European Corridors as Carriers of Dynamic Agglomeration Externalities?

Transport corridors are viewed as a promising way forward in European Union (EU) transport policy, assumed to contribute positively to regional economic development. However, the validity of this assumption is not evident. The aim of this paper is to empirically test whether agglomeration economies in European transport corridor regions are positively related to indicators of regional economic development compared to regions outside the scope of corridors. The results build on the notion that the type of agglomeration economy in combination with the structure of the economy matters for prospects of structural economic growth in different regions. In this way, the analysis not only contributes to enhancing the empirical scrutiny of the corridor concept in EU transport policy, but also provides new insights into how corridors contribute to regional economic growth. We find only limited evidence for a corridor effect across European regions on productivity and employment growth externalities. Instead, we find a large degree of spatial heterogeneity interacting with corridors—a heterogeneity that has been little recognized in EU policies. We suggest that recent attention to place-based development strategies may accord well with the kinds of agglomeration effects related to corridor development observed in this study.     

Spatial Agglomeration of Manufacturing in Greece: Sectoral Patterns and Determinants

This article aims to demonstrate how the industry characteristics of manufacturing sectors affect the patterns of their spatial agglomeration. It also addresses several intricate issues concerning the measurement of localization economies and estimation of their main determinants in manufacturing industries. The original empirical analysis employs annual industrial data from the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) during the period 1993–2006 in Greece at the prefecture level, i.e. for 51 prefectures. The data processing reveals three important findings. The first is the temporal persistence of localization economies in the Greek manufacturing. The second refers to the high level of agglomeration associated with the high-technology industries as well as the resource- and scale-intensive industries. Lastly, there are significant effects of industry characteristics related to knowledge externalities, labour skills and productivity, scale economies and own-transport expenditure on spatial agglomeration, as resulted from the use of alternative geographic concentration indices and panel data models. Results obtained have implications for policy-makers, who can enhance the regional manufacturing activity by affecting these industry-specific factors. Amongst others, planning measures and policies which aim at promoting the local development and regional convergence should focus on reducing transport costs for firms or sectors, by improving the infrastructure capacity, interconnectivity and quality of services.     

地理集聚能否提升我国文化产业发展质量——基于空间杜宾模型和门槛模型的检验

通过构建空间计量模型和门槛模型,探究地理集聚能否提升我国文化产业发展质量.研究结果表明:①地理集聚对我国文化产业发展质量具有明显的提升作用.其中,地理集聚对当地文化产业发展质量的影响主要通过MAR外部性实现,对邻近地区文化产业发展质量的影响主要通过Porter外部性实现,而Jacobs外部性的正向作用尚未显现.②地理集...     

The impact of language borders on the spatial decay of agglomeration and competition spillovers

There is now strong evidence that “soft” institutions are interrelated with the working of the economy. For example, in a geographical setting there is evidence that language borders affect interpersonal relationships, but there is no equivalent evidence regarding the effects of language borders on agglomeration or competition spillovers. This paper examines whether language affects the geographical extension of agglomeration and competition spillovers by observing the geography of employment patterns in a linguistically discontinuous setting. Our findings, for the first time, provide empirical evidence that language borders shape the distance decay of competition spillovers, independent of governance, and institutional issues.     

Regional Externalities And Growth: Evidence From European Regions*

Abstract. This paper models externalities of production across regional economies. Under the assumption that knowledge diffuses without political or administrative barriers, we derive externalities that affect the steady state and the process of growth of each economy. The empirical counterpart of the reduced form equation summarizing the process of growth allows us to test for the presence of regional spillovers and to measure their magnitude. Our results for a sample of European regions show that spillovers are far from negligible, are robust to the consideration of variables within each region, and may cause nondecreasing returns at the spatial aggregate level. The paper also relates previous empirical evidence on spatial dependence in growth studies to the externalities modeled here.     

REGIONAL POPULATION–EMPLOYMENT DYNAMICS ACROSS DIFFERENT SECTORS OF THE ECONOMY*

ABSTRACT An important subset of the literature on agglomeration externalities hypothesizes that intrasectoral and intersectoral relations are endogenously determined in models of local and regional economic growth. Remarkably, structural adjustment models describing the spatio‐temporal dynamics of population and employment levels or growth traditionally do not include intersectoral economic dynamics. This paper argues and shows that allowing for economic linkages across sectors in these models adds considerable value, especially in forecasting. An econometric model of population–employment dynamics, in which sectoral variations in economic development are explicitly taken into account, is applied to a large urban planning policy proposal in the Netherlands. The empirical analyses suggest that population dynamics are largely exogenous, population changes drive employment in particular in the industry and retail sectors, and employment in all sectors depends strongly on intersectoral dynamics. Intersectoral dynamics appear as important drivers of regional sectoral employment changes; they are even more important than population changes, and their effect shows up clearly even within the Dutch institutional context where strict regulatory housing and planning restrictions are enforced.     

AGGLOMERATION EFFECTS IN COLOMBIA

I estimate an elasticity of wages with respect to city population of about 5 percent for Colombian cities. This finding is robust to a number of econometric concerns. The second main finding is a negative effect of market access on wages. Third main finding regards stronger agglomeration effects in the informal sector. In turn, this explains a range of other negative findings, including only weak evidence in favor of human capital externalities, no evidence of a complementarity between cities and skills, and an absence of learning effects. I do not find measurable effects of roads or amenities on wages either.     

Willingness to Pay for Multifunctional Megaprojects: A Stated Preference Analysis Among Firms in the Amsterdam Zuidas Area

Urban (re-)development projects may generate various positive and negative spatial externalities to employers. The assessment of such benefits is fraught with many methodological and empirical problems. This study aims to assess the order of magnitude of expected net benefits for incumbent employers that may accrue from a large-scale development project in the Zuidas area in the South-Western part of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. This development project is planned to transform the area into a large multifunctional urban agglomeration. We employ a specific stated preference method (namely, a willingness-to-pay method) to gauge the project's net socio-economic benefits for the current firms in the area concerned, paying special attention to the benefits associated with multifunctionality.     

EXPLAINING THE VARIATION IN THE EMPIRICAL ESTIMATES OF ACADEMIC KNOWLEDGE SPILLOVERS*

ABSTRACT This paper presents a meta‐regression analysis of the empirical studies exploring the relationship between academic knowledge spillovers and regional innovation. The results of the literature are found to depend on country effects, the level of geographical aggregation employed, the method of measuring innovative output, the use of industry‐level data, and on the sectoral composition of the sample. Endogeneity, sample selection, and agglomeration forces are further elements that explain the findings on this issue but only weak evidence, after controlling for publication bias, supports the existence of a genuine spillover effect of university research on regional innovation.     

Increasing returns to scale in the towns of early Tudor England

Abstract

Urban agglomeration economies make cities central to theories of modern economic growth. There is historical evidence for the presence of Smithian growth and agglomeration effects in English towns c.1450-1670, but seminal assessments deny the presence of agglomeration effects and productivity gains to Early Modern English towns. This study evaluates the presence of increasing returns to scale (IRS) in aggregate urban economic outputs—the empirical signature of feedbacks between Smithian growth and agglomeration effects—among the towns of 16th century England. To do so, we test a model from settlement scaling theory against the 1524/5 Lay Subsidy returns. Analysis of these data indicates that Tudor towns exhibited IRS—a finding that is robust to alternative interpretations of the data. IRS holds even for the smallest towns in our sample, suggesting the absence of town size thresholds for the emergence of agglomeration effects. Spatial patterning of scaling residuals further suggests regional demand-side interactions with Smithian-agglomeration feedbacks. These findings suggest the presence of agglomeration effects and Smithian growth in pre-industrial English towns. This begs us to reconsider the economic performance of Early Modern English towns, and suggests that the qualitative economic dynamics of contemporary cities may be applicable to premodern settlements in general.     

What drives the spatial wage premium in formal and informal labor markets? The case of Ecuador

This article investigates the incidence of agglomeration externalities in Ecuador, a small-sized, middle-income developing country. In particular, we analyze the role of the informal sector within these relations, since informal employment accounts for a significant part of total employment in the developing countries. Using individual level data and instrumental variable techniques, we investigate the impact of spatial externalities, in terms of population density, local specialization and urban size, on the wages of workers in Ecuadorian cities. The results show that spatial externalities matter also for a small developing country. Moreover, analysis of the interaction between spatial externalities and informality shows that, on average, workers employed in the informal sector do not enjoy significant benefits from agglomeration externalities. Finally, by investigating the possible channels behind spatial agglomeration gains we show that the advantages from agglomeration for formal sector workers may well be accounted for by better job-quality matches and, to a lesser extent, by learning externalities. For informal sector workers, our findings also suggest possible gains from job changes, which offset a penalty for remaining employed in the same occupation.     

创新活动空间集聚及其影响机制研究评述与展望

创新的空间集聚现象是创新活动最重要的空间特征之一。传统的基于经济学的创新研究框架忽视了空间的重要性,20世纪90年代以来,随着创新地理学的兴起,对创新集聚的空间问题研究得到大力扩展和延伸。本文围绕创新活动在空间上是否集聚、在哪里集聚、如何集聚等问题,从集聚化、本地化和网络化三个方面对创新集聚的空间特征进行了梳理,并归纳总结出影响创新集聚的五种机制：知识溢出、服务共享、高技能劳动力匹配、不确定性和竞争,在此基础上讨论了当前研究存在的问题,并提出了深化创新集聚空间特征研究、完善创新活动与区域及城市间的互动理论、推动对创新网络的测度与演化研究、加强创新集聚的微观机制及模型化工作等建议。     

TESTING FOR CAUSALITY BETWEEN PRODUCTIVITY AND AGGLOMERATION ECONOMIES

ABSTRACT The productivity effects of agglomeration economies are often treated as endogenous in empirical work due to the potential for reverse causality. The extent to which these relationships are actually simultaneously determined, however, remains largely unobserved. This paper estimates panel data vector autoregressions for different sectors of the economy to test for bidirectional causality between productivity and both localization and urbanization economies. The aim is to address some key questions that will help to identify the extent of the endogeneity problem. Can we actually observe bidirectionality in the data? Does it feature more for some industries than for others? Is it more prevalent for localization or urbanization economies? The results show that agglomeration economies are not strictly unidirectional and that higher levels of productivity can induce growth in the scale of local urban and industrial environments. The paper discusses the difficulties that these issues pose for the estimation of agglomeration economies.     

AGGLOMERATION EXTERNALITIES,PRODUCTIVITY, AND TECHNICAL INEFFICIENCY*

ABSTRACT Agglomeration externalities can have positive effects on both the production possibility frontier and technical inefficiency of firms. Increased levels of localized knowledge spillovers and substitution of internal inputs with external inputs may lead to fewer errors in decision‐making and execution of production tasks, thus causing firms to become technically more efficient relative to the production frontier. When we estimate a stochastic frontier production model on a large panel of salmon aquaculture farms, we find econometric support for positive agglomeration externalities on both the production frontier and technical inefficiency.     

CAN REGIONALIZATION OF LOCAL PUBLIC SERVICES INCREASE A REGION'S WEALTH?*

ABSTRACT. In the presence of agglomeration and congestion externalities the sequence of location choices made by firms results in an inefficient distribution of economic activity, since individual firms do not bear the congestion costs they impose on other firms. In this paper, we model the interaction of public authority service strategies and firm location choices. We show that a self-interested regional authority can effect a welfare-improving distribution of economic activity when compared with an economy without an authority or an economy with local authorities. However, we also show that the conditions under which the authority would induce a welfare enhancing distribution depends on the authority's strategic posture, as well as the nature and size of public subsidies for the authority. The conditions necessary for a regional authority to choose an efficiency enhancing strategy may be difficult to achieve.     

广东省制造业空间格局演化及其影响因素研究

本文基于二位数制造业数据,探究了2000-2014 年广东省制造业空间格局的演化及影响因素。研究表明,广东省制造业以2005 年为拐点,总体呈现先集聚后分散的特征,但行业差异明显。技术密集型产业在珠三角地区保持高集聚的趋势,资本密集型及劳动密集型产业则以不同的扩散速度趋于分散。空间计量回归结果表明,劳动力成本上升及运输成本下降并非广东制造业空间格局演化的主要原因,市场潜力及产业内联系所带来的正外部性抵消了土地等成本提升所带来的负效应。而且,各种影响因素在不同行业的作用不同：市场潜力显著影响劳动密集型产业,资本密集型产业的空间集聚受政府行为影响较大,产业联系则促进技术密集型产业的集聚。     

Agglomeration economies and the location of foreign direct investment: A meta‐analysis

This paper undertakes a meta‐analysis of the effect of agglomeration economies on foreign direct investment (FDI) location. It finds strong differences in these economies arising from both measurement and study‐specific characteristics. Economies generated from domestic rather than foreign activity have the strongest effects on FDI, with the latter only significant if related to the home country of the investor. Support is also found for studies that identify different sources of agglomeration economies, although this is largely underexplored in the empirical literature. The average agglomeration economies estimate is not influenced by publication bias and indicates genuine effects for agglomeration economies on FDI location choice.     

Within‐industry agglomeration of occupations: Evidence from census microdata

This study uses worker‐level data on industry, occupation, and place of work to explore differences in the spatial properties of production, administrative, and R&D occupation groups within industries. To measure differences, we calculate location quotients at the local labor market level and the Duranton and Overman (2005) agglomeration index for each group. We find appreciable differences in the spatial distribution of occupation groups within most manufacturing industries, with R&D occupations consistently exhibiting the highest degree of spatial concentration. Our results are consistent with the core theoretical and empirical results in the agglomeration literature.     

THE IMPACT OF SKILL‐SPECIFIC MIGRATION ON REGIONAL UNEMPLOYMENT DISPARITIES IN GERMANY

Differences in regional unemployment are still pronounced in Germany, especially between eastern and western Germany. Although the skill level seems important for the relationship between regional disparities and labor migration, corresponding empirical evidence is scarce. Applying dynamic panel models, we investigate the impact of labor mobility differentiated by educational attainment of the workers on regional unemployment disparities between 2000 and 2008. The impact of low‐ and medium‐skilled migration is consistent with traditional neoclassical reasoning, suggesting that labor mobility reduces differences in regional unemployment rates. In contrast, the migration of high‐skilled workers tends to reinforce disparities.