Foreign Aid and Economic Growth: An Empirical Analysis

After more than forty years of foreign aid programs and numerous studies of the impact aid has had on economic growth in recipient countries, the strength and nature of the aid-growth relationship is still unknown. This study contends that results from previous studies have in aggregate been inconclusive largely because of methodological limitations and that a significant aid-growth relationship does exist. Further, the nature of the relationship (for example, positive or negative) varies across the level of economic development in aid-receiving countries. The expansion method is used here to expand initial models of economic growth into models which better explain the aid-growth relationship by incorporating the relationships that aid may have with other determinants of economic growth.     

The Global Economic Crisis and Foreign Investment in Russia from the EU: Empirical Evidence from Firm-Level Data

This paper empirically examines the impact of the recent global economic crisis on foreign investment from EU countries in Russia by estimating a location choice model for foreign firms' entry in Russian regions for the period 1997-2011. It also examines the relative importance of various determinants of location choice on the redistribution of foreign-owned firms among Russian regions before and after the crisis. Strong evidence during the post-crisis period (2008-2011) of a decrease in market-seeking foreign investment in manufacturing and resource-seeking foreign investment in trade is examined not only in light of the crisis but also (in the latter case) within the context of the new Russian law for foreign investment in strategic industries, which went into effect in 2008.     

中国旅游创新与旅游经济增长关系研究——基于空间面板数据模型

本文运用空间面板数据模型,选用1998～2009年数据研究了中国省域旅游创新与旅游经济增长的关系,发现：中国省域旅游创新与旅游经济增长呈现显著空间集聚性;旅游创新不仅推动当地旅游经济的增长,还通过空间传导机制对邻近区域的旅游经济产生正向的溢出效应。说明应充分重视创新在旅游经济增长中的积极作用,通过旅游创新成果的溢出效应扩大旅游创新对旅游经济增长的作用程度和范围。     

Knowledge Spillovers and Total Factor Productivity: Evidence Using a Spatial Panel Data Model

This article investigates the impact of knowledge capital stocks on total factor productivity (TFP) through the lens of the knowledge capital model proposed by Griliches (1979) , augmented with a spatially discounted cross-region knowledge spillover pool variable. The objective is to shift attention from firms and industries to regions and to estimate the impact of cross-region knowledge spillovers on TFP in Europe. The dependent variable is the region-level TFP, measured in terms of the superlative TFP index suggested by Caves, Christensen, and Diewert (1982) . This index describes how efficiently each region transforms physical capital and labor into output. The explanatory variables are internal and out-of-region stocks of knowledge, the latter capturing the contribution of cross-region knowledge spillovers. We construct patent stocks to proxy annual regional knowledge capital stocks for N =203 regions during 1997–2002. In estimating the effects, we implement a spatial panel data model that controls for spatial autocorrelation as well as individual heterogeneity across regions. The findings provide a fairly remarkable confirmation of the role of knowledge capital contributing to productivity differences among regions and add an important spatial dimension to discussions in the literature by showing that productivity effects of knowledge spillovers increase with geographic proximity.     

Local Institutions and Environmental Outcomes: Evidence from Wetlands Protection in Massachusetts

Community‐based efforts to address environmental problems occupy an increasingly large space on the environmental policy landscape. Advocates argue that local environmental institutions (LEIs) can deliver both procedural and environmental quality benefits. Yet, despite over a decade of expansive support, the performance of LEIs remains largely unknown, particularly with regard to environmental outcomes. In this article, we consider new environmental outcome data we compiled from local efforts to implement the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act. We find that stronger forms of LEIs generate both quantitatively and qualitatively better environmental outcomes, which suggests that LEIs may live up to their advocates’ expectations.     

旅游业与我国经济增长关系的实证分析

旅游业与国民经济增长之间的关系一直是有关学者研究的对象,这也导致了对旅游业地位的不同认识。本文利用历史数据对改革开放以来中国居民旅游消费支出与经济增长之间的关系作出判断,认为我国旅游业与经济增长之间并不存在稳定的因果关系。文章对产生这种现象的原因进行了分析,并提出了相关政策建议。     

中国旅游发展与经济增长——基于省际面板数据的协整分析

旅游发展与经济增长之间的关系是旅游学研究的核心内容之一.本文基于中国30个省份1999年～2010年省际面板数据,通过构建多变量计量经济模型,利用新近发展的异质性面板协整技术对中国旅游发展与经济增长之间的长期协整关系进行实证检验,并采用FMOLS估计方法测算出中国旅游发展对经济增长的长期产出弹性.研究结论表明,中国旅游发展与经济增长之间存在长期稳定均衡关系,并且旅游发展对经济增长具有长期显著积极影响,进而为TLGH在中国情境的存在性提供证据.此外,与人均旅游人次相比,旅游产业专业化对经济增长的长期产出弹性更大.     

Politics and Economic Development: Why Governments Adopt Different Strategies to Induce Economic Growth

This article assesses the forces that drive governments to engage in economic development activity and attempts to explain why communities adopt different strategies to bring about the common goal of economic well-being. I address this issue at the state policy level by assessing the relationship between economic development strategy and theories of policy adoption in a pooled times series analysis using indicators of interstate competition, fiscal stress, and state ideology collected between 1983 and 1994. I find that economic development strategy choices are largely a function of interjurisdictional competition. The implications of my findings are discussed.     

旅游对我国区域经济增长及其敛散性的影响——基于1997年～2010年省际面板数据的实证分析

本文以Barro和Sala-i-Martin的收敛假说为理论基础,利用面板模型探讨了1997年～2010年间旅游业发展对我国总体国民经济及东、中、西部地区区域经济增长及其敛散性的影响。结论显示:1997年～2010年间,全国及东、中、西部地区经济增长均呈发散趋势;旅游发展对全国及东、中、西部地区区域内经济增长及其差距的缩小产生了积极影响。     

独特的创新型城市发展道路——美国奥斯汀和北卡研究三角地区高技术转型研究

本文以奥斯汀和北卡罗来纳研究三角地区为例,揭示了一条从技术分厂城市到创新型城市的高技术发展道路。这两个地处落后地区的城市在20世纪50年代先后走上了吸引大型高技术企业分支机构的道路,90年代之后,它们实现了从技术分厂城市向创新型城市的跨越。这两个城市的智力资源优势、创业网络系统的建立、城市规模的扩大和风险资本的注入是实现这一转变的重要原因。     

Policy Diffusion and Strategies for Promoting Policy Change: Evidence From California Local Gun Control Ordinances

Recent research efforts on policy innovation and diffusion largely have focused upon policymaking at the state government level. In this article we seek to develop an understanding of the ways momentum for policy change can be generated among receptive local governments. We use gun control policymaking within California to illustrate how local government characteristics, the presence of regional associations, and the establishment of interest groups may lead to policy development and diffusion. We also identify linkages between interest groups, focusing events, and the successful use of a new image of gun violence as a public health problem, yielding insights into strategies that may be used successfully to promote policy change.     

Company Growth,Acquisitions and Access to Complementary Assets in Israel's Data Security Sector

This article analyses aspects of high-tech cluster emergence in Israel during the 1990s with focuses on the data security software industry and on strategies of very successful companies dominating such an industry. Most of the industry is concentrated in Tel Aviv and close-by Hertzliya and to a lesser extent Haifa and Jerusalem. It starts by characterizing the industry as a whole and the universe of 19 companies comprising it. It then proceeds with an in-depth analysis of the growth trajectories of very successful companies, some of which are listed in NASDAQ or have been acquired by large multinational corporations. A fast 'IPO' and a 'fast M&A' track have been identified and characterized. The analysis suggests that while globalization could be beneficial to skill intensive peripheral economies like Israel, a significant economic impact may require an appropriate balance between start-up activity and downstream production and marketing activities.     

安徽省旅游业对经济增长拉动效应的实证研究——基于二维度与三指标的探讨

通过构建旅游业依存度、贡献率和拉动率三个指标,从时间和空间两个维度,本文探讨了安徽省旅游业对经济增长的拉动效应。结果表明,安徽省旅游业对经济增长的拉动效应逐渐加大;在中部六省中,安徽省旅游业拉动效应并不突出;在省域内部,各地市旅游业对经济增长拉动效应的空间非均衡现象较突出,且南强北弱的空间格局与旅游资源在等级上南高北低、景区在空间上“南热、中温、北冷”现状具有很强的共轭性。三个指标均具有相对性,当计算拉动效应时,应同时考虑区域尺度的因素。     

Mortality,Money, and Commemoration: Social and Economic Factors in Southern California Grave-Marker Change During the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Social and economic factors significantly influenced grave-marker choice in southern California cemeteries during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Gradual changes in the American way of death since Victorian times underwent punctuated shifts in mortuary attitudes, commemoration practices, and funerary materials following moments of extreme social and economic duress. While the form of gravestones slowly evolved from large monuments to smaller flush markers during the late 1800s and early 1900s, they collectively experienced a pronounced shift during the 1920s, reflecting American responses to the devastating human losses of World War I and the 1918–19 influenza pandemic. Financial conditions directly affected decisions regarding those materials selected to mark the deceased as well. Although overall trends reveal that granite gravestones gradually replaced marble as the marker of choice in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, pronounced fiscal struggles during the 1907 Bankers’ Panic and the Great Depression were evinced in distinct surges in less expensive marble and metal grave markers.     

Equilibrium and Economic Growth: Spatial Econometric Models and Simulations

Neoclassical theory assumes diminishing returns to capital and spatially constant exogenously-determined technological progress, although it is questionable whether these are realistic assumptions for modeling manufacturing productivity growth variations across European Union (E.U.) regions. In contrast, the model developed in this paper assumes increasing returns and spatially varying technical progress, and is linked to endogenous growth theory and particularly to 'new economic geography' theory. Simulations, involving 178 E.U.regions, show that productivity levels and growth rates are higher in all E.U. regions when the financially assisted (Objective 1) regions have faster output growth. This also reduces inequalities in levels of technology. Allowing the core regions to grow faster has a similar effect of raising productivity growth rates across the E.U., although inequality increases. Thus, the simulations are seen as an attempt to develop a type of 'computable geographical equilibrium' model which, as suggested by Fujita, Krugman, and Venables (1999), is the way theoretical economic geography needs to evolve in order to become a predictive discipline.     

The Secondary Products Revolution: Empirical Evidence and its Current Zooarchaeological Critique

Andrew Sherratt is perhaps best known for the concept of a ??Secondary Products Revolution??, which stressed that the ??primary?? pattern of exploiting domesticated animals for meat in the Early Neolithic was followed by a more diversified exploitation of secondary applications and products such as milk, wool, textiles, and traction. This paper discusses how changes in animal exploitation in the European Neolithic, including secondary uses and products, can be inferred from faunal remains. It also challenges a meat-based, livestock-rearing system for early farmers and stresses the idiosyncratic nature of the introduction of secondary products in particular areas of Anatolia and Europe.