REGIONAL LABOR PRODUCTIVITY IN THE NETHERLANDS: EVIDENCE OF AGGLOMERATION AND CONGESTION EFFECTS*

ABSTRACT This paper studies the impact of localization, urbanization, and diversification on regional labor productivity levels and growth. We find substantial effects, accounting for roughly half of the explained variation in the labor productivity differences within the Netherlands in the 1990s. Diversification, urbanization, and localization effects are significant and positive for productivity levels. These levels appear cointegrated. The error correction specification of productivity growth surprisingly reflects negative agglomeration effects. From the theoretical model it follows that congestion effects must have taken precedence over agglomeration effects during this period. Both agglomeration and congestion effects are dampened by job density in neighboring regions. Finally, policy simulations with the estimated model show that spatial concentration is more harmful to national productivity growth than spatial dispersion.     

Dietary patterns and social structures in medieval Sigtuna, Sweden, as reflected in stable isotope values in human skeletal remains

Stable isotopes (δ¹³C, δ¹⁵N) have been studied in human burials from the medieval town Sigtuna in Sweden. Dietary patterns of 80 adult individuals were analyzed on three cemeteries representing the phases of establishment, prosperity and decline of the town. All analyzed individuals were radiocarbon dated. One of the cemeteries, Church 1, represents a population of higher social status than those at the other two cemeteries.The δ¹³C values are homogenous and showed that the protein intake was mainly of terrestrial origin in the whole population. δ¹⁵N values varies more and they may indicate a higher input of vegetables in the diet at one of the cemeteries, the Nunnan block.Already in the initial phases of Sigtuna a social hierarchy had been established which is reflected in dietary patterns. Apparently more animal protein was consumed among the high status population of the town. Furthermore, differences in dietary patterns between the sexes were noted. In all phases the females show more clustered values indicating a more homogeneous diet than that of the males.     

DOES DIVERSITY IN URBAN SPACE ENHANCE INTERGROUP CONTACT AND TOLERANCE?

Contemporary urban theory has started to question the elevation of diversity as a panacea for enduring urban problems – segregation, prejudice and intergroup hostility. This critique coincides with an opposite tendency within classic contact theory and research. The latter tradition has developed an increasing enthusiasm for face-to-face interaction. The contact hypothesis, which presupposes established contact, has received conclusive support independent of target groups and contact settings. Research on 'lived diversity', which includes both contact and lack of contact, offers two supplementary insights. It shows, on the one hand, that boundaries are inscribed in social spaces. Physical proximity between ethnic and social groups tends to have a minor effect on interaction. Interaction, on the other hand, is not essential to attitude formation. Both subfields within contact research have confirmed that urban space may act as a catalyst for tolerant attitudes. This observation corresponds with increasing recognition of affective states, such as empathy, anxiety and group threat. Contact research has therefore, in summary, transcended the scope of the contact hypothesis. It has expanded into the realm of urban theory, which foreshadows future collaboration between the two traditions. Some key points for such exchange are suggested at the end of the article. Future research should combine an open-ended approach to casual contact with a diversified conception of diversity and a richer conception of urban space. A move in this direction would leave substantial space for geographical research.     

Education for All: How Much Will It Cost?

In 1990, a target of universal access to basic education by the year 2000 was set by two global conferences. Ten years later, however, it was clear that the target had not been met. Too many countries had made insufficient progress, and although many of the reasons for this inadequate progress were country‐specific, one factor stood out in virtually all countries: inadequate public finance for primary education. In 2000, the Millennium Summit set a new target date for achieving ‘education for all’ of 2015. This article updates the global and regional cost estimates for reaching that target. The estimates are based on the most recent country‐by‐country data on budgetary expenditure, population and enrolment trends, and unit cost. The annual additional cost of achieving ‘education for all’ in developing countries by 2015 is estimated at US$ 9.1 billion. Although this is affordable at the global level, individual countries will need considerably more resources than are currently available. However, official development assistance (ODA) has been declining, and the share of ODA allocated to basic education has changed little over the past decade. Therefore, although affordable, the target of universal basic education by 2015 is likely to be missed, just as it was in 2000, without a major change both in ODA and national budgets.     

Net Multipliers Avoid Exaggerating Impacts: With A Bi–Regional Illustration for the Dutch Transportation Sector

Industries often promote their interests by arguing that they have a big impact on the rest of the economy. This poses the question of how to measure the importance of an activity. To answer this, the literature often uses (regional) input–output analysis. This paper critically reviews the traditional use of multipliers in such cases. To avoid double–counting impacts and to solve related conceptual problems, the net multiplier concept is introduced. This net multiplier is illustrated empirically for the Dutch transport sector using a Type II biregional input–output model for the Netherlands.     

Ambitions and realities in Norwegian regional planning

The article illustrates how regional planning processes in Norway are performed under the terms of the Planning and Building Act, considering the communicative turn in planning theory. It also analyses the coordination of nature management, regulated by the Nature Conservation Act, with regional planning and development. Discourse analysis is used and the story-lines, the discourse coalitions and the emblematic issues in planning and conservation are identified. It is concluded that planning in practice is quite different from the prevailing, theoretical understanding of regional planning. Nature management and regional planning are performed through separate, uncoordinated processes.     

The analysis of two historic fired artificial stonewares: Coade stone (18th–19th centuries) and a recent discovery from Oxnead Hall,Norfolk (16th–17th centuries)

Coade stone has played a significant role in architectural and ornamental design since its inception in the early 18th century. It is well known that earlier, experimental, architectural stoneware products existed, but few of these have been studied in detail scientifically, and only one major analytical study of Coade stone has appeared in the literature. This paper presents a new spectroscopic analysis of Coade stone along with that of a newly discovered sample from Oxnead Hall in Norfolk where it known that Sir Clement Paston experimented with artificial stone in the late 16th century. The results demonstrate that it is possible to differentiate between the two variants on the basis of both the raw materials used and the different phases formed in their production processes.     

Multi‐Type,Multi‐Zone Facility Location

The placement of facilities according to spatial and/or geographic requirements is a popular problem within the domain of location science. Objectives that are typically considered in this class of problems include dispersion, median, center, and covering objectives—and are generally defined in terms of distance or service‐related criteria. With few exceptions, the existing models in the literature for these problems only accommodate one type of facility. Furthermore, the literature on these problems does not allow for the possibility of multiple placement zones within which facilities may be placed. Due to the unique placement requirements of different facility types—such as suitable terrain that may be considered for placement and specific placement objectives for each facility type—it is expected that different suitable placement zones for each facility type, or groups of facility types, may differ. In this article, we introduce a novel mathematical treatment for multi‐type, multi‐zone facility location problems. We derive multi‐type, multi‐zone extensions to the classical integer‐linear programming formulations involving dispersion, centering and maximal covering. The complexity of these formulations leads us to follow a heuristic solution approach, for which a novel multi‐type, multi‐zone variation of the non‐dominated sorting genetic algorithm‐II algorithm is proposed and employed to solve practical examples of multi‐type, multi‐zone facility location problems.     

Ivane Tarkhnishvili (Ivan Tarchanoff) and His Links With Poland

According to some sources, Professor Ivan Tarchanoff (Ivane Tarkhanishvili) died in Saint Petersburg in 1908. In fact, he died in Poland in his house in Nawojowa Góra, a suburb of Krzeszowice, not far from Kraków. A student and later assistant of Tarchanoff in Saint Petersburg, Napoleon Cybulski, was then professor of physiology at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków and its rector and deputy rector. It is hardly known that Tarchanoff spent the last three years of his life mainly in Galicia, at that time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. There, near Kraków, he built himself a house and it was in Galicia (in Kraków and Lemberg [Polish Lwów, today Lviv]) that he worked on some of his last papers. The strong link between Tarchanoff and Polish physiology is not sufficiently well known and deserves to be recognized.