Environmental Compliance Costs and the Distribution of Emissions in the U.S.

Using the properties of the Gini coefficient, a structural model is developed to assess the impact of uniform changes in environmental compliance costs on the distribution of per capita emissions across U.S. counties and states, a distribution that places a larger burden on minorities. Using data from the U.S. EPA's Toxic Release Inventory and three state-specific measures of environmental compliance costs, we find that uniform increases in federal environmental standards have little impact on the distribution of environmental hazards, and may actually exacerbate spatial inequality. As a result, Federal standards that target specific high pollution locations are necessary to redress current inequities.     

China's Air Passenger Transport: An Analysis of Recent Trends

Two China-based transportation geographers examine trends and developments revealed by the release of the most recent official data on traffic and airport capacity within mainland China's domestic air passenger transport system. The focus of the study is the uneven spatial distribution of airports and airport service hinterlands, as well as the hierarchical nature of passenger flows centered within the axis Beijing-Shanghai-Guangzhou (Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan are not included in the analysis). Among the questions investigated are the efficiency/balance within the system, as well as the extent to which the distribution of airports and air passenger flow volumes reflect basic patterns of economic and urban development within the country, and conform with a hub-and-spoke model. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: L50, L93, O18, R40. 5 figures, 5 tables, 30 references.     

Airport delays and metropolitan employment

This study provides the first empirical assessment of the impact airline delays have on urban employment. While previous works have suggested that road congestion can slow down regional development, the influence of air traffic delays on metro‐level jobs has not been examined comprehensively. The present study uses a nine‐year panel of quarterly data, which covers passenger airline traffic and delays at airports across urban areas in the United States. The panel also includes data on total and industry‐specific employment at the metropolitan‐area level. Our empirical estimates of the impact of air traffic on total employment are comparable to previously reported measures in the literature. However, we find that service‐sector employment is less sensitive to air traffic than other studies suggested. We provide new evidence confirming that delays have a negative effect on employment, a finding that is robust to various specifications of our empirical model. Our results indicate that a 10 percent increase in the number of delayed flights leads to up to a 0.15 percent decrease in total and service‐sector employment, a 0.47 percent decline in leisure and hospitality employment, and a 0.7 percent reduction in the employment level of goods‐producing jobs.     

ACCOUNTING FOR NEIGHBORING EFFECTS IN MEASURES OF SPATIAL CONCENTRATION*

ABSTRACT A common problem with spatial economic concentration measures based on areal data (e.g., Gini, Herfindhal, entropy, and Ellison‐Glaeser indices) is accounting for the position of regions in space. While they purport to measure spatial clustering, these statistics are confined to calculations within individual areal units. They are insensitive to the proximity of regions or to neighboring effects. Clearly, since spillovers do not recognize areal units, economic clusters may cross regional boundaries. Yet with current measures, any industrial agglomeration that traverses boundaries will be chopped into two or more pieces. Activity in adjacent spatial units is treated in exactly the same way as activity in far‐flung, nonadjacent areas. This paper shows how popular measures of spatial concentration relying on areal data can be modified to account for neighboring effects. With a U.S. application, we also demonstrate that the new instruments we propose are easy to implement and can be valuable in regional analysis.     

Air Services at Australian Cities: Change and Inertia 2005–2010

This research analyses international and domestic air services in Australia during a six year period, 2005–2010. We place air services into their urban context by relating them to city‐based measures such as population, tourism, and producer services employment among other measures. The research takes a supply‐side approach in an assessment of international and domestic capacity at major Australian airports from the perspective of the number of seats, the nature of links, and competition. Multiple linkage analysis and the concept of effective competitors allow us to explore this perspective at greater depth. Our findings show substantial changes in international patterns, specifically favouring Melbourne, Perth, and Gold Coast. In contrast, the domestic scene is characterised by little change, an outcome we link to the underlying stability in the settlement system and the location of some major economic activities. While the results are related to our measures of urban characteristics, some special region‐specific aspects are also at work. Finally, in both the international and domestic cases we find evidence of greater airline diversity which may benefit consumers.     

FIRM SIZES AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: ESTIMATING LONG‐TERM EFFECTS ON U.S. COUNTY GROWTH, 1990–2000

This paper investigates the role of the business size distribution on income and employment growth in U.S. counties from 1990 to 2000. We measure the business size distribution as the share of employees across nine establishment size categories that range from microfirms (one to four employees) to large firms (1,000+ employees) and using three indices similar to a Gini coefficient. Results show that the business size distribution has a significant impact on county‐level growth patterns. Employment shares in small firms increase employment growth, but decrease income growth. One possible conclusion suggests policies emphasizing small firms and entrepreneurship during times of high unemployment.     

中国入境旅游经济地区差距演变及其结构分解

本文以基尼系数及其分解法对1997-2009年中国入境旅游收入地区差异、收入结构分项差异及其演变做测算。研究发现我国入境旅游收入地区差异呈缩小态势;旅游外汇收入构成各分项基尼系数都呈下降趋势,交通、购物收入基尼系数对总基尼系数贡献度较大;结构效应对总基尼系数的减小贡献不是很大,集中效应是总基尼系数变化的决定性要素。分析指出,要缩小地区入境旅游差距,必须在坚持发展地区经济和开发高级旅游景区的前提下,关键点在于改善落后地区交通条件和开发地域特色的中高档商品以扩大旅游外汇交通收入及购物收入。     

The morphogenesis of state highway networks in the United States

Despite the dominance of automobiles in the 20th century transport patterns of the U.S., the modern highway network actually emerged as a result of popular social and economic goals in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These goals were based on improving rural mobility and living conditions, and were completely unrelated to automobile traffic. The desire to improve rural roads stimulated the creation of highway networks at new spatial scales, with consistent patterns among most states. These networks were later greatly expanded in size and adapted to carry motorized traffic between major cities, with the result that their patterns have been substantially altered from their original form.     

A Methodology for Estimating Returns to Skills for Canadian Provinces and U.S. States

Differences in both regional skill prices and skill mix can explain interregional variations in wage distributions. We control for interregional differences in skill mix that permit us to compute key parameters of regional wage distributions including regional returns to skills. In addition to setting forth the methods in detail, we also present estimates for 48 U.S. states and 10 Canadian provinces. For both males and females, we find that regional mean wages (with controls for skills mix) in the U.S. and Canada are similar, but that the returns to skills are systematically higher in the U.S.     

Air Services in Australia: Growth and Corporate Change, 1921–1996

The growth of Australian internal passenger airlines in the seventy-five years between 1921 and 1996 has been spectacular with 381 airlines having been part of this evolution. The end of 1996 saw 44 passenger airlines operating, but the nine that made up the two principal airline families performed 98 per cent of total passenger-kilometres. This paper considers the factors which have moulded the industry and the changes which have occurred in its corporate structure, especially those that led to the formation of the present duopoly. The growth of the industry has not resulted in marked spatial changes apart from a 48 per cent decline in the number of airports served since 1963–64. The proportion of total traffic passing through the busier airports has increased over the last thirty years.     

空港经济产业布局模式及规划引导研究——以广州白云国际机场为例

从产业布局的角度探讨了国内近年比较热门的空港经济现象。首先从与机场最直接相关的人、物、资金和信息四大要素入手,剖析了空港经济主要产业类型及其特征,并分析了空港经济总体区位及其演变过程。在此基础上总结分析空港经济产业具有与发展阶段相吻合的增长极、点轴和网络三种布局模式,指出国内备受推崇的圈层布局是发展阶段不明确的理想模式,并尝试采用地理信息系统空间分析方法对产业布局的区位进行叠加分析。最后以广州新白云机场为例,探讨了周围花都区和白云区空港经济产业布局规划方案和措施。     

旅游机场吞吐量影响因素初探

近年来,在旅游者航空需求推动下,旅游热点地区兴建旅游机场已成为一大趋势。本文对旅游机场的概念、特点进行了归纳,认为旅游机场至少可以根据其对旅游客流的依赖程度区分为旅游景区机场和旅游城市机场。对机场吞吐量统计数据的分析发现,宏观地理区位是导致游客选择航空旅行方式比重存在差异的主要原因。对黄山和九寨沟等多个旅游机场的案例分析发现,具体的旅游线路组织方式、地面交通方式和其他机场的分流作用是导致旅游机场吞吐量悬殊的深层原因。在此基础上提出了旅游机场吞吐量影响因素的概念模型并将之用于喀纳斯机场和宜昌机场的分析。     

The sociospatial ecology of deaths during police interactions in the United States, 2016–2020

Who dies in police custody? Where? To answer these questions, we use spatially disaggregated georeferenced data that measure 9098 deaths occurring by multiple causes during interactions with police throughout the U.S. from 2016 to 2020. We use a Sociospatial Ecology framework and Bayesian statistics over U.S. counties that establishes the relationship between social contexts – regional poverty, White/non-White population, violent crime rates, and political identity – and the risk of dying during police interactions. In addition, we evaluate the effects of police force Whiteness on deaths during police interactions. Controlling for alternative explanations, we show heterogeneous distributions of fatality risk, with large clusters in the Southwest and isolated high-probability pockets in other states. Risk maps allowing for visualization of these patterns are provided. We arrive at five main results. 1) There is a general trend of higher death during police interaction in areas of high poverty, fewer White people, higher violent crime rates, and higher populations with conservative values. 2) A great risk of deadly encounters for Black people exists throughout most of the U.S., while regional patterns of high risk exist for all other people of color. 3) White deaths during police interactions are most sensitive to ecological factors. 4) The risk of Blacks getting killed by police increases in White areas regardless of violent crime rates. 5) Higher proportions of White police within U.S. counties leads to higher interactive death risk for all races/ethnicities except Asian/Pacific Islander. Ultimately, our findings identify widespread racial/ethnic biases in situations of power and control.     

Who are the People in my Neighborhood?: The “Contextual Fallacy” of Measuring Individual Context with Census Geographies

Scholars frequently use counts of populations aggregated into geographic units like census tracts to represent measures of neighborhood context. Decades of research confirm that variation in how individuals are aggregated into geographic units can dramatically alter analyses conducted with these units. While most researchers are aware of the problem, they have lacked the tools to determine its magnitude or its capacity to affect analytical results obtained using these contextual measures. Using confidential access to the complete 2010 U.S. Decennial Census, we can construct—for all persons in the U.S.—individual-specific contexts, which we group according to Census-assigned block, block group, and tract. We compare these individual-specific measures to the published statistics at each scale, and we then determine the degree to which published measures could be affected by how boundaries are drawn using a simple statistic, the standard deviation of individual context (SDIC). For three key measures (percent Black, percent Hispanic, and Entropy—a measure of ethno-racial diversity), we find that block-level Census statistics frequently contain a high degree of uncertainty meaning that they may not capture the actual context of individuals within them. More problematic, we uncover systematic spatial patterns in the uncertainty associated with contextual variables at all three scales.     

我国东西部地区差异的实证研究与收敛性的R/S分析

本介绍了赫斯特指数(H)和分维值(DB)的计算方法,分析了我国改革开放以来的东西部人均GDP的差异,试图用分形理论中的R／S分析法分析1978--1999年我国基尼系数的收敛性约分形特征,得到赫斯特指数(H)和分维值(DB),进而分析这个时间序列的发展特性,并预测我国区域经济发展差异的未来变化趋势,提出政策建议,为国家的宏观调控政策提供理论上的依据。     

Inhabiting a risky earth: The Eyjafjallajökull eruption in 2010 and its impacts (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

The eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland in 2010 caused havoc to global air traffic. This article examines that event by looking at theories of risk and culture. We demonstrate the fragility of today's mobilities, which depend on unpredictable nature as well as complex technological systems. A new type of risk was revealed by the eruption, which has since become a feature of cultural risk portfolios in contemporary society.     

Gender and Patterns of Roll Call Voting in the U.S. Senate

Previous studies of gender and representation at the state legislative level and in the U.S. House of Representatives have shown that women tend to be more liberal than their male colleagues and are more likely to support women's issues. Because of the limited presence of women in the body over the years, there is scant empirical evidence to confirm whether this pattern is present in the U.S. Senate. Sound theoretical basis indicates that the institutional rules of the Senate, the Senate's individualistic culture, the Senate's six-year election timetable, and the national profile of U.S. senators may create conditions that allow gender differences in roll call voting to be more easily detected than is possible in more rigidly structured institutions such as the U.S. House. This study employs a longitudinal design that pools roll call voting data from the 103rd Congress through the 110th Congress to determine whether female senators compile substantively different policy records than their male colleagues. The results indicate that gender does systematically influence roll call voting patterns in the Senate. However, it is largely a function of female Republicans voting in a less conservative fashion than male Republicans on the basic left-right policy space and on a smaller set of issues of importance to women.     

Mean consumption, poverty and inequality in rural India in the 60th round of the National Sample Survey

This article reports on mean consumption, poverty (all three FGT measures) and inequality during 2004 for rural India using National Sample Survey (NSS) data for the 60th Round. Mean consumption at the national level is much higher than the poverty line. However, the Gini coefficient is higher than in recent earlier rounds. The headcount ratio is 22.9 per cent. Mean consumption, all three measures of poverty and the Gini coefficient are computed at the level of 20 states and 63 agro-climatic zones in these 20 states. It is surmised that despite impressive growth rates deprivation is pervasive, pockets of severe poverty persist, and inequality is rampant.     

U.S. Latina/o Muslims Since 1920: From “Moors” to “Latino Muslims”

This article provides a historical overview of the development of the U.S. Latina/o Muslim community. U.S. Latina/os have been converting to Islam since the 1920s. Early converts were primarily found in African‐American‐majority Islamic communities, though there were some others who entered Islam through ties to Muslim immigrants. In both cases, the U.S.'s racist social system had brought the two communities together. In New York City during the 1970s, however, a group of around a dozen Latina/o Muslims felt that neither the African‐American‐majority nor the immigrant‐majority communities sufficiently addressed Latina/os' particular culture, languages, social situations, and contributions to Islamic history. To correct this, they created the first known U.S. Latina/o Muslim organisation, the Alianza Islamica, a group which fostered a “Latino Muslim” identity. Since that time, due to the growing numbers of U.S. Latina/o Muslims, as well as a tendency to foster ties with Latina/o Muslims in countries outside of the U.S., U.S. Latina/o Muslims are more and more adopting the “Latino Muslim” identity, which is now being promoted by several organisations and prominent leaders.     

U.S. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT POLICY – THE URBAN-RURAL DIMENSION

Economic development in the U.S. context from the federal level is reviewed with emphasis on the urban-rural dimension. “Economic development” is theoretically discussed and defined. Appropriate intervention into free market processes is examined as to justifications and unit of analysis. U.S. economic development policy history is reviewed in its broader form of subsidy and risk reallocation under several conceptual schemes to show constituencies, complexity, urban-rural emphasis, and biases toward industrialization. A series of sociopolitical scenarios are introduced to explain these patterns. The relationship between economic policy and federalism is explored. A conception of “rural development” is developed and reconceptualization of development along a systemic perspective is urged.