Crown, corporation and church: the role of institutions in the stability of pioneer settlements in the Canadian West, 1870–1914

The agricultural settlement of western Canada took place within the framework of a complex socio-economic system produced by Canadian national institutions: the Crown, corporations and churches. The interaction of these Canadian institutions with institutions introduced to western Canada by immigrants played an important role in determining the long-term stability of immigrant rural communities. Whether an immigrant group achieved long-term stability or suffered social disintegration depended on the degree to which immigrant and host institutions werecongruentordissonant. The interaction of social and economic institutions is examined through the settlement experiences of five diverse groups that settled in western Canada before 1914: the Mennonites, Doukhobors, Jews, Mormons and Ukrainians.     

基于多尺度的湖南省区域经济差异演进分析

本文采用极差、标准差、加权变异系数和泰尔指数,从县域、地市州和四大板块3个尺度对湖南省1990-2013年区域经济差异演变进行测度,进而采用泰尔指数对全省区域经济差异进行分解分析。研究结果表明:1湖南省区域经济差异在3个尺度上均有不同程度增加且表现出较明显的尺度特征和尺度效应;2全省总体经济差异演进呈"M"型曲线,可划分为逐步上升、持续下降、再次上升、趋于收敛四个阶段;31990-2009年板块间差异对全省总体差异的贡献率从26.55%快速上升至51.35%,近年来有所下降并趋于稳定;4区域经济差异形成与演进的影响因素主要包括自然条件、经济发展阶段、交通建设、区域发展战略布局以及国家宏观区域政策等。     

环境绩效与财务绩效关系区域比较研究——来自重污染行业上市公司的实证数据

由于经济环境、技术创新及环境政策等因素,我国区域间环境治理表现出一定的差异性,不同区域企业环境绩效与财务绩效关系存在不同之处,因此有必要对两者关系的区域差异进行研究。本文以2011-2014年重污染行业上市公司为样本,实证检验了环境绩效和财务绩效关系以及不同区域间两者关系的表现。研究得出环境绩效有助于提高财务绩效;同时环境绩效与财务绩效的关系存在显著的区域差异,中东部地区环境绩效与财务绩效的正向关系大于西部地区,资源大省企业环境绩效与财务绩效的正向关系显著。研究结论为不同区域条件下政府与企业采取针对性的环境治理措施提供了理论依据。     

江苏省区域经济差异与发展战略演变初探

改革开放以来,江苏省分别实施了区域均衡发展、非均衡发展、区域共同发展和苏北大发展战略,造成了各区域间经济增长速度的差异,导致区域经济发展失衡,其主要表现为苏南、苏中与苏北三大经济区域间的差异和县域经济差异的不断扩大。在分析了现阶段江苏省沿江开发战略对区域发展差异的影响,立足区域整合的角度,提出加快沿江开发与苏北互动发展的对策与措施,以期实现江苏省区域经济的协调发展,扭转南北经济差异进一步扩大的趋势。     

Heritage down the chute: the demolition of Saskatchewan’s grain elevators

Hailed as ‘cathedrals of the plains’ and ‘prairie sentinels’, grain elevators are iconic of Saskatchewan, Canada. Yet with fewer than four hundred and twenty of the original 3300 still standing, Saskatchewan’s historic grain elevators are disappearing at an alarmingly accelerated rate. The loss of historic grain elevators is twice the average loss in historic fabric in Canada in a third of the time despite their being the most widely cited heritage structure by Saskatchewanians. This paper deciphers this dilemma through Nancy Fraser’s three-dimensional model of participatory parity, which serves to reconcile cultural, economic and political pressures on the heritage field and rebalances the field’s disproportionate focus on recognition. This model reveals how larger systems of representation and distribution are impacting official grain elevator recognition under Saskatchewan’s Heritage Property Act (1980) and proposes solutions to increase grain elevator preservation in Saskatchewan.     

Economic Policies and Local Development: Some Reflections

Every national system is also a sum of all its regional economies. Then, there are economically differentiated regions within nations. If the foregoing is true, a crucial problem for economic policy is determining which policies should be pursued at the national level (national policies), and on what grounds, and which should instead be developed at the local, regional level (local policies). What policies influence the development and competitiveness of regional economies? This article tries to discuss these issues.The first causal relation to examine is that between national economic policies and the competitiveness of a country's regions. The picture grows even more complex if we consider that there are national policies which have explicitly geographical objectives. Then, why not count on national policies, even locally differentiated ones? Having answered this question this paper addresses the opposite issue: why should we not view the entirety, or at least the largest part, of national economic policy--and development policies in particular--as simply the sum of local economic policies? How can one distinguish between the local effects of national economic policies and those of local development policies? A further problem is providing a satisfactory definition of regions (i.e. the areas in which policies are to be implemented) and of their boundaries.     

湖南省区域趋同分析

根据区域趋同基本理论,采用新古典方法分析了湖南省区域趋同状况.结果表明,自我国实施社会主义市场经济体制以来,湖南省区域经济增长总体表现为条件趋同,趋同速度约为每年1.93%.受地理区位的影响,湖南省内部区域差异较大,国家发展政策对湖南省区域趋同的影响相当显著,例如,湘西自治州纳入西部大开发增强了湖南省区域增长的收敛性.而产业结构和投资状况对于区域经济增长的作用不强.在此基础上,提出几点促进湖南省区域趋同的对策.     

The measurement of ancestral roots with genealogical data

This study presents a new method to measure the depth of ancestral roots in a population. This method sheds light on the migratory movements that led to present-day population distribution across space. The method was applied to a dataset of 5,100 ascending genealogies from 17 regions of the province of Quebec (Canada). Dates of marriage of the earliest ancestors married in the same region as their descendants were used to measure the age of individual ancestral roots. The average regional ages vary between 16 and 157 years, while some individual roots reach as far back as 300 years in the same region. The proposed method can be useful for assessing how deeply rooted a contemporary population is at a local, regional, or other geographical level.     

Determinants of regional resilience to economic crisis: a European perspective

The impact of the economic crisis has been highly asymmetric across the European regions. The objective of this paper is to investigate the determinants of resilience to economic crisis across European regions. Regional economic resilience was assessed based on employment changes during 2008–2013, while socioeconomic determinants were analysed pre-crisis (2002–2007). A highly heterogeneous pattern of resilience was observed within countries, while significant differences were also revealed between the continental northern-central regions and the southern periphery. A multilevel logistic regression model indicated the magnitude of country-effects on the performance of regional employment during crisis periods. Both EU-referenced and country-referenced regional resilience identified the positive effect of accessibility and the negative effect of a large manufacturing sector in the ability of regions to withstand recessionary shocks. Education and economic development level positively affected the resilience of both large and small regional European economies. Investing in education enhances the spatial homogeneity across Europe in terms of its ability to react to economic shocks. The results reveal the importance of narrowing disparities among regions and formulating targeted and differentiated regional development policies at country level, taking into consideration the size of the economy of the regions.     

The politics of water security in southern Saskatchewan

This paper examines long-term water and resource management in Saskatchewan. Agriculture has long sustained Saskatchewan's economy, but the province experienced a resource boom in oil and potash in the 2008–2015 time period. What potential water-related risks are posed by oil and potash? And is the province able to balance the short-term economic gains of these developments with the long-term goal of water security? The research is based on interviews with policy elites in the province of Saskatchewan and argues that four factors explain why the government continues to favour industry over water security: low-issue salience, economic and political interest, ideology, and political culture.     

Canadian Northern Settlements: Top-down and Bottom-up Influences

The objective of this paper is to examine the evolution of settlement in northern Canada from the viewpoint of the paradigms of bottom-up or top-down development, the former being community driven and the latter government initiated. Following a review of the stages of settlement evolution and the major influences on them including the airplane and the Second World War, the Scone Report's characterization of settlements as developed or underdeveloped is presented. Much of the initial settlement of the North was top-down involving government or private capital from outside the region because it was a frontier devoid of settlement. Subsequently the building blocks of bottom-up development emerged. The federal government's devolution of power to the NWT Council in Yellowknife and the decentralization of a civil service from Ottawa was an important prerequisite for local government. This process has been strengthened recently by comprehensive settlements with aboriginal groups providing another building block in the form of land, hunting and mineral rights, and cash compensation for the extinguishment of aboriginal rights. A third building block for bottom-up development lies in the mixed economy which has emerged encompassing employment and business income from, for example, regional development corporations and co-operatives, transfers from Ottawa, country food, and the use of traditional skills of hunting, fishing and trapping. The adaptation of these skills to tourism, prospecting, guiding as well as aboriginal participation in oil and gas development and diamond mining indicate that such community involvement with a modern economy will outlast specific non-renewable resource use.     

The economic history of the regional problem in Britain, 1920–1938

This paper is intended to draw the attention of historical geographers to the regional problem of interwar Britain. Although unemployment measured at the aggregate national level is usually seen as the dominant characteristic of the period, the disparity in the experience of unemployment across different regions is equally striking. Yet the issue has received little attention from economic historians and virtually none from historical geographers, despite its being sufficiently important to promote the first attempts at regional policy. To consider why economic historians have neglected this matter the economic historiography is outlined using a classification that distinguishes between optimistic and pessimistic views of the period. This indicates that either the regional problem plays no part in such studies or it is considered only where it might cast doubt on, or lend support to, the hypothesis being proposed at the national level. The fascination of economic historians with the national experience, the relative shortage of complete and consistent data series and the mysteries of regional analysis make the study of regional issues uninviting for the economic historian. The historical geographer must have a role to play in giving us a better understanding of this important issue.     

陕西省县域综合发展水平空间分异及对策研究

以陕西省83个县域为研究单元,采用BP神经网络模型、GIS技术以及ID分异指数等对陕西省县域综合发展水平,空间分异格局做了定量化评价与测度。结果表明:县域综合评价水平在数值上呈现强者偏强,弱者偏弱,中等、中低水平相对集中分布;空间上呈南-北方向递增,东-西方向"U型"的总体分布;陕北、关中、陕南三大地域县域综合发展水平空间分异明显。研究认为加强三大地域间的分工与合作、推行差异化的县域发展战略是陕西省全面实现县域社会经济可持续发展的必由选择。     

湖南省经济空间结构演变及工业化主导因素分析

经济空间结构是经济地理学和区域经济学研究的重要论题之一,为了揭示湖南省经济空间结构演变过程及演变机制,分析了湖南省经济空间结构演变过程;并从工业化、区域政策和城镇化等方面分析了其经济空间结构演变机制。结果表明:20世纪80年代中期以来,湖南省经济正处于空间集聚过程,经济空间结构呈现出明显的核心-边缘模式;湖南省经济空间结构与工业化、区域政策和城镇化存在内在联系和耦合关系,其中工业发展是湖南经济增长的主要动力,也是经济空间结构形成与演化的重要原因。     

吉林省区域核心城市可持续发展能力的定量化研究

本文选取吉林省9个地区的核心城市,进行可持续发展能力的定量化研究。提出了针对吉林省核心城市的可持续发展能力评估的5个方面49个指标,分别采用指数化方法与因子分析法对吉林省区域核心城市可持续发展能力进行测度。经对比分析,最后确定以指数化方法的研究结论作为吉林省区域核心城市可持续发展能力的测试结果,并对结论进行了定性分析。     

江西省县域经济差异特征及其成因分析

县域经济作为我国国民经济的基本单元,是构造地带经济、经济区、省区、城市等区域经济的基础。我国当前社会经济运行中的主要矛盾如城乡二元结构、区域差异扩大、"三农"问题都集中反映在县域尺度上。因此,对县域经济差异进行剖析,揭示差异形成的机理,对县域经济发展有重要意义。2000年以来,江西省县域绝对差异呈持续扩大趋势,相对差异呈相对稳定趋势,总体差异呈扩大趋势;县域经济在空间上表现为经济发达型、较发达型县市主要分布在中部地区、交通干线和长江沿线地区;欠发达型和不发达型县市呈不规则的环状分布于经济发达、较发达型县市的外围地区;从整体上来看,江西省各县市的发展水平呈现北高南低的分布格局;从县市数量上看,呈现出城市规模"金字塔"结构等特征。     

On the Evolution of Relative Prices and Its Nature at the Regional Level: The Case of Spain

This paper studies the relevance and nature of shifts in relative prices at the regional level in Spain. Deviations in relative prices tend to be small (at most half a point of inflation annually) but persistent. They are determined by features intrinsic to deep economic integration, in particular, wage mechanisms operating at the national level. This is in stark contrast to evidence at the international level. Therefore, while acknowledging that divergent price evolutions are possible in the European Monetary Union, their nature will be different from those observed among Spanish regions.     

Neoliberalism and the Institutions for Regional Development in Australia

This paper examines some effects of the pursuit of neoliberalism on regional development policy and practice in Australia, and in particular on the activities and effectiveness of regional development organisations. The paper interprets data from a survey of 505 regional development organisations across Australia through the framework of Jessop's contribution to state theory and his identification of four key trends in economic management under neoliberalism. Regional development policies are seen as a response of governments to electoral pressure from regions, but a response that is constrained by the dominance of neoliberal ideology. The objectives of regional development are predominantly economic, but are often limited to the role of facilitation and the provision of information. Some responsibility for regional development has been shifted downwards to regions, but the effectiveness of the organisations given this responsibility is reduced by the short‐term and competitive nature of much of their funding, the lack of coordination between regional development actors at the local level, the proliferation of agencies and the competition between them. The paper concludes that regional development agencies in Australia are in many ways a product of neoliberalism, since they represent one way in which governments can be seen to be responding to regional pressure for assistance but they can do so without incurring significant costs. Yet regional development bodies are also a victim of neoliberalist thinking, since it denies them the resources and the powers they need to be more successful in their work.     

From toys to automobiles: foreign investment,firm heterogeneity and intermediaries in a Portuguese industry

In the literature on territorial innovation systems there is a constant tension between the effect of endogenous and exogenous factors and their relative importance. In order to address this tension several approaches have sought to conceptualize the relational and multi-scalar dimension of innovation and to explain how external knowledge and economic flows in conjunction with regional contexts combine to produce regional growth, stagnation or decline. This paper will contribute to this debate, while also highlighting that even at the local level there is substantial heterogeneity between firms. It will also shed light on the role of intermediary organizations that can help address information and power asymmetries between multinational corporations and less competitive local firms. Empirically it will draw on the case study of the Portuguese moulds industry, which has successfully adapted to shifts in the global economy by drawing on local resources while also remaining integrated into global value chains.     

The Political Economy of Electrical Power Generation

This article examines the procurement practices of Canada s three largest electric power utilities, Ontario Hydro, Hydro Quebec, and B.C. Hydro in terms of their impact on the technological development of the electrical power equipment industry in Canada. The theoretical underpinnings of this analysis are that under certain economic, technical and institutional conditions, procurement as managed by large publicly owned corporations with a high level of technical capacity can be a powerful instrument of industrial innovation. The paper describes how in the face of weakening market power following the twenty-year expansion phase in the industry (1960–80) and global restructuring among electrical power equipment suppliers, the three utilities have been forced to reassess conflicting commercial and technological objectives. The authors point to Hydro Quebec's signing of a recent series of strategic production agreements with key suppliers as an example of a new approach lo procurement through concentrated use of limited market power in critical product areas. The paper concludes that the distribution of risks involved in technology development between buyers and sellers is dependent on market structures. Secondly, the nature of these client-supplier interactions in management of risk will reflect the internal coherence of an organization's commercial and technological strategies.