclined to leave regions with a higher share of innovative firms.

In this paper, we develop an endogenous growth and international trade model with two countries in which equilibrium wages in the two countries are different between two countries. First, when trade costs are high, the share of manufacturing firms in the large country increases with a decline in trade costs because of market size. However, the share of firms then decreases with a decline in trade costs when trade costs are low because of wage differences. Finally, all firms agglomerate in the small country, since production costs in the small country are low. In this process, the innovation sector shifts its location from the large-market and high-wage country to the small-market and low-wage country.

This paper addresses the effect of workers' spatial flexibility (commuting and migration) on their probability of being over-educated. The empirical analysis deals with two possible sources of misspecification: the endogeneity of migration and the omission of relevant job characteristics. It also controls for area and personal characteristics. Results show that commuting is positively correlated with the quality of the education-job match. However, analysis does not support the conventional wisdom that migration unambiguously reduces over-education. It seems fair to conclude that the link between migration and over-education remains unclear and that further research is needed in order to better ground policy prescriptions.

A statistical test procedure is proposed to check a polynomial relationship of the non-parametric component in partially linear spatial autoregressive models, in which a residual-based bootstrap procedure is used to derive the p-value of the test. Some simulations are conducted to assess the performance of the test and the results show that the bootstrap approximation to the null distribution of the test statistic is valid and the test is powerful in identifying a polynomial relationship of the non-parametric component. Furthermore, a real-world example is given to demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed test.

We examine the dynamic behaviour of unemployment rates by gender and of the gender unemployment gap over the 1992–2009 period by Italian regions. The results from unit root tests with unknown structural breaks indicate that the gender unemployment gap has narrowed in most cases. However, the pace of catching-up and the dynamic behaviour characterizing the individual unemployment series differ substantially from one region to another. We comment on our results in the light of the reforms applied in the Italian labour market over the last two decades.

This paper develops a model with heterogeneous households and firms that can locate anywhere in the city. The main features of the model are household preferences for open space which depend on distance to the greenbelts at the city periphery, and agglomeration economies for firms. Numerical results show equilibrium location patterns, rents, and wages under different model specifications. Under most conditions, monocentric location patterns (where there is a higher concentration of firms in the centre zones compared to surrounding zones) are observed, but duocentric location patterns for firms can emerge if both open space values and travel costs are high.

Faced with declining economic bases, many non-metropolitan areas find themselves balancing the need to be cost-competitive in terms of lower taxes against the need for provision of valued government services. Using a spatial equilibrium framework, this study econometrically examines the nexus between US state and local fiscal policies and non-metropolitan county growth in earnings and housing rents during the 1990s. The results suggest that state and local fiscal characteristics significantly influenced firm and household location. Some characteristics could be clearly identified as having dominant firm profit effects, while numerous others were identified as having household amenity effects.

One of the main goals of the European Research Area (ERA) concept is to improve integration of the European research system. The main policy instrument in this context is the European Framework Programme (FP) supporting pre-competitive collaborative Research and Development (R&D). The objective of this study is to monitor progress towards ERA by identifying the evolution of separation effects influencing FP collaboration intensities between 255 European regions over the period 1999–2006. We employ spatial interaction models accounting for spatial autocorrelation by using spatial filtering methods. The results show that geographical distance and country border effects gradually decrease, and point to the contribution of the FPs to the realization of ERA.

This paper tests for the impact of political fragmentation on the volatility of public expenditures. Two different empirical strategies are implemented using the per capita operating expenditures of 90 French local jurisdictions (the départements) for an 8-year period. The first strategy focuses directly on the impact of the electoral margin, the fragmentation of the majority and the concentration of the opposition on the annual budget growth rates. The second strategy regresses the present expenditures on last year's expenditures over several subsamples. Both empirical strategies lead to the following conclusions. First, the less powerful a majority in terms of seats and fragmentation, the lower the annual fluctuations of the budget. Second, highly powerful majorities are not always associated with the highest budgetary growth rates.

This paper analyses the characteristics of SMEs in less-developed areas in comparison with more advanced economies. The conceptual framework includes different factors making up the so-called ‘entrepreneurial quality’ of the SME sector: the personal characteristics of the entrepreneurs (motivations and previous experience), different dimensions of the SMEs’ entrepreneurial orientation, and the patterns of the SMEs’ insertion in national and global value chains. The empirical analysis uses data of SMEs in four different Spanish provinces representing examples of low income economies and comparatively high income ones, respectively. Results show the SMEs in the low income economies to be characterized by a lower entrepreneurial quality.

This paper proposes a framework, based on a reciprocal dumping model, that assesses the effects of tariff competition for mobile firms on the location patterns of the industry as well as welfare implications. While high transport costs encourage geographic dispersion in the industry, sufficiently low transport costs result in a core-periphery location where nobody bears tariff burdens. We show that the world economy would be in a much better position under an international co-ordination scheme, which differs from models proposed in previous studies.

The Conservative Party won the 2010 General Election in the United Kingdom, gaining the most votes and seats of any single party. Using Bayesian spatial econometric methods, we show that significant spatial dependence exists in Conservative voting behaviour and select the spatial Durbin model as the best model to explain this phenomenon. This paper examines these spatial effects as well as the effects of a range of economic, socio-economic, and political variables. Perhaps the most interesting result is that incumbency has effects beyond an incumbent's own constituency.

This paper presents an intra-metropolitan approach to analyse the impact of urban spatial structure on local economic growth. Focusing on the Barcelona metropolitan region (BMR) between 1986 and 2001, we estimate a municipal employment growth model in which dynamic agglomeration economies related to urban spatial structure are considered using distance to employment centres, to assess metropolitan effects, and distance-weighted variables, to measure neighbourhood effects. The results obtained show the existence of neighbourhood specialization economies and metropolitan urbanization-localization economies fostering local growth. All of this leads to the paper's main conclusion: urban spatial structure is important for economic growth in an intra-metropolitan context.

We investigate the common conjecture in applied econometric work that the inclusion of spatial fixed effects in a regression specification for a single cross-sectional data set removes spatial dependence. We demonstrate analytically and by means of a series of simulation experiments how evidence of the removal of spatial autocorrelation by spatial fixed effects may be spurious when the true data generating processes (DGP) takes the form of a spatial lag or spatial error dependence. In addition, we also show that spatial fixed effects correctly remove spatial correlation only in the special case where the dependence is group-wise, with all observations in the same group as neighbours of each other.

Se investiga la conjetura utilizada frecuentemente en econometría aplicada de que la inclusión de efectos fijos espaciales en una especificación de regresión para un único conjunto de datos transversales elimina la dependencia espacial. Demostramos analíticamente, y por medio de una serie de experimentos de simulación, cómo las pruebas de la eliminación de la autocorrelación espacial por efectos fijos espaciales pueden ser engañosas cuando los verdaderos procesos de generación de datos (DGP, siglas en inglés) consisten en un retardo espacial o una dependencia del error espacial. Además, mostramos también que los efectos fijos espaciales eliminan correctamente la correlación espacial sólo en el caso especial de que la dependencia sea en sentido grupal, en la que todas las observaciones del mismo grupo sean vecinas entre sí.

The computation of Moran's I index and his statistics test relies mainly on an exogenous specification of a spatial weights matrix. However, the exogenous weights matrix is usually developed in a strictly spatial context, even when data are collected over time. This paper develops a spatio-temporal weights matrix and uses the new definition to evaluate spatial dependence using Moran's I index applied to real estate data for Québec City from 1986 to 1996. The results are compared with the original Moran's I index using a strictly spatial weights matrix specification based on Euclidian distance or contiguity. The findings suggest that ignoring the temporal dimension could lead to misinterpretation of the ‘real’ measure of spatial dependence over time. However, the time dimension cannot explain the total spatial autocorrelation since the Moran's I index is still significant even when adjusting for time consideration. The differences between the estimated indices and statistics depend on the structure of the spatial and the temporal weights matrices that are used to construct the complete spatio-temporal weights matrix.

El cálculo del índice I de Moran y su prueba estadística se basa principalmente en una especificación exógena de una matriz de pesos espaciales. Sin embargo, la matriz de pesos exógena se desarrolla normalmente en un contexto estrictamente espacial, incluso cuando los datos se recogen a lo largo del tiempo. Este artículo desarrolla una matriz de pesos espacio-temporal y utiliza la nueva definición para evaluar la dependencia espacial mediante el uso del índice I de Moran aplicado a datos inmobiliarios para la ciudad de Quebec entre1986 y 1996. Los resultados se comparan con el índice I de Moran original utilizando una especificación de matriz de pesos estrictamente espacial basada en distancia euclidiana o contigüidad. Los resultados sugieren que ignorar la dimensión temporal podría llevar a una interpretación errónea de la “verdadera” medida de dependencia espacial en el tiempo. Sin embargo, la dimensión temporal no puede explicar la totalidad de la autocorrelación espacial ya que el índice I de Moran sigue siendo significativo incluso después de hacer ajustes para tener en cuenta el paso del tiempo. Las diferencias entre los índices y los estadísticos estimados dependen de la estructura de las matrices de pesos temporal y espacial utilizadas para construir la matriz completa de pesos espacio-temporales.

This paper adopts a count data model to explore the distinction between single plant and multi-plant location choices. It is hypothesized that start-up location decisions would be determined by supply variables (land, labour and capital costs, workforce and technological characteristics); demand variables (market size and market accessibility) and agglomeration economies. We use plant data and focus on location choices within Portuguese municipalities. Our research shows that new multi-plants are particularly sensitive to urbanization economies, land costs and the size of the local market, while new single plants are more responsive to labour costs, both localization and urbanization economies and accessibility to main markets.

Este artículo adopta un modelo de datos de recuento para explorar la diferencia entre opciones de localización de tipo uniplanta y multiplanta. La hipótesis considerada es que las decisiones de localización durante la fase de establecimiento vienen determinadas por una serie de variables de oferta (costos del suelo, de mano de obra y de capital, y ciertas características de la mano de obra y tecnológicas), variables de demanda (tamaño y acceso a mercados) y de economías de aglomeración. Utilizamos datos de plantas y restringimos el estudio a decisiones de localización dentro de municipios portugueses. Nuestra investigación muestra como las localizaciones multiplanta nuevas son particularmente sensibles a las economías de urbanización, al precio del suelo y al tamaño del mercado local, mientras que las nuevas localizaciones uniplanta son más sensibles a los costos de mano de obra, a las economías de localización y de urbanización, y al acceso a los mercados principales.

We study the spatial pattern of just-in-time (JIT) adoption for a sample of medium-sized and large Spanish manufacturing firms. JIT differs from other advanced manufacturing technologies because it relates directly to the spatial co-ordination of firms' internal production organisation with the external productive environment and depends on the quality of the transport system. Our results confirm the distinctive role of location for JIT adoption even after controlling for industry and plant-specific differences. We find that JIT adoption is greater in smaller cities but with higher transport accessibility indicating that urban congestion in larger urban areas likely reduces the benefits that firms may obtain from JIT implementation.

En este artículo estudiamos el patrón espacial de la adopción del método Justo a Tiempo (JAT) por parte de una muestra de empresas manufactureras españolas de tamaño mediano y grande. El método JAT es diferente de otras tecnologías avanzadas de fabricación, debido a que relaciona directamente la coordinación espacial de la organización de producción interna de las empresas con el entorno productivo externo y depende de la calidad del sistema de transporte. Nuestros resultados confirman el papel singular que tiene la localización en la adopción de JAT incluso después de controlar por tipo industria y por diferencias específicas de la planta. Encontramos que la adopción de JAT es mayor en las ciudades más pequeñas pero con una mayor accesibilidad del transporte, lo que indica que es probable que la congestión urbana de las grandes ciudades y áreas metropolitanas reduciría los beneficios que las empresas pueden obtener con la implantación de JAT.

In Western Norway, fjords cause disconnections in the road network, necessitating the use of ferries. In several cases, ferries have been replaced by roads, often part-financed by tolls. We use data on commuting from a region with a high number of ferries, tunnels and bridges. Using a doubly-constrained gravity-based model specification, we focus on how commuting responds to varying tolls and ferry prices. Focus is placed on the role played by tolls on infrastructure in inhibiting spatial interaction. We show there is considerable latent demand, and suggest that these tolls contradict the aim of greater territorial cohesion.

En Vestlandet (Noruega Occidental), los fiordos ocasionan interrupciones en la red de carreteras que hacen necesario el uso de transbordadores. En varios casos, los transbordadores han sido sustituidos por carreteras, a menudo cofinanciadas por peajes. Hemos utilizado los datos sobre desplazamiento al trabajo de una región con un elevado número de transbordadores, túneles y puentes. Por medio de una especificación de modelo de gravedad doblemente restringido, nos centramos en los cambios en el desplazamiento al trabajo en función de diferencias en los precios de peajes y transbordadores. Se hace hincapié en el papel desempeñado por los peajes de infraestructura en la inhibición de la interacción espacial. Mostramos que existe una demanda latente considerable, y sugerimos que estos peajes contradicen el propósito de una mayor cohesión territorial.

We apply a time assignment model system to estimate and analyse spatial differences in the values of work and leisure for segments of travellers who work in Santiago, Chile, a large, spatially segregated South American capital. The sample was obtained from the latest available Origin Destination Survey; it includes weekly time use and socio-economic characteristics, which represent the differences across zones. Seventeen segments are defined according to gender, age, family structure and zone of residence. Positive values of the marginal utility of work are obtained for women and youngsters, and negative for men and elders. Women without children showed larger values than mothers. Results are explained in terms of income hierarchy and committed time.

En este artículo aplicamos un modelo de asignación de tiempo para estimar y analizar las diferencias espaciales en los valores del trabajo y del ocio para segmentos de viajeros que trabajan en Santiago de Chile, una ciudad capital grande y espacialmente segregada de América del Sur. La muestra se obtuvo a partir de la última Encuesta Origen-Destino disponible. La muestra incluye el uso semanal del tiempo y las características socioeconómicas que representan las diferencias entre zonas. Se definen diecisiete segmentos en función del género, la edad, la estructura familiar, y la zona de residencia. Se obtuvieron valores positivos de la utilidad marginal del trabajo para las mujeres y los jóvenes, y negativo para los hombres y los ancianos. Las mujeres sin hijos mostraron valores mayores que las madres. Los resultados se interpretan en términos de jerarquía de ingresos en el hogar y tiempo comprometido.

We estimate the spatial substitution bias based on the difference between a price index (PI) and the true cost of living (COL). This bias is computed at three geographical scales, using several fixed baskets and across different expenditures quartiles. Our results show a significant substitution bias for small geographical units. The choice of the base basket is also relevant for the bias estimation. Finally, the spatial substitution bias is larger for upper side of the expenditure distribution due to the heterogeneity in the consumption basket. This exercise shows that the spatial dimension affects the construction of a price index and that the approach of fixed baskets should be carefully considered in the estimation of spatial price differentials.

En este artículo estimamos el sesgo de sustitución espacial con base en la diferencia entre un índice de precios y el verdadero costo de vida. Este sesgo se calculó en tres escalas geográficas, utilizando varias canastas fijas para diferentes cuartiles de gastos. Nuestros resultados muestran un sesgo de sustitución significativo para unidades geográficas pequeñas. La elección de la canasta básica influye también en la estimación del sesgo. Por último, el sesgo de sustitución espacial es mayor para la zona superior de la distribución del gasto debido a la heterogeneidad en la canasta de consumo. Este ejercicio muestra que la dimensión espacial afecta a la construcción de un índice de precios, y que el planteamiento del uso de canastas fijas debería ser considerado cuidadosamente a la hora de estimar diferencias espaciales en los precios.

In this paper, we estimate wage gains due to geographic mobility of Italian university graduates three years after graduation. By means of a matching procedure we quantify wage premia associated with the choice of studying far from home, moving after graduation and moving back home after graduation. We find evidence of large heterogeneity in the returns to different migration patterns. The results show large gains for those who move after graduation and smaller gains for those who migrate to study. Conversely, those who choose to go back home after having studied in regions different from that of origin suffer small losses. Our findings are robust to a finer definition of mobility and to the subsample of individuals originating from the South.

En este artículo estimamos los aumentos salariales debidos a la movilidad geográfica de los titulados universitarios italianos al cabo de tres años de su graduación. Por medio de un procedimiento de emparejamiento, cuantificamos las primas salariales asociadas a la decisión de estudiar lejos de casa, de trasladarse después de la graduación y de regresar a casa después de la graduación. Encontramos pruebas de una gran heterogeneidad en los retornos de los diferentes patrones de migración. Los resultados muestran grandes beneficios para quienes se trasladan después de la graduación y beneficios más pequeños para los que estudian lejos de casa. Por el contrario, aquellos que optan por volver a casa después de haber estudiado en regiones diferentes de la de origen experimentan pequeñas pérdidas. Nuestros resultados son robustos respecto de una definición más precisa de la movilidad y de la submuestra de individuos procedentes del sur del país.

This study explores the relationship between self-employment and income growth, employment growth, and change in poverty in metro and non-metro areas in the United States using county-level panel data. We investigate the impact of the relative size of the self-employment sector measured by the share of non-farm proprietorships (NFPs) in total full and part-time employment on three key economic performance indicators. We first estimate an income growth model to analyse the effects of self-employment on income growth. Then we investigate the independent effects of self-employment on employment growth and changes in family poverty rates. Our results indicate that higher self-employment rates are associated with statistically significant increases over time in income and employment growth, and reductions in poverty rates in non-metro counties. We find similar effects on metro county income and employment, but not on poverty dynamics.

Este estudio explora la relación entre el trabajo por cuenta propia y el crecimiento de los ingresos, el empleo y cambios en el nivel de pobreza de áreas metropolitanas y no metropolitanas de los Estados Unidos, mediante la utilización de datos de panel a escala de condado. Investigamos el impacto del tamaño relativo del sector de trabajo por cuenta propia, estimado en función de la proporción de propietarios no-agrícolas (NFPs, siglas en inglés) en el total del empleo a tiempo completo y a tiempo parcial en tres indicadores clave de desempeño económico. En primer lugar, estimamos un modelo de crecimiento de los ingresos para poder analizar los efectos del trabajo por cuenta propia en el crecimiento de los ingresos. A continuación, investigamos los efectos independientes del trabajo por cuenta propia en el crecimiento del empleo y en los cambios en las tasas de pobreza por familia. Nuestros resultados indican que el aumento de las tasas de empleo por cuenta propia está asociado con aumentos a lo largo del tiempo estadísticamente significativos en cuanto a los ingresos y al crecimiento del empleo, y con reducciones en las tasas de pobreza en condados no metropolitanos. Encontramos efectos similares en los ingresos de condados metropolitanos y el empleo, pero no en las dinámicas de pobreza.

We develop an economic geography model where mobile skilled workers choose to either work in a production sector or to become part of an unproductive elite. The elite sets income tax rates to maximize its own welfare by extracting rents, thereby influencing the spatial structure of the economy and changing the available range of consumption goods. We show that either unskilled labour mobility, or rent-seeking behaviour, or both, are likely to favour the occurence of agglomeration and of urban primacy. In equilibrium, the elite may tax the unskilled workers but does not tax the skilled workers, and there are rural-urban transfers towards the agglomeration. The size of the elite and the magnitude of the tax burden that falls on the unskilled decrease with product differentiation and with the expenditure share for manufacturing goods. All these results are broadly in line with observed patterns of urban primacy and economic development in Sub-Saharan African countries.

Desarrollamos un modelo de geografía económica donde los trabajadores cualificados móviles pueden eligir entre trabajar en un sector productivo o formar parte de una élite no productiva. La élite fija las tasas de impuesto sobre la renta a fin de maximizar su propio bienestar mediante la extracción de rentas, lo que influye en la estructura espacial de la economía y produce cambios en la gama disponible de bienes de consumo. Mostramos que es probable que tanto la movilidad laboral no cualificada, como los comportamientos de búsqueda de rentas, o ambos, favorezcan la aparición de aglomeración y de primacía urbana. En el equilibrio, la élite podría gravar a la mano de obra no cualificada, pero no grava a los trabajadores cualificados, y existen transferencias rurales-urbanas encaminadas a la aglomeración. El tamaño de la élite y la magnitud de la carga fiscal que recae sobre la mano de obra no cualificada disminuyen con la diferenciación de productos y con el reparto del gasto en bienes manufacturados. Todos estos resultados están en consonancia con los patrones observados de primacía urbana y desarrollo económico en los países del África subsahariana.

This paper employs a spatial Durbin growth model to estimate the impact of trade openness on regional per capita income in Brazil using a data set of 469 Brazilian micro-regions over the period 2004–2007. We calculate the direct, indirect and cumulative impact on per capita income of trade openness and human capital in these micro-regions. Results indicate that greater trade openness in a region promotes economic development locally, while exerting negative influence on per capita income of the neighbouring regions. Our findings also show that human capital has a positive – direct and indirect – impact on the economic development of Brazilian micro-regions.

Este artículo utiliza un modelo de crecimiento de Durbin de tipo espacial para estimar el impacto de la apertura comercial en la renta regional per cápita en Brasil, utilizando un conjunto de datos de 469 microrregiones brasileñas en el período 2004–2007. Calculamos los efectos directos, indirectos y acumulativos sobre la renta per cápita debidos a la apertura comercial y al capital humano de estas microrregiones. Los resultados indican que una mayor apertura comercial en una región fomenta el desarrollo económico local, al tiempo que ejerce una influencia negativa en la renta per cápita de las regiones vecinas. Nuestros resultados también muestran que el capital humano tiene un impacto positivo – directo e indirecto – en el desarrollo económico de las microrregiones brasileñas.

Given the increasing share of the EU budget devoted to Regional Policy, several studies have tried to identify the impact of structural funds on economic growth. However, so far no consensus has been reached. We assess Regional Policy effects through a non-experimental comparison group method, the regression discontinuity design, and a novel regional dataset for the 1994–2006 period. We exploit the allocation rule of EU transfers by comparing regions with a per capita GDP level just below the eligibility threshold (75% of EU average) with those just above. Our findings show a positive impact of EU Regional Policy on economic growth.

Dado que la proporción del presupuesto de la UE destinada a políticas regionales es cada vez mayor, varios estudios han tratado de identificar el impacto de los fondos estructurales en el crecimiento económico. Sin embargo, hasta ahora no se ha logrado un consenso. Evaluamos aquí los efectos de políticas regionales por medio de un método de grupo de comparación no experimental, el diseño de regresión en discontinuidad, y un conjunto de datos regionales no usados hasta ahora para el período 1994–2006. Aprovechamos la regla de asignación de transferencias de la UE mediante la comparación de las regiones con un PIB per cápita por debajo del umbral de elegibilidad (75% del promedio de la UE) con las que están inmediatamente por encima. Nuestros resultados muestran un impacto positivo de las políticas regionales de la UE en el crecimiento económico.