A LONG-RUN INTERPRETATION OF REGIONAL INPUT-OUTPUT ANALYSIS*

ABSTRACT. Regional input-output (I-O) analysis is traditionally motivated by a short-run, extreme Keynesian vision of markets. In this paper we argue that an appropriately formulated, investment-endogenous, I-O system replicates the long-run equilibria of a wide range of regional models, many of which do not operate as I-O systems in the short run. In particular, we use a computable general equilibrium (CGE) framework to illustrate the impact of an aggregate demand disturbance on an I-O and standard neoclassical model. When run forward over a number of periods, the results from the capacity-constrained neoclassical model asymptotically approach the I-O outcome. We use sensitivity analysis to examine the speed of adjustment of the neo-classical system and investigate barriers to the attainment of the I-O result.     

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.     

SPATIAL DEPENDENCE AND SPATIAL STRUCTURAL INSTABILITY IN APPLIED REGRESSION ANALYSIS*

The stability of regression coefficients over the observation set (“regional homogeneity”) is typically assessed by means of a Chow test or within a seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) framework. When spatial error autocorrelation is present in cross-sectional equations the traditional tests are no longer applicable. I evaluate this both in formal terms as well as empirically. I introduce a taxonomy of spatial effects in models for structural instability, and discuss its implication for testing. I compare the performance of traditional tests, robust approaches, maximum-likelihood procedures and pretest techniques by means of a series of simple Monte Carlo experiments.     

Foreign direct investment and renewal of industries: framing the reciprocity between materiality and discourse

ABSTRACT

Informed by the evolutionary literature on economic geography, this paper develops a conceptual framework for analysing the complexity between foreign direct investment (FDI) and renewal of industries. Present contributions tend to explain the impact of FDI on regional industry evolution as a static, output-oriented phenomenon, that is, informed by an instrumental rationale in which the dynamism of FDI and regional industry development is linked to polarization of stagnation/decline vs. growth/development. Opposing this, we argue for an epistemological shift in approach to the reciprocity between FDI and renewal of industries as dynamism between material outcomes and discursive processes. To accomplish this, we build on key concepts and understandings from evolutionary economic geography; review the regional effects of FDI literature and build a framework sensitive to contextual dimensions of FDI. We focus on multinational companies’ practices and material outcomes in terms of regional spillovers and the discursive processes in terms of FDI narratives. This framework is exemplified by data from the salmon farming industry and the subsea industry in Hordaland and the oil and gas industry and the mining industry in Finnmark.     

ACCOUNTING FOR LOCAL SPATIAL HETEROGENEITIES IN HOUSING MARKET STUDIES

We adopt a novel method to deal with omitted spatial heterogeneities in hedonic house price analysis. A Gaussian variant of the conditional autoregressive (CAR) model is used to study the impact of spatial effects. In a general linear modeling framework, we include zone‐specific random effects that are allowed to interact spatially with neighboring zones. The results demonstrate that this estimator accounts for missing spatial information, producing more reliable results on estimated spatially related coefficients. The CAR model is benchmarked against a fixed effects model. Socioeconomic neighborhood characteristics are found to have only modest impact on spatial variation in housing prices.     

An archaeological approach to regional environmental pollution in the south-western Iberian Peninsula related to Third millennium BC mining and metallurgy

The development of the first inter-settlement hierarchical framework in the South of the Iberian Peninsula in the Third millennium BC lead to a territorial division of labour, in which intensification of mining activities caused the first significant environmental impact on local and regional scales. To evaluate this impact we have selected the prime mining district in south-western Europe, the Iberian Pyrite Belt, and a method based on the correlation of pollen, charcoal and chemical analysis. The latter analyses were carried out on marine mollusc shells from spatially and chronologically contextualised archaeological records from a sequence ranging from the Sixth to the Second millennium BC.The results reveal that the copper metallurgy which developed in the south-western Iberian Peninsula in the Third millennium BC augmented deforestation, increased the rate of erosion processes and contaminated, at a regional scale, the waters of the Gulf of Cádiz – corresponding to the mouth of the Tinto and Odiel rivers – with heavy metals.     

高速铁路对成渝城市群区域可达性和城市相互作用格局的影响

利用加权平均出行时间、日常可达性指数、经济潜力指数与可达性系数四项指标，分析高铁对成渝城市群县域可达性的影响。同时，基于引力模型测算高铁开通前后城市间经济联系强度，分析高铁对城市相互作用格局的影响。结果显示：高铁建设极大地提高了成渝城市群的区域整体可达性水平，并表现出显著的“廊道效应”；区域内部交通基础设施布局差异显著，高铁建设在显著改善部分城市可达性水平的同时扩大了相对可达性水平的差距；高铁建设强化了重庆主城区和成都市区的核心地位，且后者获得了更大的发展潜力；区域中心城市经济辐射能力得到提升，但仍与双核心保持着极大的差距；城市轴带在高铁推动下发育成型，但成渝一小时交通圈并未有效衔接，中部地区呈现“塌陷”的局面。     

吉林省产业系统适应性分析

本文借鉴适应性分析范式,提出产业系统适应性概念和测算模型,并应用于吉林省产业系统适应性分析。结果表明:①吉林省产业系统敏感性以延边州最高,长春市次之,松源市和辽源市最小,而应对力以长春市最高,吉林市、通化市和延边州居中,其余地区较低;②未来吉林省各市州在积极参与产业分工的同时,还应重视污染治理、产业结构优化调控,以及产业创新能力建设;③吉林省各市州适应性可分为六类,高敏感性高应对力高适应型、低敏感性高应对力高适应型、低敏感性低应对力中等适应型、高敏感性低应对力中等适应型、低敏感性低应对力低适应型、高敏感性低应对力低适应型;④敏感性和应对力都是决定产业系统适应力的关键因子,产业系统的开放性造就了敏感性,也提高了应对力,敏感性与应对力相互协调、相互适应促进了产业系统适应力的发展。     

区域海洋经济发展的结构性演进特征分析

产业结构和空间结构问题,是经济地理学和区域经济学研究经济发展问题的核心命题。本文从区域视角,在海洋经济的实质及其区域经济特性分析的基础上,应用区域产业结构和空间结构的基本理论,揭示了区域海洋经济的结构性特征及其演进的基本规律,以期为海洋经济发展战略与规划的制定提供依据。     

Economic Structure and Regional Performance in Germany, 2002–2007

This paper explores the impact of industrial clusters on regional growth at the German labour market region level using a regional convergence model. Based on the results of an exploratory study of the geography of German industrial clusters, we are able to differentiate the impact of industrial clustering from a horizontal and a vertical perspective while taking regional convergence into consideration. The results indicate that in addition to an all-German process of convergence, a specific East German one can be identified. The different types of industrial clusters show mixed effects within this framework. While vertically isolated industrial clusters have a negative impact on regional growth in this period, positive growth effects can be identified when industrial clusters show an intra-regional vertical interconnectedness.     

The lagging regions of the EC in the face of economic and monetary union

Nationwide economic policies required to satisfy the Treaty of Maastricht will have a deep regional impact. This paper reflects on the trade‐offs, possibilities and transformations which the process leading towards economic and monetary union imposes on the development policies of peripheral regions. The space left for regional policy is reduced. Regional governments of peripheral regions should decode the pseudo‐modernizing language of neo‐liberal positions, press for greater fiscal resources and propose supply strategies within the framework of industrial policies on a regional basis.     

TheConvergence of the Italian Regions and Unemployment: Theory and Evidence

We explore the links between the halt of the convergence process of Italian regions at the beginning of the 1970s and the increase in regional unemployment dispersion. We consider a neoclassical exogenous growth model with an imperfect labor market and show that during the transitional dynamics the imperfections of the labor market negatively influence the output growth rate. In particular, the model implies that centralized bargaining is likely to set a national minimum wage that is too high with respect to the labor productivity of the less developed regions, resulting in a negative impact on their per capita output growth. We test the implications of the model on a regional panel data set using the GMM framework. Both our market distortion measure and the unemployment rate are found to significantly lower the growth rate of per capita output.     

IS SOCIAL CAPITAL USEFUL FOR EXPLAINING ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN POLISH REGIONS?

The concept of social capital is widely perceived as a promising tool for explaining differences in economic development between countries and regions. According to this theory, weak links (bridging social capital) and social trust in an area favour its better access to other forms of capital, that is, economic and human capital. However, strong links (bonding social capital) may stifle creativity and entrepreneurship. Since the vast majority of research on the impact of social capital on economic development focuses on highly developed Western European countries, it seems particularly interesting to evaluate the usefulness of this approach when applied to post‐communist countries with their different experiences. The objective of this article is to identify the spatial variation of different forms of social capital in regions of Poland and then to test a hypothesis on the impact of this capital on regional economic development. The results demonstrate that despite the existing differences between regions there are no significant relationships between levels of social capital and economic development. This may be explained either by low social capital levels or by the overall degree of Polish economic development.     

TRANSBOUNDARY INCOME AND EXPENDITURE FLOWS IN REGIONAL INPUT-OUTPUT MODELS*

ABSTRACT. Nearly all regional input-output models have been constructed without a proper accounting of inflows and outflows of personal income and personal consumption expenditures. Typically invoked is a no cross-payments assumption, analogous to the no cross-hauling assumption for commodities. We present a new accounting framework based on the classification of flows according to the location of income generation, receipt, and spending, and argue that only flows endogenous in all three respects should be part of a closed regional I-O model. We use the framework to compute the upward bias in multipliers in a typical regional I-O model. We also present several methods for estimating transboundary flows.     

Are we spending too much to grow? The case of Structural Funds

We evaluate whether the impact of EU Structural and Cohesion Funds (EUF) on Member States’ regional economic growth depends on the intensity of treatment, measured by the normalized amount of funds distributed in each region. We use an original data set that covers all the main sources of EUF and extend the regression discontinuity design to the case of continuous treatment. The results suggest an average positive effect on regional growth. The estimated conditional intensity‐growth function is concave and presents a maximum value. Therefore, the exceeding funds could have been allocated to other lagging regions without reducing the effect on growth.     

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.     

SPECIFICATION AND ECONOMETRIC IMPROVEMENTS IN REGIONAL PORTFOLIO DIVERSIFICATION ANALYSIS

ABSTRACT. We develop an alternative specification of the regional portfolio diversification problem that explicitly incorporates important information on regional economic structure and avoids certain inconsistencies in the traditional specification with respect to what constitutes the choice set. We also implement improved econometric procedures for estimating the required parameters and provide an empirical example using 1987 data for the Colorado economy to illustrate the potential differences in sectoral allocations obtained when applying our alternative approach versus the traditional one.     

The Local Implications of Major Job Transformations in the City: A Spatial Microsimulation Approach

The changing dynamics of regional and local labor markets during the last decades have led to an increasing labor market segmentation and socioeconomic polarization and to a rise of income inequalities at the regional, urban, and intraurban level. These problems call for effective social and local labor market policies. However, there is also a growing need for methods and techniques capable of efficiently estimating the likely impact of social and economic change at the local level. For example, the common methodologies for estimating the impacts of large firm openings or closures operate at the regional level. The best of these models disaggregate the region to the city (Armstrong 1993; Batey and Madden 1983). This paper demonstrates how spatial microsimulation modeling techniques can be used for local labor market analysis and policy evaluation to assess these impacts (and their multiplier effects) at the local level‐to measure the effects on individuals and their neighborhood services. First, we review these traditional macroscale and mesoscale regional modeling approaches to urban and regional policy analysis and we illustrate their merits and limitations. Then, we examine the potential of spatial microsimulation modeling to create a new framework for the formulation, analysis and evaluation of social and local labor market policies at the individual or household level. Outputs from a local labor market microsimulation model for Leeds are presented. We show how first it is possible to investigate the interdependencies between individual's or households labor market attributes at the microscale and to model their accessibilities to job opportunities in different localities. From this base we show how detailed what‐if microspatial analysis can be performed to estimate the impact of major changes in the local labor market through job losses or gains, including local multiplier effects.     

社会资本影响区域经济增长的机理:基于"织网"模型的分析

社会资本对区域经济增长的影响是通过对区内企业、产业集群及区域整体等三个不同主体的影响发挥作用的。在企业由传统成长模式向网络化成长模式转变,产业集群由聚集经济向创新网络转变,区域由空闻结构向网络社会转变的过程中,社会网络及内含资源起着决定性作用。社会资本对三者的作用体现空间上的层次递进特征,即依循企业、集群、区域三个不同主体网络化递进发展的“织网模型”,依次由“发散状企业网络”向“经纬状集群网络”再向“多构面区域网络”发展的织网过程。社会资本及社会网络对企业的作用是摄取关键资源、信息等;对产业集群的影响是建立学习与创新机制、成本节约机制、形成合作竞争氛围;而对区域的积极意义是保持区域良好的信任文化。     

TESTING CRITERIA FOR DETERMINING LEADING REGIONS IN WAGE TRANSMISSION MODELS*

In this study, we use a vector autoregressive modeling framework to test the zero restrictions implied by alternative criteria for ranking regions into hierarchies in the wage-transmission debate. This approach allows formal statistical tests to be carried out for competing criteria suggested for determining leading and following regions. The ability of the modeling technique proposed here to produce a set of nested hypothesis tests of alternative criteria is in stark contrast to the historical literature in this debate. Researchers have traditionally proposed a criterion for ranking regions into a hierarchy, and then argued for the merits of their particular criterion by demonstrating that an econometric model of wage formation produces statistically significant coefficient estimates when their criterion is used to rank the regions of their data sample. We apply the methods proposed here to a sample of eight midwestern cities in the U.S. in order to test the following criteria: Beaumont (1983), Hart and MacKay (1977), Reed and Hutchinson (1976), unemployment rate, and earnings level. The test is for consistency with the Granger-causal structure of wage interactions inherent in the wage diffusion idea. We argue that the technique set forth here is a real step forward that should allow a resolution of this particular debate. The proposed procedures might also be applied to empirically test other regional science hypotheses concerning for example, intercity and interindustry causal structures.