Introduction: Transnational retail and the global economy

The fastest retail-system transformation in history has beensweeping across the emerging markets of East Asia, Central andEastern Europe, and Latin America over the past decade withprofound impacts on economies and societies in those regions.Conceptualized by researchers in development studies and agriculturaleconomics as the ‘supermarket revolution in developingcountries’ (see, for example, Reardon et al., 2003; Reardon,2005; Reardon and Hopkins, 2006; Humphrey, 2007; Reardon etal., 2007), that transformation has been driven not only bydemand-side forces such as urbanization and income growth inthe emerging markets, but also by supply-side forces such     

Regional Economy Size and the Growth–Instability Frontier: Evidence from Europe

Predictions of the portfolio model of the economy are tested using regional growth data from Europe. It is shown that more aggregated regions of Europe tend to be more economically diverse than more disaggregated regions. Then, using different frontier estimation methods, evidence of a convex growth–instability frontier for aggregated regions is presented. At the most regionally disaggregated level for which there are data, there is weak if any evidence of the frontier. The results suggest that large economies are appropriately modeled as portfolios, whose growth processes are characterized by the convex growth–instability frontier, whereas small local economies do not display this characteristic.     

Franco-German relations,Europe and globalisation

The new world order, characterised by the internationalisation of markets and national economies, challenges the socio-economic models of nation states and imposes new rules. Both 'Rhineland capitalism' and 'capitalisme à la française' are forced to adapt to these rapidly changing circumstances. This article analyses respective French and German differences in their approach to globalisation, with particular reference to foreign direct investment and industrial cooperation in Europe. It investigates whether Franco-German bilateralism is still a relevant approach to European integration as it seeks to respond to globalisation.     

Real Estate FDI in Chinese Cities: Local Market Conditions and Regional Institutions

Two China-based geographers test the importance of market conditions and local institutions in determining the locational pattern of foreign direct investment in real estate development (FDIRE), a major component of China's urban growth since the 1980s. Using data from 35 major Chinese cities, they trace the diffusion of FDIRE from a concentration in China's major coastal cities in the late 1990s to a more dispersed pattern including large inland cities in 2008. In addition to investigating the general association between FDIRE, local market opportunities, and liberalized economies/more developed land markets, the authors assess differences in the locational behaviors of developers from Hong Kong-Taiwan-Macao and foreign countries. A concluding section explores the implications of FDIRE activity for the restructuring of China's urban system. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F210, L850, O180, R330. 3 figures, 7 tables, 35 references.     

Taking risks in regions: the geographical anatomy of Europe's emerging venture capital market

Over the past 25 years, the USA has pioneered a new technologicalrevolution, based on large numbers of new small enterprises,financed by a dynamic venture (risk) capital market. The EuropeanUnion, meanwhile, has lagged behind in this sector of economicactivity, and compared to the US innovative small and mediumenterprises appear to find it more difficult to get startedand grow. At a time when regional and local banking systems– traditionally major sources of capital for small andmedium sized enterprises across Europe – are undergoingintense reorganisation and restructuring, the European Commissionconsiders the development of a substantial risk capital marketto be a key condition for closing the ‘enterprise gap’with the US. While the venture capital industry is much lessdeveloped in Europe than it is in the US, nevertheless it hasrecently experienced a marked increase in activity. But whereasthe European Commission argues that venture capital activityneeds to be much more regionally clustered if it is to emulatethe US experience, the OECD and some EU member states have arguedfor a more even regional distribution. The aim of the paperis to chart the growth and geographical anatomy of the emergingEuropean venture capital market, and to examine its spatialdevelopment and regional implications in the context of thesesomewhat opposing views.     

On entrepreneur ship,region and the constitution of scale and scope economies

This paper proposes a framework of analysis in which: (1) the constitution of new sources of economies of scale or scope is supported by systemic entrepreneurship; (2) the realization of such economies by incremental entrepreneurship takes the form of external economies, or alternatively of internal economies, together with the prevalence of different combinations of organizations, technologies and regional characters; and (3) the manifestation in the form of external economies is sustained by market rules and focused public intervention, which complement the working of markets, and which can be embedded in regional (or local) relations. Further and more specific conclusions will be referred to in the case of external economies within production systems which are assuming or are reproducing the techno‐organizational characters of flexible specialization. The standard case of the industrial district with final markets largely characterized by differentiated and variable markets falls within such application.     

Understanding criminal mobility: the case of the Neapolitan Camorra

Italian mafias are now present and active abroad, and many national legal economies are undermined by their activities. The American government responded to this threat in 2011 by introducing an ‘executive order’ that blacklisted the Camorra's (the Neapolitan mafia) activities in the United States. Recently, there has been a growing debate on criminal mobility and, in particular, why, when and how Italian mafiosi move out of their territory of origin and expand into new foreign territories. Recent literature suggests that Italian mafias change their behaviour across territories and will succeed in ‘transplanting’ when there are emerging new markets. This article examines some brief case studies of camorristi in Europe to discuss these concepts of mafia mobility; and it concludes by suggesting that there is no ‘one size fits all’ analysis and that more attention should be paid to the interdependence of territories.     

Towards a mighty union: how to create a democratic European superpower

A strong European Union is needed today more than ever: to act as a reliable partner to the United States, Great Britain and the other great democracies; to deal with the growing threats on her southern and eastern periphery; and most pressingly of all, to deal with the euro sovereign debt crisis. In order to do so, Europeans will have to abandon the gradualist fallacy that union will be achieved in small incremental steps and learn the lesson of history that all successful mergers, such as the British and the American, have been carried out in one fell swoop at a time of extreme crisis. They will have to recognize that the road to unity took a fatal turn when the failure of the European Defence Community caused a bifurcation between politico‐military and economic integration. Today, as we face potential fiscal and economic meltdown and as the external threats to Europe mount, we have another opportunity. We can only seize it, however, if we realize that full European union, if there is to be one, will be an event, not a process. It must follow more or less the American example with a directly elected presidency, a house of representatives elected by population and a senate, which represents the former nation‐states and regions. There is no need for the United Kingdom to be part of this project, but it is essential that both unions work together for the common good. Because the existing political elites are incapable of rising to the occasion—and in many cases are actually antipathetic to it—the task must fall to a new pan‐European party: the Party of Democratic Union.     

Regional Aspects of Collaborative Invention Across National Innovation Systems

Abstract

This article analyzes the association between intraregional collaboration and levels of invention in nine developed countries. Patent data of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) regions of nine inventive countries are used to determine if a significant positive correlation exists between reliance on own region partners and overall invention. Strong intraregional collaboration is also related to the knowledge bases of technologies and to the tendency for inventors to team up in the first place. Results show strong evidence that inventors in highly inventive regions co-patent more with own region partners and that they have a greater tendency to collaborate in the first place. Support for the hypothesis that information and computer technologies favour own region collaboration and that more biotechnology invention encourages external alliances is mixed. However, there is far less evidence that more biotechnology invention encourages more external alliances. Variation in the results between countries is interpreted as evidence that national innovation systems have distinctive internal locational attributes. The findings refute the assertion that strengthening aspatial network proximities has eclipsed the pivotal role of intraregional linkages in technological advance.     

Market Creation by Leninist Means: The Regulation of Financial Services in the People’s Republic of China

Abstract

Within the process of China’s transition from a centrally-administered to a more market-oriented economy, financial services have played a very special role, but in a counter-intuitive way: what looks like Western market economics turns out to be a Leninist regulatory model. Even as international financial service providers and regulatory communities are invited to play a role in the creation of a Chinese market in financial services, the Communist Party has strengthened its control of top personnel, the judiciary and the media. The reform of the central bank and the establishment of technically independent regulatory agencies seemed to have taken China down the path of OECD economies. The model of a very specific post-regulatory state with Chinese characteristics, however, has not fully incorporated the notion of private authority. Such an acceptance would pose a threat to the CCP monopoly on political power. The attempt to use only semi-private organisations to develop financial markets undermines the long-term stability of the political and economic order.     

New patterns in the locational choice of immigrants in Spain

During recent years, Spain has experienced an important revolution in its migration flows. With the 2008–2013 Spanish financial crisis, the model of economic growth that attracted a large number of foreign people disappeared, and the entry of immigrants for reasons other than economic issues gained relevance. Linked with this phenomenon are the new patterns of locational choice across provinces and the variation in the nature of immigrants. In this paper, we examine the differential patterns and drivers of immigration across Spanish regions before and after the financial crisis. Special attention is paid to the question of how the characteristics of individual migrants influence their locational preferences. To answer this question, we use the Dirichlet multinomial regression model. The results obtained show a sharp change in the locational patterns of Spanish immigrants after the economic recession, confirming that traditional economic incentives are less relevant, while non-economic factors linked with a better lifestyle gain importance. They also reveal that, regardless of the economic conditions, network effects are strong. Finally, and what is probably more important for us, our estimates support the hypothesis that the locational preferences rely on the interaction between the immigrants’ characteristics and the underlying locational features.     

Poland, Germany and the EU

The eastward enlargement of the European Union may well be the biggest challenge in the history of European integration. It is, however, accompanied by profound internal and external crises highlighted by the EU's difficulties in coping with the effects of economic globalization, of which the most obvious are high unemployment and a growing scepticism with regard to integration. This article argues that the solutions to both these challenges are deeply interconnected: while enlargement is a strategic necessity in its own right, it is also the only factor galvanizing EU member states into action for the reforms which are inevitable if the integration project is to be kept afloat.
As the new democracies of central and eastern Europe prepare for EU membership and the EU prepares for enlargement, Poland and Germany can reflect on the past eight years of a historically unprecedented improvement in their relationship. Bringing Poland into the EU (as well as into NATO) has become a key item in the Polish-German 'community of interest'.     

On the origins of border effects: insights from the Habsburg Empire

What are the origins of border effects on trade and why do borderscontinue to matter in periods of increasing economic integration?We explore the hypothesis that border effects emerged as a resultof asymmetric economic integration in the unique historicalsetting of the multi-national Habsburg Empire prior to the FirstWorld War. While markets tended to integrate mainly due to improvedinfrastructure, ethno-linguistic networks had persistent tradediverting effects. We find that the political borders whichseparated the empire's successor states after the First WorldWar became visible in the economy from the mid-1880s onwards,already 25–30 years before the First World War. This effectof a ‘border before a border’ cannot be explainedby factors such as administrative barriers, physical geography,changes in infrastructure or patterns of integration with neighbouringregions outside of the Habsburg customs and monetary union.However, controlling for the changing ethno-linguistic compositionof the population across the regional capital cities of theempire does explain most of the estimated border effects.     

THIS IS NOT AMERICA: EMBEDDING THE COGNITIVE‐CULTURAL URBAN ECONOMY

The aim of this article is to broaden the epistemological basis for investigating the current shift to cognitive‐cultural economies and the resurgence of cities and its socio‐spatial articulation. The point of departure here is that the drivers of the structural changes are indeed more or less ubiquitous, but are played out in different national institutional and urban contexts resulting in potentially diverging cognitive‐cultural economies. Four main drivers of change after 1980 are distinguished. The first is the rise of a new technological paradigm based on digital technology. The second is the thrust towards deregulation and privatization as planks of the neo‐liberal political programme. The third is the intensification of all kinds of linkages between regions across the globe. The fourth driver constitutes the processes of individualization and increasing reflexivity that have fragmented consumer markets. By identifying distinct filters which might shape and mould the impact of these more general drivers on concrete urban areas, a comprehensive framework is presented that can be used to analyse and compare the trajectories of cities while linking them to a larger narrative of societal change. A central line of reasoning is that agglomeration economies – pivotal in Allen Scott's analysis of the emergence of a cognitive‐cultural economy – are themselves embedded in concrete social and institutional contexts which impact on how they are played out. To make this point, we build upon Richard Whitley's business systems. Given this institutional diversity, we expect that various institutional contexts will generate different cognitive‐cultural economies.     

Leo Amery's Imperialist Alternative to Appeasement in the 1930s

Leo Amery has long been seen as one of the leading figures inthe anti-appeasement movement. However, key aspects of his caseagainst government foreign policy are not addressed in previouswork. This article considers Amery's reputation pointing outthat it is problematic to characterize him as an ‘anti-appeaser’because he did not rule out concessions to Germany and was willingto see Germany dominate Central Europe. However, he differedfrom the government in advocating a Danubian economic bloc tocreate stability and satisfy some German desires. This flowedfrom Amery's imperialism and his economic nationalism. Meanwhile,he fervently opposed colonial concessions, believing that Germangrievances could only be satisfied in Europe. Considering whetherAmery was an ‘anti-appeaser’ or a ‘real appeaser’,the article analyses Amery's doubts over whether to supportNeville Chamberlain over the Munich agreement. It concludesthat although Amery disagreed with Chamberlain more on tacticsthan strategy, these alternative tactics were significantlydifferent from government policy. As such, aspects of the anti-appeasementcase should be seen as being more nuanced than previously recognized,and the imperialist dimension of it should be understood.     

Global Value Chain Participation and the Labour Share: Industry-level Evidence from Emerging Economies

Participation in global value chains (GVCs) has been proposed as a central means for emerging economies to develop and technologically upgrade. However, the effects of GVCs on income distribution in the global South remain underexplored. This article presents an econometric analysis of the determinants of the labour share in seven emerging economies for the period 1995–2014. Drawing on industry-level data from global input-output tables, the authors focus on how GVC participation — in particular offshoring of production from advanced to emerging economies — affects the labour share of different skill groups within manufacturing and service industries. They also estimate the effects of GVCs on productivity, real wages and the capital–value added ratio, to shed further light on the channels through which GVCs affect the labour share. In both industry groups, findings show that integration into GVCs with advanced economies has a negative effect on the labour share in emerging economies, particularly for medium-skilled workers. In contrast, higher union density and government consumption spending have positive effects on the labour share. Thus, labour in emerging economies loses out relative to capital as production becomes more integrated across borders.     

区域旅游一体化的理论建构与战略设计——以京津冀为例

本文分析了区域旅游一体化的静态和动态经济效益,运用新经济地理学理论研究了区域旅游一体化效益的产生机制,并总结了区域旅游一体化的五种主要模式。以京津冀区域为典型案例,分析了京津冀旅游一体化的背景条件和主要举措,认为京津冀旅游一体化已进入中级阶段,在扩大旅游企业市场规模、串联旅游线路体系、获取内部规模经济和本地化经济等方面已取得长足进展,未来发展的重点应集中在获取城市化经济、鼓励旅游企业跨行政区合作、建立常设性旅游管理机构等方面。     

Agglomeration economies and the location of foreign direct investment: A meta‐analysis

This paper undertakes a meta‐analysis of the effect of agglomeration economies on foreign direct investment (FDI) location. It finds strong differences in these economies arising from both measurement and study‐specific characteristics. Economies generated from domestic rather than foreign activity have the strongest effects on FDI, with the latter only significant if related to the home country of the investor. Support is also found for studies that identify different sources of agglomeration economies, although this is largely underexplored in the empirical literature. The average agglomeration economies estimate is not influenced by publication bias and indicates genuine effects for agglomeration economies on FDI location choice.     

Economic integration and industrial location: the case of Spain before World War I

During the second half of the 19th century, Spain's industrialgeography underwent radical change. In Jordi Nadal's words,‘Catalonia became Spain's factory’. This gradualgeographical concentration of industrial activity coincidedwith another process: the integration of the Spanish economy.The purpose of this paper is to analyse the determinants ofthe localization of industrial activity in Spain during thesecond half of the 19th century and the effects of economicintegration on Spain's industrial geography. To this end, wefirst review the historical analysis of these changes and presentevidence on the process of market integration and industrialconcentration by constructing a range of measures of industrialspecialization and geographical concentration. Second, we performan econometric analysis of the determinants of industrial locationat two points in time, 1856 and 1893, using spatial econometricstechniques. Our results are consistent with the hypotheses oftrade theories. During the second half of the 19th century,Spain became an integrated economy and industrial activity wasconcentrated in a limited number of territories characterizedby a comparative advantage in human capital endowments, a favourablegeo-economic position, and initial specialization in sectorsshowing scale economies.     

DOES AGGLOMERATION MATTER EVERYWHERE?: NEW FIRM LOCATION DECISIONS IN RURAL AND URBAN MARKETS*

We test whether commonly used measures of agglomeration economies encourage new firm entry in both urban and rural markets. Using new firm location decisions in Iowa and North Carolina, we find that measured agglomeration economies increase the probability of new firm entry in both urban and rural areas. Firms are more likely to locate in markets with an existing cluster of firms in the same industry, with greater concentrations of upstream suppliers or downstream customers, and with a larger proportion of college‐educated workers in the local labor supply. Firms are less likely to enter markets with no incumbent firms in the sector or where production is concentrated in relatively few sectors. The same factors encourage both stand‐alone start‐ups and establishments built by multiplant firms. Commuting decisions exhibit the same pattern as new firm entry with workers commuting from low to high agglomeration markets. Because agglomeration economies are important for rural firm entry also, policies encouraging new firm entry should focus on relatively few job centers rather than encouraging new firm entry in every small town.