MEASURES OF DIVERSIFICATION: PREDICTORS OF REGIONAL ECONOMIC INSTABILITY*

This work focuses on determining which measure of regional economic diversification best explains differences in economic instability across regions. One recent article found that a portfolio variance measure had the highest explanatory power. Another researcher found that an entropy measure was best after the model was corrected for heteroscedasticity. Results presented here indicate that, after correction for heteroscedasticity, portfolio variance once again displays the greatest power to explain cross-sectional variation in observed regional instability.     

REGIONAL INDUSTRIAL STRUCTURE AND ECONOMIC GROWTH AND INSTABILITY*

ABSTRACT. National and regional employment patterns are subject to growth-instability tradeoffs. This paper applies the portfolio selection model to detailed employment data for the U.S. economy and selected states. Empirical results indicate that growth-instability trade-offs exist in a form not previously understood. The paper also identifies growth and stabilization potential by identifying stabilizing sectors.     

THE CONCEPTUAL LINKS BETWEEN RECREATION SITE DEVELOPMENT AND REGIONAL ECONOMIC IMPACTS*

ABSTRACT. Assessing regional economic impacts of recreation trips is important to public agencies' decisions about using recreation as a rural development tool. Minimizing the total cost of recreation trip production implies that households will spatially distribute their purchases of inputs to trip production, including both trip-specific inputs and durable recreation equipment. A recreation site contributes to a region's economic growth through household purchases of trip inputs. The site's cost effects, price information effects, and recreation and retail agglomeration effects cause changes in household recreation purchases and ultimately generate regional economic impacts.     

THE BEHAVIORAL COSTS OF ECONOMIC INSTABILITY*

This paper reviews the literature reporting a connection between economic change and behavioral disorder. The literature is separated into individual and aggregate based research and the methodological issues raised by each approach are described. The implications of the research findings for illness prevention, remedial services and economic policy making are discussed. The authors argue that the social costs of mobile capital should be accounted and internalized because social justice as well as Economic and Psychological theory assume that an individual should bear the costs of his or her behavior.     

A DYNAMIC INTRSECTORAL,MODEL OF REGIONAL ECONOMIC GROWTH*

ABSTRACT. The dynamic relationship between sectoral value added and regional economic growth is analyzed using a stochastic intersectoral model estimated by ordinary least squares and linear systems techniques. A state-space portion of the model identifies the time element of sedoral value added. Dynamic multipliers, tracing the temporal path of regional growth, are calculated for the state of Georgia over the period 1963–1986. This application shows that the impacts of sectoral shocks can follow cyclical as well as monotonic patterns and that the direction and magnitude of the impact may change over time.     

TOWARDS A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK OF PLACE ATTRACTIVENESS: A MIGRATION PERSPECTIVE

The attractiveness of places is currently gaining a high policy salience in policymakers' efforts to draw mobile capital. Yet, while there are a growing number of empirical studies considering the migration of people and the attractiveness of places, there is an acute lack of conceptual understanding of the phenomena that hamper discussions between researchers and policymakers. This article suggests a conceptual framework whereby place attractiveness can be better understood from a migration perspective. The empirical material for this article mainly draws upon interviews that were carried out with migrants who seem to have considered at least one alternative in their search for a suitable destination. The conceptual framework, which comprises the main result of the article, illustrates that needs, demands and preferences are central and empirically identifiable components for properly appreciating place attractiveness in a migration context. It is argued that the attractiveness of places increases with the successive fulfilment of these factors; but on the other hand, the more factors a migrant seeks to fulfil in his or her destination selection, the fewer the choice possibilities. The article moreover shows how a life-course perspective needs to be integrated in such analyses since not only do migrants' needs, demands and preferences depend upon their current life-course phase situation, their resources and constraints are also likely to correlate with the life-course. The conceptual framework can be used to ease understanding between researchers and policymakers in issues related to place attractiveness and the migration of relatively affluent migrants with choice opportunities.     

WORKER DISPLACEMENT AND JOB-SEARCH: A REGIONAL ANALYSIS OF STRUCTURAL IMPEDIMENTS TO REEMPLOYMENT*

ABSTRACT. This study investigates the human, and in turn the regional, consequences of industrial restructuring in the United States. Our methodology presumes that labor market outcomes of displaced workers can provide considerable information on the structural properties of local labor markets, and subsequently upon the capacity of such areas/regions to reemploy additional workers. The examination follows two steps. In the first, a multivariate model of reemployment likelihood is developed and subsequently estimated. Separate equations are obtained for various resons of the country, a disaggregation that permits one to identify how postdisplacement reemployment, and its determinants, vary systematically across space. In the second step, the above estimates are decomposed into two elements, one of which is reflective of regional structural conditions. Based upon this methodology and estimates obtained in the first step, regions of the country are compared as to magnitude of their structural economic problems, and thus as to their capacity to gainfully reemploy additional workers displaced by plant closure or relocation.     

基于不同区划系统的中国区域经济差异分解研究

基于不同区划系统,采用锡尔系数分解方法来定量测度中国区域经济差异。首先,基于省级空间单元,通过一阶段锡尔系数分析1978年以来中国区域差异的格局及其动态演变;然后,分别基于三大地带--省(直辖市、自治区)--地(市、区、自治州)或者县(市辖区、县级市、县)这两类三级结构的地域行政单元,运用二阶段嵌套锡尔系数分解方法,将差异进一步分解至省内差异水平上,由此揭示出不同于省际分析的区域经济差异特征:省内差异是全国总体差异的重要组分,对于总体差异的影响较地带间差异和省间差异显著得多。     

MODERN MACROECONOMICS AND REGIONAL ECONOMIC MODELING*

ABSTRACT Despite a history of regional economic models being patterned after their national counterparts, modern macroeconomic methodology has yet to be fully embraced by regional scientists. In this paper, I argue that modern macroeconomic methodology has much to offer the field of regional economic modeling. For one, the empirical strategies used in implementing dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models provide insights into how regional computable general equilibrium models could be better parameterized and empirically verified. In addition, the structural macroeconomic approach more generally could be used to construct structural regional policy analysis models for use as alternatives to traditional regional models.     

SPATIAL DEPENDENCE AND SPATIAL STRUCTURAL INSTABILITY IN APPLIED REGRESSION ANALYSIS*

The stability of regression coefficients over the observation set (“regional homogeneity”) is typically assessed by means of a Chow test or within a seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) framework. When spatial error autocorrelation is present in cross-sectional equations the traditional tests are no longer applicable. I evaluate this both in formal terms as well as empirically. I introduce a taxonomy of spatial effects in models for structural instability, and discuss its implication for testing. I compare the performance of traditional tests, robust approaches, maximum-likelihood procedures and pretest techniques by means of a series of simple Monte Carlo experiments.     

区域市场营销与区域经济学拓展理论

区域市场的存在是营销行为区域化的必然结果。环境本底差异加上劳动地域分工出现了区域产品,各种类型区域产品空间分布在不同的地域单元,由此带来商品的市场流通,这就要求针对不同区域特点,制定企业的营销策略。区域市场营销理论是对区域市场、市场缺口理论、区际贸易理论以及市场区位论的拓展。企业在不同区域的营销行为,受区际因素和区际关系的影响使营销策略、营销效果发生变化。本文通过深入研究,揭示这些现象存在的本质问题。