Spillovers and the Locational Effects of Public Infrastructure

This paper examines the possibility of negative output spillovers frompublic infrastructure. A model of productive public capital shows that when input factors aremobile, public infrastructure investments in one location can draw production away from otherlocations. In a linear production-function framework, this effect would be manifested as anegative output spillover from public capital. Using data for California counties from 1969through 1988, such negative spillover effects are shown to exist in the case ofstreet-and-highway capital. The data show that changes in county output are positivelyassociated with changes in street-and-highway capital within the same county, but outputchanges are negatively associated with changes in street-and-highway capital in other counties.     

旅游地农户生计资本与社区可持续生计发展研究——以秦巴山区安康一区三县为例

在DFID可持续生计框架下,构建旅游地农户生计资本评价模型,测度其生计资本规模及结构变化,并分析乡村旅游社区发展对农户生计资本变化趋向的影响。研究发现：①秦巴山区乡村旅游地农户生计资本得到整体提升,农户生计呈现多元化发展趋势;②乡村旅游影响下的农户金融资本、物资资本、自然资本和人力资本均得到提升,社会资本则处于相对较低水平;通过二元Logistic回归分析,发现社区居民的旅游获利程度、社区参与旅游发展程度、社区旅游发展基础条件等对农户资本趋向好转与优化具有正向显著影响。     

Whose Wealth Is It Anyway? Mozambique's Outstanding Economic Growth with Worsening Rural Poverty

Despite rapid economic growth and massive inflows of aid, rural poverty in Mozambique is worsening. Agricultural production and productivity have not increased in the last decade. Use of chemical fertilizers and other modern technology is at a low level and decreasing. The present development model emphasizes that the role of government and donors is to provide human capital and infrastructure, while the private sector is responsible for economic development and ending poverty. The most recent national surveys confirm what is being seen elsewhere in Africa — that this non‐interventionist strategy does not raise agricultural productivity or reduce poverty. While 80 per cent of Mozambique's population is engaged in agriculture, this sector contributes only 20 per cent of GDP. This suggests that investments in agriculture are likely to generate pro‐poor growth, both to rural and urban dwellers. This policy failure is increasingly recognized, but donors and government have invested too much political capital in the current policy to change easily.     

A SPATIAL MULTIVARIATE COUNT MODEL FOR FIRM LOCATION DECISIONS

This paper proposes a new spatial multivariate model to predict the count of new businesses at a county level in the state of Texas. Several important factors including agglomeration economies/diseconomies, industrial specialization indices, human capital, fiscal conditions, transportation infrastructure, and land development characteristics are considered. The results highlight the need to use a multivariate modeling system for the analysis of business counts by sector type, while also accommodating spatial dependence effects in business counts.     

The business of human trafficking: slaves and money between Western Italy and the House of Islam before the crusades (c.900–c.1100)

ABSTRACT

Before the First Crusade, the maritime cities of Italy imported precious objects from Islamic regions. The question of what they exported in return has long occupied historians. Due to the large economic disparity between Latin Italy and the wealthier House of Islam, human trafficking offered a strong profit opportunity to merchants from Amalfi, Pisa and other ports. This was because the price of a slave in Egypt or North Africa, at around 20 gold dinars, represented a large sum in the silver currency zones of Latin Europe, especially compared to low prices in Italy. Even moderate numbers of trafficked humans may therefore have provided the capital for further maritime economic expansion. Moreover, slaves offered a commodity with low infrastructure and transportation requirements, unlike bulk agricultural products, as well as unique advantages in market access, which suggests that slave trading preceded investment in other branches of commerce.     

基础设施建设水平与城乡生态经济系统发展的耦合分析——安康地区的实例研究

基础设施是一个多因素多层次的动态系统,随服务对象的不同,基础设施具有不同的概念和内涵。城市和乡村,都是在特定的自然环境基础上经过持续的文化、经济建设,而形成的社会、经济、自然复合生态系统。本文通过构建耦合关系分析模型,研究了两者之间的相互作用机理。     

DECOMPOSING REGIONAL EFFICIENCY*

ABSTRACT Applying an outlier robust extension of the data envelopment analysis (DEA) followed by a geoadditive regression analysis, this study identifies and decomposes the efficiency of 439 German regions in using infrastructure and human capital. The findings show that the regions’ efficiency is driven by a spatial and a nonspatial, arguably structural factor. As a consequence, concrete regional funding schemes, shaped by best practice results, might not be appropriate for all regions. Instead, a more differentiated funding scheme that accounts for both spatial and structural factors seems more promising.     

Infrastructure and Growth in a Spatial Framework: Evidence from the EU regions

This paper examines the return to infrastructure in the European Union regions in a spatial framework. It innovates on the earlier literature on infrastructure and growth by a combination of regional focus, disaggregation of infrastructure types and consideration of spatial dependence. Different types of infrastructure capital are considered as determinants of economic performance at the Nomenclature des Unités Territoriales Statistiques level. To account for growth spillovers among regions, a spatial Durbin model is estimated. The results confirm the important role of infrastructure and identify the highest rates of return as associated with telecommunication, quality and accessibility of transportation networks, with a positive impact of roads and railways.     

信息化对中国区域经济的影响

本文从信息化设施和信息产业两方面来认识区域信息化水平,对中国各省区的信息化水平进行了定量估算和综合评价。在区域信息化水平测度的基础上,本文从以下两方面分析了信息化的区域影响。作为区域经济的一个部门,研究结果显示中国大部分省区信息产业与区域经济增长呈现了不同程度的正的相关性。文章重点分析了信息化设施溢出对区域经济的影响。运用相应的经济增长核算模型,分单区域和两区域研究信息化设施溢出对经济增长的贡献。估算结果显示信息化设施溢出的增长作用存在区域差异。在作用机制上,单区域信息化设施的溢出与两区域的情况也有差异。     

Identification of Employment Concentration Areas

This article presents a method to identify “Absolute and Relative Employment Concentration (AREC) areas” for a particular industry. Two novel characteristics of the method are that it simultaneously analyses AREC, and that it combines spatial concentration per area with the spatial concentration in neighbouring areas. The method is easy to understand and apply. It is developed to assist regional policy makers and corporate decision-makers with their investment decisions related to new infrastructure or plants. The identification of concentration areas also allows for analysing the performance of these areas in relation to characteristics such as infrastructure availability and the housing and labour market. This can yield new academic insights that are relevant for regional planners. An application of the newly developed method to five industries in a Dutch province subdivided into 502 areas illustrates the value of the method in comparison to other methods.     

FROM VALUE CHAIN TO VALUE CREATING ECOLOGY

The metaphor of a “value creating ecology” is developed to describe the operation of the creative industries. This encapsulates three important trends, namely the shift from consumers to co‐creators of value; the shift from thinking about product value to thinking about network value; and the shift from thinking about cooperation or competition to thinking about co‐opetition. Underlying this metaphor is recognition of the need to consider both public mechanisms as well as the market when framing creative industries development policy. Policy implications for human capital, urban policy and sectoral infrastructure are described.     

The 2013 ANTIPODE AAG Lecture The Environment Making State: Territory,Nature, and Value

My argument is that the state is fundamental to the value form because it delivers the use values of non‐human nature to the process of capital accumulation. Capital cannot, and historically does not, capture non‐human nature without the participation of the state. The state delivers the utilities of extra‐human nature to the accumulation process by creating property regimes, physical infrastructure, and scientific knowledge. As such, the state is a crucial under‐theorized political membrane in the ecological metabolism of capitalism and the value form. The capitalist states inherently environmental qualities are rooted in its fundamentally territorial qualities. Where are the utilities of non‐human nature found? On the surface of the earth. What institutions ultimately control the surface of the earth? Territorially defined national states. The example of state formation in the early years of the United States is used to illustrate these ideas.     

Bohemia and economic geography

This paper examines the geography of bohemia and the relationshipsbetween it, human capital, and high-technology industries. Theunderlying hypothesis is that the presence and concentrationof bohemians in an area creates an environment or milieu thatattracts other types of talented or high human capital individuals.The presence of such human capital in turn attracts and generatesinnovative, technology-based industries. To explore these factors,this paper introduces a new measure—the bohemian index—thatdirectly measures the bohemian population at the MSA level.Statistical research examines the relationships between geographicconcentrations of bohemians, human capital, and high-technologyindustry concentration. The findings support this hypothesis.The geography of bohemia is highly concentrated. The resultsindicate positive and significant relationships between thebohemian index and concentrations of high human capital individualsand between the bohemian index and concentrations of high-technologyindustry. The relationship between the bohemian index and high-technologyconcentrations is particularly strong.     

西部地区旅游经济空间变化趋势及影响因素研究

文章建立了一个旅游经济空间差异影响因素的分析框架,包含旅游要素投入、旅游基础设施、旅游服务设施、经济发展水平和旅游资源禀赋5个方面,并基于收敛理论的σ-收敛、β-收敛和俱乐部收敛等方法定量分析了2000～2009年西部地区旅游经济的空间变化特征及影响因素,得到如下结论:①12省(区、市)间旅游经济呈现出比较明显的σ-收敛和β-收敛趋势,表明均衡化发展的主流变化特征,但西南和西北两地区不存在俱乐部收敛;②影响因素分析显示,旅游业从业人员数量、城镇居民可支配收入和旅游资源禀赋水平对西部地区旅游经济的均衡化发展发挥了主导的推动作用,而星级酒店水平更支持旅游经济的空间集聚。在此基础上,提出了旅游经济较落后省份加快发展旅游经济、缩小区域差异的建议措施。     

On the Coloniality of “New” Mega-Infrastructure Projects in East Africa

This article responds to a preference for short-term history in research on the infrastructure turn by engaging with the longue durée of East Africa’s latest infrastructure scramble. It traces the history of LAPSSET in Kenya and the Central Corridor in Tanzania, revealing the coloniality of new and improved transport infrastructure along both corridors. This exercise demonstrates how the spatial visions and territorial plans of colonial administrators get built in to new infrastructure and materialise in ways that serve the interests of global capital rather than peasant and indigenous peoples being promised more modern, prosperous futures. The article concludes by suggesting that a focus on the longue durée also reveals uneven patterns of mobility and immobility set in motion during the colonial scramble for Africa and reinforced after independence. These “colonial moorings” are significant as they shape political reactions to new mega-infrastructure projects today and constrain the emancipatory potential of infrastructure-led development.     

Tackling human capital loss in shrinking cities: urban development and secondary school improvement in Eastern Germany

Selective migration, and the loss of highly qualified employees that it implies, is frequently mentioned as a major problem related to urban shrinkage [Fol, S. (2012). Urban shrinkage and socio-spatial disparities: Are the remedies worse than the disease? Built Environment, 38(2), 259–275.] However, despite the fact that research conducted on the issue of shrinking cities has increased, urban development strategies targeting human capital loss are rarely discussed in the literature on urban decline. This paper addresses this research gap. It focuses on the investment in secondary school infrastructure in Eastern Germany and presents the findings of an empirical study that observed how the issue of secondary education improvement was integrated into the urban development strategies of shrinking cities. Two case studies will be discussed in order to highlight initiatives for educational advancement, which directly targeted the problem of human capital loss. On the basis of this ‘reality check', the paper argues that an investment in secondary education is part of a potentially rewarding strategy in dealing with urban shrinkage that may be linked to the concept of social innovation.     

Improvised Hybridity in the “Fixing” of Chinese Infrastructure Capital: The Case of Kenya's Standard Gauge Railway

The article explores the role of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the globalisation of China's infrastructure capital. Examining how accumulation strategies of Chinese SOEs are driven by a complex set of political and economic, state and private, interests, it foregrounds the inherently hybrid nature of China's state capitalism. We use Kenya's Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) as a case study to analyse how state infrastructure capital traverses borders, and the specific ways that contradictions of accumulation in China are relocated through the improvised hybridity of SOEs. In Kenya, China Road and Bridge Corporation, the main SGR contractor, shifted and adapted its strategies as the pursuit of economic productivity gave way to political priorities in China, simultaneously responding to changing socio-political circumstances in Kenya and across East Africa. Analysing these dynamics, we highlight the contingencies of, and limitations to, structural reorganisation of actually existing forms of state capitalism in China and beyond.     

京津冀地区城市间行业工资差异及影响因素分析

基于2005-2012年京津冀各城市工资及其它社会经济数据,探讨了市场潜能、产业集聚、人力资本、制度改革等因素对城市间各行业工资差异的影响。结果表明：①市场潜能对各行业工资水平的增长均有一定的促进作用。②除消费性服务业外,各类产业集聚对地区平均工资水平的提高均有一定的促进作用,但制造业集聚带来的拥挤效应也已开始体现;生产性服务业集聚能够带动公共性服务业工资的提升,而公共性服务业缺乏对生产性服务业的反哺;产业集聚对消费性服务业工资缺乏带动作用。③在控制变量方面,交通基础设施对工资水平的带动作用逐渐弱化;科技投入、人力资本对服务业工资水平的带动作用较高,而对制造业影响较弱;市场经济体制改革对工资水平的带动作用仍未体现;政府市场干预能力的提高仅带动了公共性服务业工资的提升,而外向度的提升则仅对公共性服务业缺乏带动作用。