Economic Restructuring and Regional Change in Australia

This paper examines geographical dimensions of the actual and potential impacts of economic restructuring on individual regions in Australia from the perspective of the jobs and services that support people and families. Four examples are discussed: The discussion raises four sets of concerns for the future: potential social dislocation in rural and remote communities; the erosion of the employment and service bases of those same communities; the vulnerability of sections of society, especially women and disadvantaged ethnic groups; and the imprecision involved in disentangling webs of cross subsidy and community service obligations in Australia.

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Public Leaders in Regional Economic Development

This paper focuses on the role of public leaders in regional economic development from a community-building point of view. According to the basic hypothesis, the role of leaders rises everywhere during periods of instability, but remains always relevant in economic peripheries. Inspired by the chaos theory, we argue that leaders have decisive roles during unstable periods or chaos in a society when a very small fluctuation may qualitatively change the direction of development. Our second point here is that leaders will always be in key positions on economic peripheries where a general lack of human resources and a thin institutional thickness exist. The theoretical discussion refers to Weber's Schmalenbach's 'emotional community'/'Bund' concepts and Gumilev's theory of ethnogenesis and tries to plant these approaches within the present day framework. The empirical case study describes a perfect leadership and a successful community-building process in Emmaste Community, Estonia.     

东北亚区域经济合作与跨国城市体系

东北亚在整个亚太地区最具有一体化特点,其区域经济合作潜力深厚,前景可观。在东北亚区域沿海地带,目前已初步形成一个跨国的大中城市组成的城市走廓,成为带动东北亚经济合作与发展的中坚及空间依托。随着区域经济一体化的发展,相关国家的城市功能、地位、辐射范围都会有较大的调整与变化,对此,我们应该有思想准备,以便合理规划我国的城市战略布局,迎接东北亚新时代的挑战。     

Regional Innovation Systems and Economic Performance: Between Regions and Nations

This article aims at assessing the diversity of regional innovation systems and their economic performance in Europe. We propose to adapt the social systems of innovation and production (SSIP) framework at the regional level by identifying the specific arrangements of each part of the innovation and production system. Three key features of European regions are investigated using this framework: the diversity of regional SSIP, the interplay of regional and national determinants of such systems, and the impact of SSIP on regional performance. We identify a typology of regional configurations resulting from the combination of scientific, technological, educational and industrial indicators, using multivariate data analysis. A variance analysis approach is then developed in order to test the existence of specific regional growth regimes. The results highlight a persistently high level of diversity of regional configurations, notably among knowledge intensive regions, but also show that national institutional settings remain of fundamental importance in shaping a number of regional configurations. A final conclusion relates to the weak correlation observed between the structural characteristics of regions and their performance over the 2003–2007 period: regional performance remains primarily shaped by national trends. Overall, the paper questions the regional dimension of these “systems”.     

Capital Accumulation,Economic Restructuring,and Nonequilibrium Regional Growth Dynamics

Recently, there has been a resurgence of interest in explaining the significance and persistence of regional growth differentials. Much of the debate in contemporary political economy has focussed on the relative importance of either “weak” or “strong” competition in regulating movements in prices, profits, and investments both within and between economic sectors and regions. However, little attention has been directed toward developing theoretical models that are capable of evaluating the relative importance of (non) equilibrating forces in determining the long-run accumulation dynamics of capitalist space economies. In this paper, I develop an approach to modeling regional growth that simultaneously theorizes the link between processes of economic restructuring and regional capital accumulation. I examine the stability properties of this model in order to evaluate the theoretical significance of both equilibrating and nonequilibrating forces in determining the trajectory of regional outputs, profits and employment.     

China and East Asia: An Appraisal of Regional Economic Integration

Three Taiwan-based economists evaluate regional economic integration in East Asia, using trade indicators to analyze the degree of trade concentration among East Asian nations, and employing the gravity model to identify key factors influencing bilateral trade flows among them. China is expected to play a key role in East Asia's economic development, and empirical analysis for the period 1990-2005 indicates that East Asia has already evolved into a trading block, expected to become one of three dominant blocks in the global economy. The study, which highlights the key role played by geographical distance and market size, suggests that the impact of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for East Asian trade will remain limited in the future. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F15, F31, O53, P33. 7 tables, 41 references.     

The Social and Economic Performance of Australia's Large Regional Cities and Towns: Implications for Rural and Regional Policy

Australia's large regional cities and towns display wide variation in how they are adjusting to the socio‐economic transitions occurring in Australia. That variation is exposed using a multi‐variate model analysing performance on a range of socio‐economic variables over the decade 1986 to 1996 for 122 cities and towns with populations of 10 000 and above at the 1996 census. Those places are classified into seven clusters of community performance reflecting opportunity/vulnerability, and their spatial patterns are mapped. The resulting framework is then used to show how the recent geography of the socio‐economic performance of the large regional cities and towns has a distinctive selectivity and contributes to opportunity in some places and the vulnerable performance of others. The influence of that selectivity can be seen in the mismatched geographic patterns evident from an analysis of shares of national population and employment change, investment in non‐residential construction, levels of welfare dependency, and the ratio between household income tax generation and transfer benefits received. The paper uses the insights drawn from that analysis to pose questions suggesting the need to rethink national policy perspectives for addressing change in non‐metropolitan Australia.     

The Construction of Economic Models of Regional and Local Territorial-Production Complexes

A discussion of the use of economic models for the planning of new industrial enterprises or changing the specialization of existing enterprises within industrial complexes. Despite some differences in N. N. Kolosovskiy's definition of a territorial production complex and Walter Isard's definition of an industrial complex, Isard's method of building economic models is found applicable to Soviet conditions.     

地方经济史本地化的优势与陷阱

中国经济史学者研究地方经济史始于20世纪30年代。50年代之后,研究本地特色经济史已逐渐形成一股热潮。在当前阶段,经济史中的同地研究已占主要地位,成为研究的主流。这种现象可以称之为地方经济史研究的本土化或本地化,有利于研究者发挥优势,有利于中国经济史学科的深入发展,有利于发挥经济史学的社会功能。地方经济史研究的本地化,既是中国经济史学发展到当前阶段的必然结果,也是它进一步发展的要求与动力。地方经济史研究本地化的发展为中国经济史学科的建设奠定了坚实基础,促进经济史学研究的内容更加丰富和学风更趋朴实,但在研究中也要避免由乡土情感带来的感情和理智平衡问题造成的陷阱。     

Regional Development Agencies and Local Economic Development: Scale and Competitiveness in High-technology Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire

Regional Development Agencies have been given the fundamental aim of improving their regions' economic performance and competitiveness. Supporting innovation is a cornerstone of this policy. This paper explores the limitations of region-based strategies arguing that this neglects the importance of policy intervention at the local level, using case studies of Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire.     

论当代中国区域经济发展的两次战略西移

新中国区域经济发展经历了两次战略西移。第一次从 2 0世纪 50年代初到70年代末 ,经济发展重心从东部逐渐向西部转移 ;第二次是 2 0世纪 90年代中后期以来 ,以江泽民为核心的党中央作出西部大开发的战略决策。两次战略西移所面对的国情有着相同或相似之处 ,但其时代背景和国际环境却不同 ,因而采用的是不同的经济增长方式 ,是在完全不同的体制条件下进行的。比较研究两次战略西移的时代背景、内容特点和体制选择 ,对于实施 2 1世纪西部大开发战略具有重大的现实意义     

The Place of Regional Economic Geography in the System of Geographical Sciences

The author holds that regional geography cannot be regarded as an independent geographic discipline because it lacks its own system of laws, such as the natural laws that operate in physical geography and the social laws that operate in economic geography. He agrees with the view that both physical and economic geography fall into theoretical and regional departments, and that regional studies test the localized application of the general laws formulated by the theoretical departments of the two great divisions of geography.     

The Role of Economic Sectors in the Formation of Regional Production Complexes

A variety of approaches used in Soviet economic geography to define and measure the productive specialization of an economic region are reviewed. In the author's view, a regional activity qualifies as regional specialization if it helps shape the basic character of the regional economy. It is not sufficient for a regional activity merely to represent a major portion of a particular national sector of the economy. For example, the asbestos industry in the Urals represents the major portion of Soviet asbestos output, but asbestos does not shape the basic character of the Urals economy and is therefore not a principal specialization sector. Regional specialization derives from relationships among the various sectors of the regional economy, not from the significance of any particular commodity. A classification of economic sectors is proposed as an aid in analyzing the functioning of a regional economy: (1) the principal specialization sectors; (2) basic raw-material sectors; (3) associated sectors using the wastes and by-products of the principal sectors; (4) complementary specialization sectors, such as asbestos in the Urals; (5) auxiliary sectors, such as metallurgical fluxes for the iron and steel industry; (6) service sectors, including utilities, transportation, construction, trade; (7) local sectors, working for local consumption.     

Capital Assistance for Small Firms: Some Implications for Regional Economic Welfare

This paper analyzes the role of finance capital in regional economic development. A cost‐benefit approach is invoked in order to estimate the welfare impacts of a regional loan and guarantee program for small firms in Israel. Program‐created employment is treated as a benefit and an employment account that separates net from gross employment, is presented. An estimate of net wage benefits is then derived. This involves adjusting wages across different earnings classes in order to account for the variation in opportunity costs of labor at different levels. The estimation of costs includes the opportunity costs of capital, administration, default, and tax‐raising costs. Results point to substantial regional welfare effects. We stress the need to account for changing regional economic structure in this kind of evaluation framework.     

市场经济体制下的民族区域自治法与民族关系的深化发展

《民族区域自治法》是我国的一项基本法律．是少数民族和民族地区经济化发展和各民族共同繁荣的法律保障。《民族区域自治法》颁布至今．民族地区在各个层次各个领域都取得了较大的发展,这有力地促进了民族关系的健康发展。与此同时．《民族区域自治法》自身也有许多不完善之处。我们必须根据社会主义市场经济的总体要求．修订《民族区域自治法》．确保民族自治地方的自治地位．最终达到促进民族关系深化发展的目的。