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.     

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.     

Net Multipliers Avoid Exaggerating Impacts: With A Bi–Regional Illustration for the Dutch Transportation Sector

Industries often promote their interests by arguing that they have a big impact on the rest of the economy. This poses the question of how to measure the importance of an activity. To answer this, the literature often uses (regional) input–output analysis. This paper critically reviews the traditional use of multipliers in such cases. To avoid double–counting impacts and to solve related conceptual problems, the net multiplier concept is introduced. This net multiplier is illustrated empirically for the Dutch transport sector using a Type II biregional input–output model for the Netherlands.     

Large Projects in Hinterland Regions: A Dynamic Multiregional Input-Output Model for Assessing the Economic Impacts

Interregional spillovers and the expansion of capacity in hinterland sectors represent two types of economic impact associated with large capital projects in hinterland regions. The simultaneous treatment of these within an input-output (I-O) framework is the subject of this paper. A dynamic multiregional I-O (DMRIO) model is derived and applied to a scenario of oil development in Canada's Northwest Territories (NWT). A comparision of output profiles generated by the DMRIO model and a static MRIO model shows that the DMRIO formulation has merit. Specifically, in years where capacity adjustments are called for in the hinterland region, the static MRIO model is unable to capture the intraregional and interregional economic implications of this activity. In a year of particularly large-capacity shortfalls in several NWT sectors a static MRIO model underestimates the Canada-wide total impact of the project by more than one billion 1984 dollars.     

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.     

旅游对我国区域经济增长及其敛散性的影响——基于1997年～2010年省际面板数据的实证分析

本文以Barro和Sala-i-Martin的收敛假说为理论基础,利用面板模型探讨了1997年～2010年间旅游业发展对我国总体国民经济及东、中、西部地区区域经济增长及其敛散性的影响。结论显示:1997年～2010年间,全国及东、中、西部地区经济增长均呈发散趋势;旅游发展对全国及东、中、西部地区区域内经济增长及其差距的缩小产生了积极影响。     

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.     

去工业化:旅游发展对桂林工业部门的影响研究

旅游发展对目的地工业部门的影响迄今为止尚处于争议之中.本文运用VAR协整分析、格兰杰因果检验、脉冲响应函数和方差分解等动态经济计量分析方法对桂林市旅游发展与工业增加值比重变化之间的关系进行了实证研究.研究结果表明,在经济不受任何干预的条件下,旅游业的扩张将挤出目的地工业投资资本,转移工业劳动力而造成工业增长水平的下降,给目的地带来去工业化效应;但旅游发展带来的价格效应不明显.旅游目的地可以通过制定产业政策对生产要素的流动方向进行控制,以有效地避免旅游发展带来的去工业化问题.     

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.     

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。     

当代区域经济思想史研究的拓荒--评《中国共产党区域经济思想研究》

最近读了中共福建省委党校高伯文教授的新著2004年出版),该书洋洋40余万言,系统地论述了《中国共产党区域经济思想研究》(中共党史出版社建国以来中国共产党区域经济思想的历史轨迹。诚     

新世纪东北亚的区域经济合作问题

世界经济全球化与区域经济一体化进程不断深化,东北亚区域经济合作进入了新的发展阶段。中日韩三国经贸合作演绎着新的进展;金融领域的合作也迈出了新的步伐;图们江次区域合作有了一定的成果。当然,东北亚区域经济一体化发展还存在诸多难题,如何寻找有效的合作途径,这是摆在区域内各国政府面前的一项艰巨的历史任务。