The Impact of European Structural Funds in the South of Spain

Over the last decades, the European Union has contributed to the development of poor regions of the Associate Members. This is the case of Andalusia, an Objective 1 region for the European regional policy in the south of Spain. In this paper we carry out an impact analysis of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), one of the most important Structural Funds, to the object of assessing its effect on aggregate and sectoral production, price indexes and consumers’ welfare. To this extend we compute an Applied General Equilibrium Model (AGEM) and we present a counterfactual analysis with simulations for three representative years: 1990, 1995 and 1999. We conclude that regional funding has deeply contributed to Andalusian regional development and the effectiveness of the funds seems to be larger for the last years of the study.     

The Effect of Business Support on Employment in Manufacturing: Evidence from the European Union Structural Funds in Germany,Italy and Spain

This study investigates employment growth in the business activities supported by the European Cohesion Policy. We examine cross-industry, cross-regional variations in a sample of fourteen manufacturing industries and seventy European regions (in Germany, Italy and Spain) and take advantage of detailed European Union Structural Funds data at the regional level for the period 2000–2006. We show that business support is positively associated with higher employment growth in industries that are initially smaller and in those with higher growth opportunities. The results suggest that direct support to businesses by the European Cohesion Policy contributes to the growth process of employment in different industries. Because previous estimated effects at the aggregate level may in fact conceal large differences across industries, we conclude that our empirical analysis contributes to the understanding of how Structural Funds can affect industrial and regional development as well as adjustment paths.     

区域对比:环境与聚落的演进

Through the comparative analysis considering environment, archaeological culture sequence, alteration of settlement quantities, relation between the change of environment and the movement of settlements, cultural embedding superposition exponent of ancient sites, ect. among three regions, the author thinks that they respectively represent three different developing patterns of ancient settlements. The middle and lower reaches of Yellow river and the Valley of Xilamulun River respectively represented different development patterns of the two native cultures, namely, the agricultural civilization of Great River and the half-agricultural and half-stockbreeding civilization of northern districts. The Valley of Hulu river, located in the northwest, can be the representation of secondary cultures, which originated from civilizations of great river, but dissimilated during the course of spreading abroad towards west.     

Spatial Spillovers and Regional Growth: A Cognitive Approach

Spatial spillover effects are widely studied in the literature, as an important source of externality and therefore of discrepancy between private and social optimum, creating the emergence for ad-hoc policy interventions. Within the literature, their spatially-bounded nature is highly emphasised, but the mechanisms for their spatial diffusion are generally considered as a black box, with no reference to territorialized channels through which these externalities spread around. The study aims to present a literature review on the spatial spillover concept, emphasising two main stages of reflection, the so-called spatial approach and the functional approach. This work identifies in a third approach, the cognitive approach, a new perspective to the interpretation of spatial spillovers and their conditions, and on this approach it elaborates theoretically and empirically. The main assumption is that the capabilities of economic agents to absorb and utilize spillovers—implicitly assumed by the spatial spillover theory to be invariant with respect to space—in reality highly depend on strongly territorialized and un-imitable assets, such as local trust, sense of belonging and creativity. This assumption is tested empirically on all NUTS 2 of the 27 European member countries, thanks to a regional forecasting growth model developed by the author, called MASST.     

Regional Wage Rigidity: The European Union and United States Compared

In recent years it has been pointed out that regional unemployment disparities are much more entrenched across member states of the European Union (E.U.) than they are in the U.S. A 'conventional wisdom' has emerged to the effect that this difference is due in part to the greater degree of wage rigidity in E.U. regions. In this paper we explore this issue by estimating short run and long run real wage (in)flexibility for the regions in five core E.U. countries (Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands) and for the U.S. states for the period 1976–1994. We find that real wage (in)flexibility varies across regions both in the E.U. and the U.S., but that, on average, regional wages are no less flexible in E.U. core regions than in U.S. states. The paper also examines some of the possible correlates ofregional variations in wage (in)flexibility.     

Measuring the Economic,Social and Environmental Performance of European Island Regions: Emerging Issues for European and Regional Policy

Islands in the European Union (EU) are very diverse, with many small or very small islands and are recognized as territories facing particular development challenges. In this study, we seek to compare the state and the attractiveness of island administration units in their national and EU context and highlight their divergence in different dimensions, building on existing analysis of the European Commission and of ESPON, using more indicators than the GDP per capita. The assessment is performed with the use of five different indexes: one for the state of development, one for changes during 2000–2006 and three for the attractiveness of islands (direct effects of insularity to attractiveness, indirect effects and natural and cultural potential of islands). Findings for economy demonstrate that islands with better economic performance either specialize in a low added value activity (tourism), or have their GDP “boosted” by exogenous influences (duty free area, oil extraction or the public sector). For attractiveness, most of the islands perform very low and the situation of small islands and archipelagos is worse. Since insularity can be considered as a permanent, natural feature affecting negatively, directly and indirectly, most of the factors that make islands attractive, the need for a territorial policy emerges.     

朝贡制度的理论渊源与时代特征

朝贡制度曾是中国历代王朝处理民族关系和对外关系的主要模式之一。源自先秦的华夏中心意识、大一统理念及“事大字小”的交邻之道虽为朝贡制度的建立提供了理论依据,但朝贡制度如何实施并在多大程度上奏效,则与当时局势和国力的强弱密切相关。因此,朝贡制度具有不同的时代特征。     

Knowledge Production in European Regions: The Impact of Regional Strategies and Regionalization on Innovation

In the last 15 years, the regional scale was used to implement innovation strategies in European Union. Departing from the discussion of the relevance of innovation policy at the regional level, the article benefits from the knowledge production function framework to estimate patterns considering 175 European regions. It is intended to understand whether regional innovation strategies developed and applied between 1994 and 2001 were successful at an aggregated level in contributing for knowledge creation measured in terms of patents and high technology patents. The results underline the relevance of private R&D expenditure and medium and high technology employment to increase patent numbers. The models suggest also that administrative regionalization may be important to regional innovation and that the creation and implementation of a regional strategy have a positive contribution for high tech innovation.     

Interaction among High-tech Talent and its Impact on Innovation Performance: A Comparison of Taiwanese Science Parks at Different Stages of Development

Numerous studies have studied how knowledge spillovers and various other factors influence industrial clusters in terms of geographical proximity. Related studies have generally confirmed significant positive correlations between firm innovative activities and factors such as spatial proximity and degree of industrial clustering. This study elucidates on an individual level, based on the relationship between proximity dimension and innovative activity, the interactive relationships between the mobility and interaction of high-tech talent and innovation performance. Survey results indicate that the spatial proximity of firms clustering within the Hsinchu and Tainan Science-based Industrial Park increases the interaction among high-tech personnel and the expansion of their professional networks, thus promoting innovation. Gradually organizational and social proximity evolve from physical proximity within high-tech districts via the evolution of industrial networks and interactions among high-tech talent. Additionally survey results demonstrate the value of mobility and informal relationships involving high-tech talent, as well as the effect of these relationships on innovation performance during the various stages of science park development. However, how to avoid lock-in in the future development of high-tech districts remains a critical issue. The results of this investigation provide a useful reference for planning and managing industrial districts.     

潍县城:晚清民国时期一个区域性大都会的城市地域结构(1904—1937年)

作为晚清民国时期的一座区域性大都会,潍县城市地域结构表现为"西绅东商"的特征:士绅主要聚居于主城,东关西半部和白浪河西侧则是工商业最为繁盛之地。这种地域结构特征实际上在晚清以前即已形成,1904年胶济铁路的通车并未在潍县火车站一带形成可观的城市地域,"西绅东商"特征表现出强烈的稳定性。士绅近官署而居的居住习惯、潍县城輨毂胶东的交通区位特征、晚清民国时期颇具规模的城市建设运动和东关因有城墙环绕而表现出的安全优势,是造成这种稳定性的四个内在原因。     

打造区域性产业板块:十五期间我国旅游业产业结构调整的重要战略方向

打造区域性产业板块,是根据我国幅员辽阔,具有自然地理上的多样性、地方文化的 多元性特点,进行旅游产业区域布局的结构性调整,整合我国各具鲜明特色的大区域旅游板块形象.     

Regional Innovation Policy and Innovative Behaviour: Looking for Additional Effects

This paper aims to evaluate the additionality of innovation policy in terms of innovative behaviours at the regional level. Innovative behaviours are identified both within and across firm and regional boundaries. The role of policy is evaluated for a sample of firms in the Italian region of Emilia–Romagna (ER), exploiting an original, survey-based data set. Propensity score matching is applied to investigate the effects of an innovation subsidy. Funded firms are found to be more likely to upgrade their competencies, compared with similar non-subsidized firms. On the other hand, in most cases, innovation cooperation with other business partners within or outside the region is not significantly affected by policy. Ultimately, the investigated innovation policy in the ER region seems to show what might be termed “cognitive capacity additionality”, rather than “network additionality”.     

Motifs in The Arabian Nights and in Ancient and Medieval European Literature: A Comparison

This paper is a contribution to the ongoing debate about the origins of parallel motifs in The Arabian Nights and in ancient and medieval popular and learned literature about exotic lands of the East. This preliminary survey focuses on seven related motifs: the magnetic mountain, the congealed sea, flying griffins, automata and genies, the mysterious walled city, the living island, and the underground river. This paper is intended as a contribution toward a motif-Index of The Arabian Nights in order to facilitate further comparative study of the motifs involved.     

集海外散存方志谱牒 展历代修志编谱全貌——哈佛大学燕京图书馆、美国国会图书馆、哥伦比亚大学东亚图书馆考察见闻与思考

文章介绍了作者2007年在哈佛大学燕京图书馆、美国国会图书馆、哥伦比亚大学东亚图书馆的考察见闻。这几大图书馆对地方志的收藏都很有特色。不仅仅是藏书量大,而且其中不乏善本、孤本,对社会主义新修方志的收存也很丰富。同时还有不少谱牒和年鉴等相关产品的收藏。通过这些考察见闻,引发了作者对目前中国志书收藏现状的思考。作者认为方志机构与方志工作者,对收集海外散存古方志与谱牒必须给予高度重视。同时希望得到全国古籍整理与出版规划领导小组的支持和帮助,希望设专门机构,专司其事,发挥中央和地方的两个积极性,对中青年专家学者委以重任,这样才能更加丰富我们的馆藏,让那些失散在外的珍贵资料回归祖国。     

Local Government Portfolios and Regional Growth: Some Combined Dynamic CGE/Optimal Control Results

A theoretical policy model is presented that combines regional dynamic CGE modeling and optimal control to explore the role of local government taxation and expenditure in enhancing regional growth. It contributes to the regional CGE literature by explicitly solving for an optimal policy and augments earlier regional optimal control models by adding endogenous optimization of producer and consumer agents in response to endogenously determined prices. Results of three policy regimes are analyzed in terms of gains in the objective function, impacts on income inequality, and sensitivity to model parameterization.     

In Search of Causality: A Regional Approach to Urban Growth in Eighteenth-century England

The simple equation of industrialisation and urbanisation contains much truth: recent national surveys confirm that rapid coal-based industrial growth spawned massive urban development in Britain. And yet at the local level a wide diversity of growth experiences reflect a complex and overlapping nexus of growth stimuli which defy attempts at generalisation. In taking a regional perspective, this paper seeks to occupy a productive middle ground in this ongoing debate. Placing urban growth in north-west England into its real economic and geographical context, it recognises the complexities of urban growth but transcends the narrowness of the particular. In so doing, it challenges some of the certainties of industrial urbanisation, emphasising instead the importance of rural industry, urban commercial functions and inter-place linkages. Most fundamentally, it argues for a more nuanced understanding of the geography of causality.     

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.     

区域尺度因素对旅游业与经济增长关系的影响研究——以九寨沟县及其所处不同尺度区域为例

本文利用面板数据的变系数固定效应模型和格兰杰因果检验等方法,探讨旅游业在不同尺度区域内对经济增长的影响.文章利用1994 ～2013年经济和旅游业统计数据,以九寨沟县为起点,逐级放大区域尺度,考察九寨沟县、阿坝州、四川省、西南部地区、西部地区和全国6个尺度区域内旅游业对经济的影响.面板数据回归结果表明:九寨沟县、阿坝州、四川省、西南部地区和西部地区和全国旅游对经济的弹性系数分别为0.41、0.62、0.72、0.71、0.73与0.16.随区域尺度逐步增大,旅游的经济效益呈现先增加后下降形态.在最小与最大尺度区域,经济发展受旅游业的影响较小,其他尺度经济受旅游业的影响较大.