Bohemia and economic geography

This paper examines the geography of bohemia and the relationshipsbetween it, human capital, and high-technology industries. Theunderlying hypothesis is that the presence and concentrationof bohemians in an area creates an environment or milieu thatattracts other types of talented or high human capital individuals.The presence of such human capital in turn attracts and generatesinnovative, technology-based industries. To explore these factors,this paper introduces a new measure—the bohemian index—thatdirectly measures the bohemian population at the MSA level.Statistical research examines the relationships between geographicconcentrations of bohemians, human capital, and high-technologyindustry concentration. The findings support this hypothesis.The geography of bohemia is highly concentrated. The resultsindicate positive and significant relationships between thebohemian index and concentrations of high human capital individualsand between the bohemian index and concentrations of high-technologyindustry. The relationship between the bohemian index and high-technologyconcentrations is particularly strong.     

Identifying Subareas That Comprise A Greater Metropolitan Area: The Criterion of County Relative Efficiency

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is used to rank the relative efficiency of thirty–two counties comprising the Greater Minneapolis–St. Paul Metropolitan Region and finds that the greatest external economies originate in the urban core and decline toward the periphery. By employing 1993 IMPLAN input–output database and county estimates of final payments (inputs) and final demands (outputs), DEA classifies efficient and inefficient counties that produce maximum output using minimum input, and a sensitivity analysis ranks counties according to robustness of the efficiency classifications. Efficiency differences between three groups identify the metropolitan core, transitional region, and peripheral region. Dominant industries in the three regions are identified and contrasted using location quotients. This study adopts the various analytical techniques into an urban regional systems approach for policy analysis and implementation.     

The Merseyside Objective One Programme: Exemplar of Coherent City-regional Planning and Governance or Cautionary Tale?

This paper demonstrates how the Merseyside Objective One (MO1) programme provided a platform for sub-regional partners to develop a consensus about strategic economic development priorities and resulted in innovations and collective learning particularly in terms of community economic development and closer engagement of Higher Educational Institutions and the private sector. However, such gains were partially offset by over-complex management arrangements, blurred accountability, competition for resources and match funding problems. Devolution of responsibility for programme content and implementation under the new Structural Fund regulations should allow partners to address many of these shortcomings in the second MO1 programme. Tighter financial controls may, however, reduce room for manoeuvre and discourage experimentation.     

The Placing of Early Bronze Age Metalwork Deposits: New Evidence from Scotland

This paper considers the earliest metalwork hoards in Scotland, most of which have been found at conspicuous points in the landscape. The treatment of individual objects suggests that they had been carefully selected before they were deposited. Fieldwork, combined with computer reconstruction, shows that half the collections with adequate provenances come from places with direct views of the rising and setting sun at the solstices. The main emphasis seems to have been on midwinter.