COAL MINING AND THE RESOURCE CURSE IN THE EASTERN UNITED STATES

We measure the effect of resource‐sector dependence on long‐run income growth using the natural experiment of coal mining in 409 Appalachian counties selected for homogeneity. Using a panel data set (1970–2010), we find a one standard deviation increase in resource dependence is associated with 0.5–1 percentage point long‐run and a 0.2 percentage point short‐run decline in the annual growth rate of per capita personal income. We also measure the extent to which the resource curse operates through disincentives to education, and find significant effects, but this “education channel” explains less than 15 percent of the apparent curse.     

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.     

SOCIAL POLICY AS REGIONAL POLICY: MARKET AND NONMARKET FACTORS DETERMINING REGIONAL INEQUALITY

ABSTRACT We decompose the recent changes in regional inequality in Brazil into its components, highlighting the role of spatially blind social programs. We aggregate personal income micro data to the state level, differentiating nine income sources, and assess the role of these components in the observed changes in regional inequality indicators. The main results indicate that the largest part of the recent reduction in regional inequality is related to the dynamics of the market‐related labor income, with manufacturing and services favoring deconcentration. Labor income in agriculture, retirement and pensions, and property rents and other sources favored concentration. The social programs Bolsa Família and Benefícios de Prestação Continuada are responsible for more than 24 percent of the reduction in inequality, although they account for less than 1.7 percent of the disposable household income. Such positive impact on regional concentration is impressive, since the goals of the programs are clearly nonspatial.     

THE IMPACT OF REMITTANCES ON REGIONAL CONSUMPTION AND INVESTMENT

This paper examines the effects of international remittances on regional economic development using spatial data from an original household survey carried out in the Republic of Moldova. I analyze remittance flows with a model that estimates regional (urban and rural) budget shares of consumption and investment expenditure categories for rural and urban households. An important contribution of the paper is that it analyzes the effect of remittances in the regions where spending takes place, which is not necessarily the same as the region where the households originating this spending reside. Using the multinomial logit approach, I control for potential selectivity and endogeneity biases of remittances. The results show that remittances lead to significantly increasing marginal productive investments in urban regions at the expense of rural regions. The fundamental finding of the study is that remittances influence the flight of productive capital out of rural areas into urban regions (a pattern similar to the crowding‐out effect of the Dutch Disease). The analysis carried out in this paper can be applied to other temporary income transfers and exogenous spending injected in the region that affect households' regional expenditure patterns.     

Relative Income and Female Autonomy

This study attempts to explore how relative income contributes to the autonomy of women at both personal and household levels. The potential problem of endogeneity, or reverse causality, in examining the link between female autonomy and relative income is addressed using the Instrumental Variable (IV) estimation approach. The years of education of a woman and her husband are used as instruments for the woman's relative income. Along with the use of exogenous variables as instruments, the heteroskedasticity present in the data is also exploited to form instruments for the relative income of women. The results of this study suggest that relative income unambiguously improves autonomy of women in household decision making but its beneficial effect on autonomy in personal decision making was not found to hold true in all the model specifications (with alternative identification schemes) as employed in this study.     

Local employment multipliers for large publicly subsidized firms: Evidence from a synthetic control approach

This paper provides estimates of local employment multipliers from large, publicly subsidized firms. We use a synthetic control weighted difference-in-difference estimation procedure that matches treated areas with comparison areas to generate local employment multiplier estimates. We show that local employment multiplier estimates have a high degree of uncertainty, with a wide range of point estimates (both positive and negative) and varying degrees of statistical significance. There is a concentration of positive employment multipliers from manufacturing facilities, but little correlation between estimated multipliers and subsidy value. We demonstrate that our approach produces drastically different results than a traditional difference-in-difference approach.     

THE SOCIAL BENEFITS OF URBAN CULTURAL AMENITIES*

ABSTRACT. This paper uses a two-stage hedonic wage approach to derive the benefits from improvement of five cultural amenities. It is argued that the hedonic approach permits valuation of both private and local public aspects of cultural goods since access to the amenity is an essential input in the production of the final service flow. Empirical estimates of willingness to pay suggest price and income elasticities are approximately unity. Lower-bound estimates of marginal benefits for a representative city range from $0.85 million for an additional theater to $57.9 million for an additional zoo facility.     

Spatial Autocorrelation Statistics of Areal Prevalence Rates under High Uncertainty in Denominator Data

We propose a new estimator of spatial autocorrelation of areal incidence or prevalence rates in small areas, such as crime and health indicators, for correcting spatially heterogeneous sampling errors in denominator data. The approach is dubbed the heteroscedasticity‐consistent empirical Bayes (HC‐EB) method. As American Community Survey (ACS) data have been released to the public for small census geographies, small‐area estimates now form the demographic landscape of neighborhoods. Meanwhile, there is growing awareness of the diminished statistical validity of global and local Moran’s I when such small‐area estimates are used in denominator data. Using teen birth rates by census tracts in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, we present comparisons of conventional and new HC‐EB estimates of Global and Local Moran’s I statistics created on ACS data, along with estimates on ground truth values from the 2010 decennial census. Results show that the new adjustment method dramatically enhances the statistical validity of global and local spatial autocorrelation statistics.     

THE LONG-RUN ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF FEDERAL,STATE, AND LOCAL FISCAL POLICIES IN METROPOLITAN AREAS*

ABSTRACT. This paper uses new estimates of metropolitan factor demand and output supply functions to study how federal, state, and local fiscal policies affect metropolitan economies. We illustrate our work with findings for ten metropolitan areas in five states for changes in state corporate income taxes, local property taxes, the federal corporate income tax, an investment tax credit, interest rates, public capital stocks, output prices, and tax and regulatory policies affecting gross wages. It is clear from these simulations that a policy that is nominally the same everywhere will have repercussions that vary widely across regions and cities.     

An alternative policy approach to rural development in regions facing population decline

ABSTRACT

Many rural regions in Europe used to be characterized by weak economic performance and negative population development. While in a long-term perspective this is not any more valid for large parts of Western Europe, a number of rural regions face persistent population decline. By analysing the case of Austria, where approximately one-third of rural areas have experienced such negative population change over the past decades, this paper will examine the impact on economic performance, income levels and well-being patterns. Addressing the crucial and persistent obstacles to positive population trends, new theoretical approaches and perspectives are discussed for overcoming limitations in development. Future approaches for regional development have to go beyond strategies for targeting economic growth, but have to address issues of local participation, social innovation and establishing trust as preconditions to effectively impact well-being dimensions. Such a mobilization effort would be the result of a comprehensive social transition process which would foster an altered narrative for these rural regions compared to the current and predominant focus on compensation and growth policies. Despite strong interlinkages with other regions and actors, the needs of local people would be central and both would be a cornerstone for social innovation.     

THE EFFECTS OF METROPOLITAN JOB GROWTH ON THE SIZE DISTRIBUTION OF FAMILY INCOME*

ABSTRACT. This article examines how a metropolitan area's job growth affects its income distribution, using CPS data from 1979 to 1988. Metropolitan growth increases the poorest quintile's income by a greater percentage than for the average family. Metropolitan growth also increases the value of property owned by the richest quintiles. Economic development programs to increase local growth will have a net progressive effect if the cost per job created is low, and these costs are financed by personal taxes. But programs with a high cost per job, or financed by cutting welfare, will reduce the net income of the poorest quintile.     

Household Incomes in Central Asia: The Case of Post-Soviet Kazakhstan

Two European geographers present the findings of a sizeable survey (n = 7,515) providing a detailed geographical analysis of household incomes and reliance on personal subsidiary garden plots across Kazakhstan. The authors focus on assessing the extent to which Kazakhstan's rising GDP during the post-Soviet period has coincided with an increase in the general population's personal income and ability to secure adequate food supplies for personal consumption. The fine geographical scale of analysis of the survey data (significantly less coarse than oblast-level data) enabled them to identify regions characterized by "trickle-down" income, largely centered on the country's two main urban centers and areas of resource exploitation. The patterns revealed in the paper have relevance to the debate concerning the uneven distribution of benefits from resource exploitation (notably oil and gas) to Kazakhstan's population. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: D100, D310, I300, Q120, R290. 2 figures, 6 tables, 51 references.     

New Moscow: An Exploratory Assessment

An American geographer specializing in Russia examines the unprecedented plan announced in mid-2011 by the country's President Dmitriy Medvedev to expand the territory of Moscow and move government offices to newly annexed areas. The plan aims to increase the land area of the capital by 155 percent, mainly by annexation of a vast tract southwest of the city. The author demonstrates that while "New Moscow" is envisioned as a multi-polar and low-density urban site, the historic core would likely focus on tourism. He discusses the official reasons given for the immense undertaking, the potential problems raised by urban specialists and local media, as well as the results of public opinion polls detailing the attitudes of Muscovites toward the city's proposed transformation.     

SKILLS,EDUCATION, AND CANADIAN PROVINCIAL DISPARITY*

ABSTRACT We derive synthetic time series over the 1951–2001 period of the skills of labor market entrants for the 10 Canadian provinces from the 2003 ALL survey. The effect of the skills variable on regional income is significant and substantial. Skills acquired by one extra year of schooling result in an increase in per capita income of around 5 percent, which is close to microeconomic Mincerian estimates. Our literacy indicator does not outperform human capital indicators based on education. This contrasts sharply with recent cross‐country evidence and suggests substantial measurement error in cross‐country schooling data.     

LOCAL ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF NATURAL DISASTERS*

ABSTRACT This research uses time‐series analysis under a quasi‐experimental pair‐wise matching design to examine local economic impacts of the 1993 Midwest flood. The data support the concept of overall local economic resiliency to natural disasters. The flood's impacts on total employment were minimal. Although significant drops in personal income were observed in the year of the event, the long‐run effects seemed to be negligible. This study also finds that the flood's negative impacts on agriculture were significant and long lasting to some Midwestern communities. The findings are quite stable with respect to the number of controls selected for each treated unit.     

Local and regional income differences in Finland in 1989 to 1997 — a GIS approach

Income differentials among the population of Finland began to widen in the latter half of the 1990s, as reflected in a geographical analysis based on 1 × 1 km grid cell data produced by Statistics Finland, where the most densely populated cells are seen to have lower mean income levels than the others, and the spatial differences in income level within the large towns and cities are seen to have increased. The income differentials between grid cells are fairly stable and the majority of the cells can be classified as representing the middle income bracket in terms of incomes subject to state taxation. Accurate geo-referenced data of this kind enable observations to be made concerning income differentials which would remain obscured if only administrative areal units such as local government districts were used.     

TRENDS AND CYCLES IN THE COMPOSITION OF THE FEDERAL BUDGET, 1947–48

In this study, systematic movements in the composition of the Federal budget are studied, using a simple statistical structure which distinguishes trend, cyclical, and price-indexing phenomena. Using NIA data on budget expenditures and receipts, it is found that share movements on both sides of the budget are dominated by trends. Among expenditure categories, the shares of transfer programs show strong upward trends while the defense purchases share has beentrending strongly downward. On the revenue side, the shares represented by social insurance contributions and personal income taxes have been trending upward at the expense of corporateincome taxes and indirect taxes. Significant cyclical and price-indexing responsiveness is shown by several expenditure and revenue categories. A noteworthy finding is that the estimates show little evidence of structural change over 1947-1978, suggesting that the trend and otherforces found to be significant are not of recent origin but have been at work over the whole period.     

Who Pays the Costs of Inflation?

Inflation may be looked upon as a deferred consumption tax which reduces consumer purchasing power through high prices to compensate for earlier excess expansions of credit. A portion of this excess borrowing is by government to finance deficits. The inflation cost may then be compared by family–income class with the alternative income taxes needed to avoid inflation by eliminating the deficits. By this calculation for 1965–75, the inflation cost was highly regressive, with an effective rate of 17 percent on. families below $5,000, and 17 times greater than such families would have had to pay in income taxes. Meantime, the effective inflationary tax rate for wealthy families over $50,000 in income was a bonus, or tax rebate, of one percent.     

Outside the Economy: Women’s Work and Feminist Economics in the Construction and Critique of National Income Accounting

Concerns about women’s work were present at the advent of the modern method of national income accounting, and they have featured prominently in the most radical critiques of this method. During and after the Second World War, Phyllis Deane, a young researcher working under the supervision of Richard Stone, Austin Robinson and Arthur Lewis, grappled with the conceptual difficulties involved in measuring the ‘national’ incomes of mostly rural subsistence colonies in British central Africa. In constructing her estimates, Deane relied heavily on a multidisciplinary survey of nutrition conducted in interwar Nyasaland. Deane’s work was essentially an exercise in reductionism and bounding; she sought to extract from these data a single monetary estimate of production. Yet Deane also proved unwilling to exclude too much. She broke with her advisors’ favoured convention that activities not involved in market exchange should be excluded from the national income. Successive national income accountants around the world would reach disparate conclusions on method, particularly on the question of the ‘production boundary’—that is, the dividing line between those productive activities that would be included in the national income and those that would not. This issue became most contentious in the sphere of ‘non-monetary’ or ‘subsistence’ production performed mostly by female producers. While some statisticians included firewood collection, beer brewing and cooking, many others thought such activities beyond the bounds of ‘the economy’. Early decisions about the status of non-monetary production influenced the international standards enshrined in the United Nations System of National Accounts, first published in 1953. Beginning in the 1970s, second-wave feminists criticised the invisibility of women’s work in national income estimates. These critiques helped spur the inclusion of non-monetary activities in the accounts of many nations. Yet by the 1990s, many feminist critics—most notably New Zealand-born political economist Marilyn Waring—sought to move beyond GDP as a measure of welfare. These feminists called instead for greater reliance on measures such as the Human Development Index and time-use surveys. These measures may have appeared new, but they required the same multidisciplinary and intensive methods as Nyasaland’s interwar nutrition survey, which had served as the substrate for the earliest calculation of a ‘colonial national’ income. Drawing upon archives in the United Kingdom, Malawi and the United States, this paper argues that feminist economists and women’s work were central to both the post-war construction and the late-twentieth century critique of national income.     

延安市农民收入可持续增长机制探析

近年来,延安市农民人均纯收入一直低于全国平均水平,城乡居民收入差距也不断扩大。为改变这一局面,延安市政府实施了生态移民工程,进行了农业产业结构调整。这些措施在一定程度上改善了农民的生活水平,但是,制约农民收入增长的根本性障碍仍然存在。只有促进高附加值农业的可持续发展、鼓励农村剩余劳动力的外出就业和使农村非农产业实现较快发展,才能建立起农民收入的可持续增长机制。