AGGLOMERATION VERSUS PRODUCT VARIETY: IMPLICATIONS FOR REGIONAL INEQUALITIES*

ABSTRACT We investigate how cross‐country differences in firms' fixed set‐up costs affect the trade‐off between global efficiency and spatial equity. Our analysis reveals that the standard assumption of symmetry in set‐up costs masks the existence of an interesting effect: the range of available varieties depends on the spatial distribution of firms. In such a setting, where the market outcome leads to excessive agglomeration in the symmetric case, a planner may opt for asymmetric set‐up costs and even more agglomeration. We show that the planner will always favor lower set‐up costs in the large country with more agglomeration when the consumer's marginal preference for variety is high, or with less agglomeration when the consumer's marginal preference for variety is low.     

THE EFFICIENCY OF THE HIGH‐TECH ECONOMY: CONVENTIONAL DEVELOPMENT INDEXES VERSUS A PERFORMANCE INDEX*

ABSTRACT Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is employed to construct an index of relative efficiencies by maximizing two proxies of high‐tech output subject to minimizing five specific resources often associated with high‐tech infrastructure. This approach ranks the 50 U.S. states from the most robustly efficient to the most robustly inefficient. The DEA approach avoids using equal or subjective weights employed in the New State Economy Index rankings. The ranking of the 50 states yields some interesting differences between some states' dominance in high‐tech industries and their economic performance.     

PLACE‐BASED ATTRIBUTES AND SPATIAL EXPENDITURE BEHAVIOR IN TOURISM

In recent discussions on local sustainable development, notions like “local for local” and “home bias” have often played a role. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether preferences for specific place‐based attributes might constrain or support tourism participation and tourism destination choice of distinct socioeconomic groups of visitors. To test this proposition, a large data set from the Italian Households Budget Survey for the period 1997–2007 has been used and, by means of the double‐hurdle model, tourism participation and expenditure are modeled over the life‐cycle of tourists. These data are next merged with location‐specific attributes including natural amenities and infrastructural and regional‐economic context variables. Our results show that location‐specific or place‐based characteristics affect intra‐ and interregional tourism differently, as well as destination choices. Regional differences between residents in two different macroareas in Italy (North and Center‐South) are investigated. Location‐specific characteristics may be either push or constraint factors for tourism participation. For families living in the North, participation in the tourism market is supported by the tourist characteristics of their home region. For families living in the central and southern regions however, economic conditions of the area where they reside appear to be more significant.     

SPATIAL DISCONTINUITY FOR THE IMPACT ASSESSMENT OF THE EU REGIONAL POLICY: THE CASE OF ITALIAN OBJECTIVE 1 REGIONS*

The economic impact of the Regional Policy of the European Union is still controversial. This paper exploits administrative boundaries as spatial discontinuity to estimate the causal effect of this policy on the Italian Objective 1 regions’ employment. The analysis, developed both in a border strategy framework (municipalities contiguous to the policy‐change boundary) and with more traditional RDD models balanced by spatial forcing variables (centroids’ distance and coordinates), shows that the EU Regional Policy produced a positive impact on employment levels, without any displacement of economic activities away from nontreated regions and a concentration of the impact in key economic sectors.     

SCALE ECONOMIES,REGIONAL EXTERNALITIES,AND THE POSSIBILITY OF UNEVEN REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT*

ABSTRACT. This paper presents a model of regional development which attempts to explain differing patterns of growth in two regions. The model is an extension of Krugman's model of uneven development, but it incorporates not only scale economies within each region but also regional externalities across the regions. Depending on relative magnitudes of net scale economies of the two regions, the model entails different regional development patterns: uneven development, stable or joint development, or a mix of the two. The novel feature of the present model is that different regional development patterns can be explained within the same analytical framework.     

COMPARATIVE REGIONAL POLICY IMPACT ANALYSIS: EX POST EVALUATION OF THE PERFORMANCE OF THE EUROPEAN REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT FUND*

ABSTRACT. This paper addresses the issue of ex post impact analysis of regional policies in the European Community. The analysis is both methodological and applied in nature. After a concise overview of existing impact assessment methods, a two-step approach by means of an exploratory frequency method and an explanatory rational expectations-based model is proposed in order to provide an empirical framework for cross-regional comparative evaluation of the performance of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The seope and applicability of the method is illustrated by means of a case study for Dutch regions.     

THE LENINGRAD REGIONAL SOCIOECONOMIC COMPLEX: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS FOR ITS DEVELOPMENT

The evolving settlement network of Leningrad city and Leningrad Oblast, considered as a single planning region, is described, as are a number of changes anticipated by the Twelfth Five-Year Plan (stabilization and eventual reduction in the size of the local labor force, structural economic change toward “nonproductive” activities, closer attention to the balance between the region's economic profile and local resources and infrastructure). Of particular interest are recommendations for restricting further development in some machine-building sectors to renovation and retooling, for growing more perishable agricultural commodities locally, and for recognizing the Leningrad agglomeration as an official planning entity (translated by Jay K. Mitchell; PlanEcon, Inc.; Washington, DC 20005).     

基于空间均衡视角的区域高质量发展内涵界定与状态评价——以陕西省为例

本文构建了区域高质量发展的空间均衡度与空间均衡发展度两个指标，衡量了2017年陕西10个地级市的区域高质量发展水平。结论如下：①陕西经济发展质量呈西安与榆林“两极驱动”的空间格局；社会发展质量呈“中心化”发展空间格局；资源环境发展质量呈南高北低的空间格局。②空间均衡视角下，陕西高质量发展呈现以西安为增长极，西安以东以南地区空间均衡发展度低，西安以西以北地区空间均衡发展度高的空间格局。在发展意义上能达到空间均衡状态的只有西安，其他地级市均处于不同程度失衡状态。     

THE CHALLENGE OF ‘TECHNOLOGICAL CHOICES’FOR MATERIALS SCIENCE APPROACHES IN ARCHAEOLOGY*

Recently several anthropological and sociological studies have interpreted technologies as cultural choices that are determined as much by local perceptions and the social context fly any material constraints or purely functional criteria. Using the example of ceramic technology we consider how materials science studies can contribute to and benefit from this understanding of technology as a social construct. Although we acknowledge some potential difficulties, it is our contention that both materials scientists and archaeologists have gained much and have much to gain by cooperating together to study ancient technologies, and that the concept of ‘technological choices’can facilitate a wider consideration of the factors shaping technological developments.     

SPATIAL MOBILITY AND COMMUTING: THE CASE OF TWO‐EARNER HOUSEHOLDS*

ABSTRACT We examine the effects of the spatial configuration of workers' residence and workplace location on intraregional residential and job moving decisions of workers belonging to two‐earner households. We hypothesize that two‐earner households' residential mobility depends positively on the commuting distance of both spouses, but negatively on the distance between workplaces. Further, we hypothesize that workers' job mobility depends positively on the worker's commuting distance, negatively on the spouse's commuting distance, and positively on the distance between workplaces. Using data for Denmark, it appears that these hypotheses hold, and that the effects of the spatial configuration are rather large.     

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.     

ONCE AGAIN: TESTING FOR REGIONAL HOMOGENEITY*

ABSTRACT. Summarizing the foregoing discussions in this journal on testing for regional homogeneity the present note shows that in the model of Zellner's seemingly unrelated regressions one test statistic may be used not only to test for overall homogeneity but also to examine for individual coefficient homogeneity. This aim is achieved by varying the linear restrictions in the test statistic according to different problems. To illustrate these tests regional consumption functions for the 11 Bundesläder (States) of the Federal Republic of Germany are used.