URBAN CLUSTERS AS GROWTH FOCI*

ABSTRACT Urban clusters are geographic concentrations of urban places, some of which may include major cities. Unlike agglomerations, whose geographic boundaries are clearly delineated, urban clusters have “variable” boundaries, with each urban settlement being part of its “own” cluster of populated places, located within its commuting range. As our study indicates, the effect of clustering on urban growth is not uniform: it appears to be positive in low density clusters, and negative in densely populated ones. In particular, outside densely populated areas, towns surrounded by other localities tend to evince higher rates of population growth than their “lone” counterparts.     

Regional Competition for Mobile Oligopolistic Firms: Does Public Provision of Local Inputs Lead to Agglomeration?

We develop a model in which two regional governments compete for two mobile oligopolistic firms. Regional governments provide local infrastructure to attract mobile firms in order to increase regional employment and income. Firms face the trade-off between better regional infrastructure and fiercer competition for local workers. Strategic interaction prevails at the regional level as well as at the firm level. We show that an equilibrium with spatial concentration of firms as well as an equilibrium with spatial diversification of firms exists. In almost all cases regional competition leads to a suboptimal provision of local infrastructure.     

Austrian foreign cultural policy: Europeanization through the prism of national interests

ABSTRACT

In the second half of 2018, Austria for the third time has taken over the EU Council Presidency and is therefore particularly interested in promoting an image of itself as a reliable partner and a European country which accepts and protects European values. Foreign cultural policy is one of the suitable instruments for achieving this goal. The present paper analyses Austrian foreign cultural policy with the aim of finding out how European integration affects it. The paper uses qualitative research methods such as desk research, document research and expert interviews. The results of the analyses show that Austrian stakeholders traditionally consider Europeanization primarily as a tool to promote Austrian national interests on the international stage.     

Chemical evidence for wine production around 4000 BCE in the Late Chalcolithic Near Eastern highlands

Archaeological excavations in the Areni-1 cave complex in southeastern Armenia revealed installations and artifacts dating to around 4000 cal. BCE that are strongly indicative of wine production. Chemical evidence for this hypothesis is presented here using a new method to detect the anthocyanin malvidin that gives grapes and pomegranates their red color. Using solid phase extraction (SPE) and alkaline treatment of the samples, followed by combined liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), this method was applied to authentic standards and four ancient potsherds from Armenia and Syria. A positive result was observed for two of the samples from the Areni-1 cave complex, adding evidence supporting the hypothesis that wine was produced in the Near Eastern highlands in the Late Chalcolithic Period.