Trade policy and regional inequalities

This article aims to analyze the effects of trade policies on the pattern of regional inequalities within a country. It is inspired, firstly, by the debate concerning the role of protectionist policies in the development of a pattern of striking regional inequalities during the Spanish industrialization process and, secondly, by current evidence of an increase in these inequalities following Spain's entry in the EU, in 1986. We employ an economic geography model comprising three regions: two domestic and one external. Labor mobility is permitted between the domestic regions but not with the external region. The model shows that trade liberalization increases regional inequalities. Received: 4 March 1999 / Accepted: 17 February 2000     

SECULAR SEASONS: LONG-RUN TRENDS IN SPATIAL-TEMPORAL SOCIOECONOMIC BEHAVIOR

ABSTRACT This paper proposes an explanation of unbalanced regional growth and regional inequalities based on the view that human behaviour is motivated either to reduce the physiological state of arousal or to increase it. While arousal reduction is the basis of conventional economic analysis arousal augmentation is seldom considered. This paper argues that arousal augmentation motivates society to seek technological and socioeconomic innovations that trigger economic progress. The mechanism for this progress is seen as a synthesis of spatial growth poles and temporal long waves.     

Perceptions of Neighbourhood Disorder and Reputation: Qualitative Findings from Two Contrasting Areas of an Australian City

Within Australian cities, social and economic inequalities manifest themselves spatially. Perceived neighbourhood disorder and neighbourhood reputation are relevant to considering the ways in which social and economic inequalities translate into place-based inequalities. This article explores the ways in which residents of two socio-economically contrasting urban areas describe and explain neighbourhood disorder and neighbourhood reputation. It draws upon qualitative data from 40 in-depth interviews, in addition to quantitative data from a postal survey. The qualitative findings highlighted how issues of neighbourhood disorder and reputation were intertwined. In both areas, participants sought to portray themselves and their neighbourhoods in positive ways, by attributing responsibility for neighbourhood disorder to people who were unlike themselves, and by highlighting places that were perceived to have worse reputations and higher levels of disorder. The findings are considered in light of Bourdieu's theory of capitals. This article indicates that both neighbourhood disorder and reputation are pathways through which social, economic and health inequities are maintained in urban areas.     

Inequalities in income and education and regional economic growth in western Europe

Does inequality matter for regional growth? This paper addresses this question, using regionally aggregated microeconomic data for more than 100,000 individuals over a period of 6 years. The aim is to examine the relationship between income and educational distribution and regional economic growth in western Europe. Our results indicate that, given existing levels of inequality, an increase in a region’s income and educational inequality has a significant positive association with subsequent economic growth. Educational achievement is positively correlated with economic growth, but the impact of initial income levels is unclear. Finally, the results suggest that inequalities in educational attainment levels matter more for economic performance than average educational attainment. The above findings are not only robust to the definition of income distribution, but also across inequality measurements.     

Regional economic dynamics and convergence in the European Union

This paper uses an alternative approach to convergence analysis, which, in our opinion, is richer than those traditionally proposed. We believe that the evolution of the whole regional distribution is what matters, not that of an average or representative economy, implicit in the or convergence concepts. Moreover, when analyzing inequality among regional economies, geographic space acquires a preeminent role. We therefore apply spatial association tests recently developed in the spatial econometrics literature and relate them to convergence analysis. Specifically, we apply this methodology to the analysis of regional dynamics and convergence in the European Union (EU). In this context, the progress made in the integration process has highlighted the question of economic disparities at regional level. The process of convergence came to an end in the late seventies, coinciding with major changes in economic activity. This paper shows how these factors appear to have provoked a regionally differentiated response which, though significant, did not, in all likelihood, exacerbate the decrease in regional inequalities.     

Distribution of regional income and regional funds in Europe 1989–1999: An exploratory spatial data analysis

The efforts of the European Commission to reduce regional inequalities over its territory continue to attract the attention of researchers. The purpose of this paper is to perform an exploratory investigation of the relationship between the spatial distribution of regional income and of regional development funds among 145 European regions over 1989–1999. Using a set of tools of spatial statistics, we first detect the presence of global and local spatial autocorrelation in the distribution of regional per capita incomes, traducing that rich (poor) regions tend to be clustered close to other rich (poor) regions, and in the distribution of regional growth rate and regional funds. Second, the results of LISA statistics conclude to the presence of spatial heterogeneity in the form of two spatial clusters of rich and poor regions over the decade, highlighting the persistence of a significant core-periphery pattern among European regions. Finally, an exploratory analysis reveals a negative correlation between growth and initial income, that tends to indicate -convergence. A positive relationship between regional growth and structural funds is identified among the significant results as well. Only Andalucia, Galicia and Sterea Ellada show atypical linkages. These results suggest that further research should include spatial effects and the distribution of regional funds in the spatial econometric estimation of regional convergence in Europe.Received: March 2003/Accepted: November 2003This paper has been written while I was a Fulbright Visiting-Researcher at the Regional Economics Applications Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA). I have benefited from useful comments of the participants of the 49^th Annual North American Meeting of the RSAI and the participants of the 42^nd Annual Meeting of the WRSA. I would like to thank most especially Julie Le Gallo, Phil Rees and two anonymous referees for their valuable suggestions. Financial support from the Région Aquitaine (France) is gratefully acknowledged.     

泛珠三角区域经济一体化的探索

探讨了泛珠江三角洲经济区合作的条件、基础和目的，指出区域经济整合的目标是在区域内建立统一和有效的市场体系，消除区域内阻碍产品和生产要素自由流动的各种体制障碍，充分发挥市场在区域之间资源配置的基础性作用，通过市场的完善和扩大促进区域经济和产业分工，逐渐缩小地区经济差距，最终实现区域的共同发展和“普遍的富裕”。     

The Role of Spatial Development Frameworks in Transformation of the eThekwini Municipality,KwaZulu-Natal,South Africa: Reflecting on 20 Years of Planning

In the 20 years since the advent of a democratic government in South Africa, planned expenditure on infrastructure projects by municipalities has been used in part to redress inequalities and socioeconomic distortions created by apartheid. Our purpose in this article is to assess the effectiveness of planning instruments to achieve desired transformation in the case of the eThekwini Municipality. We evaluated demographic, spatial regional economic, settlement hierarchy, accessibility and functional analysis indicators to assess the eThekwini Spatial Development Framework (SDF) as it applies to the city of Durban, making particular use of the National Population Census results for 2001 and 2011, municipal data on housing and settlement distribution, the municipal evaluation roll, the Industrial Land Study of 2014 and the Eskom household survey of 2009. These data sets were mapped using Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) GIS to analyse spatial changes over the decade from 2001 to 2011 to establish the ways and extent public investment guided by SDFs is responsive to spatial transformation imperatives. We found that, although there has been some economic and population growth, in-migration and densification of the inner city, there has been limited spatial transformation of the urban population, many communities still live in poverty, the traditional inequalities prevail and the benefits of democratic dispensation are elusive to many, despite substantial investment in infrastructure. Our analysis points to inadequacies of the planning tools and their application to spending public funds. Moreover, SDFs appear to be process and compliance-driven rather than inclusive of stakeholder concerns. We argue that they require substantial refinement to achieve the desired results.     

Okun’s law,asymmetries and regional spillovers: evidence from Virginia metropolitan statistical areas and the District of Columbia

The purpose of this paper was to examine the strength of the relationship between unemployment and GDP, to determine the extent to which this relationship has been stable in Virginia metropolitan statistical areas (MSA) during the Great Recession and to examine the importance of regional spillovers in Okun’s law. Our results suggest that regional spillovers are very important in local labor markets and in defining the relationship observed at the national level. The MSA level data further supports asymmetries in Okun’s law. The weaker direct relationship between GDP and unemployment at the local level suggests that while federal fiscal and monetary policies to stimulate aggregate demand during periods of economic recovery may be effective, over time, in reducing the unemployment rate, local economic development policies are not effective in achieving the substantial short-term reduction in unemployment needed during recovery. The strong business cycle effects observed in the state MSA, relative to the U.S., suggests that countercyclical policies are fundamentally important and should be targeted more generally to exploit regional spillovers.     

The effects of industrial diversification on regional unemployment in Taiwan: is the portfolio theory applicable?

Unemployment issues, particularly recently, have been the subject of heated rhetoric in Taiwan due to the currently high unemployment rate in this small open economy. This paper investigates regional unemployment in 23 counties or cities from 1982 to 2004. Izraeli and Murphy (Ann Reg Sci 37:1–14, 2003) suggested that the Herfindahl index of industrial structure is positively correlated with the unemployment rate. In this regard, the portfolio theory argues that industrial diversification can only reduce volatility in the regional labor market. In other words, there is a relatively higher regional unemployment rate during periods of economic prosperity and relatively lower unemployment rate during periods of economic slowdown. This view is fully confirmed from the fixed effects model using panel data and the implication is that a comprehensive industrial policy to lower both the unemployment rate and risk in regional labor markets is critical in Taiwan today.     

Landscape diversity changes in Estonia

This paper discusses landscape diversity dynamics in Estonia during the 20th century. The analysis of maps from four different time periods in terms of 12 diversity indicators shows that landscape diversity changes in Estonia are minor. Still there remain some regional differences. A principal component analysis indicates four types of diversity, namely, shape of the patch, ‘classical' diversity, land use, and number of units, which explain 80% of the whole variability of landscape change.     

Regional industrial evolution in China

Evolutionary economic geography (EEG) indicates that regional industrial development is path dependent. The empirical studies in EEG however have not paid sufficient attention to the importance of global linkages nor the role of regional institutions in driving industrial dynamics. Based on firm level data of four‐digit manufacturing industries during 1998 to 2008 in China, we find that Chinese regions branch into new industries technologically related to the existing industrial portfolio and related industries are less likely to exit. Further analysis reveals that global linkages, economic liberalization and state involvement not only create favourable conditions to allow a larger role of technological relatedness but also generate opportunities for Chinese regions to create new paths of industrial development.     

Distributive Justice and Regional Planning: The Politics of Regional Revenue-Generating Land Uses in Israel

In this article, I examine the connection between the economic strength of a local authority and the distribution of space in the region. The goal of this article is to examine the degree to which the distribution of revenue-generating land uses in Israel accords with the Rawlsian principle of distributive justice, and how that distribution affects the economic and social condition of development towns in comparison with that of the adjacent regional authorities. I also consider the role of the Israeli planning system in creating such inequalities, its justifications for doing so, and various attempts to remedy the situation.     

Regional growth and spatial spillovers: Evidence from an SpVAR for the Spanish regions

This paper provides a spatial vector autoregressive (SpVAR) analysis of growth spillovers for the Spanish regions over the period 1965–2003. First, a spatial Granger causality analysis is performed that indicates the relevant impact of spatial spillover effects across regions in Spain. Second, the empirical research offers a contribution in the context of the SpVAR modelling estimating the push‐in (from the neighbours to the region) and push‐out (from the region to its neighbours) effects of growth spillovers within a regional economic system. Finally, the proposed methodology reveals empirical evidence about both the short‐run and long‐term regional growth adjustment processes in space and time. The results for the Spanish regional panel data suggest the existence of strong spatiotemporal regional spillovers of growth output. This has important implications for the choice of regional policy goals and regional policy instruments.     

1980年代以来我国区域城市化差异的演变——及其影响因素

综述了关于我国城市化区域差异的研究成果,运用差异系数、基尼系数和泰尔指数测算了1980年代以来我国城市化水平的区域差异。研究发现全国省际城市化水平的相对差异一直在缩小,但2000年后发生了变化——全国分省的相对差异加速缩小,而三大区域之间的相对差异变得更加显著,并主导了全国的区域城市化差异。不仅如此,三大区域的绝对差异也越来越占据主导地位。进一步的研究发现,除了历史、地理和区位因素外,区域政策、经济发展差异、经济全球化、行政区划调整和省际人口迁移影响了区域城市化差异的演变趋势。最后本文提出了对未来城市化区域差异演变趋势的判断,并阐述了缩小城市化区域差异的现实政策意义。     

Technological innovation and regional economic growth in Mexico: a spatial perspective

The aim of this investigation is to analyze the effect of technological innovation on Mexico’s regional economic growth during 1995–2007. It is argued that the inclusion of the spatial dimension in empirical analysis is still a rare practice in Mexico and even in international studies. Such inclusion allows studying the pattern of spatial interaction, the possible effects of spatial diffusion and the estimation of robust parameters. We apply the spatial data analysis methodology that has three components: (a) exploratory analysis, (b) visualization and (c) spatial econometric modeling. The main result suggests that technological innovation has a positive effect on Mexico’s regional economic growth. The empirical evidence also suggests that there is a positive effect coming from cross-border diffusion effects of technological knowledge. It also implies that states with stronger innovation activity benefited from spatial technological externalities and hence faster economic growth.     

On the efficiency of regional production in Poland, 1976–1982

The aim of this study is the analysis of the factors influencing regional production levels in Poland and of the impacts of the investment expenditure flows on the country's overall economic efficiency. Cross-regional estimates of production functions based on the concept of (spatially immobile) input potentials as well as the analysis of regional bottlenecks hampering production are conducted. Comparisons between the derived regional performance scores and the flows of investments are performed. The results show that not the regions which use production factors more efficiently, but those which dispose of stronger political influences receive most of the investment means; thus, economic and social polarization in space is increased.     

Decomposing regional income inequality in China and Indonesia using two-stage nested Theil decomposition method

The objective of this paper is to present an inequality decomposition method, the two-stage nested Theil decomposition method, which is an extension of the ordinary one-stage Theil decomposition method. The method is analogous to a two-stage nested design in the analysis of variance (ANOVA). It considers the three-level hierarchical structure of a country: region-province-district, and decomposes overall regional inequality, as measured by Theil indices based on district-level mean incomes, into three components: the between-region, between-province, and within-province inequality components. The within-province component is a weighted-average of within-province income inequalities for each province, while the between-province component is a weighted-average of between-province income inequalities within each region. The method uses a district as the underlying regional unit to measure regional income inequality, rather than a province, and thus can analyze the contribution of within-province inequalities as well as between-province and between-region inequalities to the overall regional income inequality in a coherent framework. This paper applies the two-stage nested Theil decomposition method to district-level income and population data in China and Indonesia and explores factors determining regional income inequality in China and Indonesia. Received: October 2000/Accepted: June 2002 The author is grateful to the Foundation of International Education (Kokusai Kyoiku Zaidan) and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research No. 12630073) for their financial support, and to anonymous referees for helpful comments.     

中国城市贫困问题的国际研究新进展

近来,诸多海外学者对中国的城市贫困问题日益关注。基于一系列全国范围内的大型城市家庭户调查数据,学者们对城市贫困的发生率、分布和区域差异进行了详尽研究。研究表明,社会底层的人口很少从市场经济改革中获益。反之,福利制度的改革和社会服务的商品化使得这些人口承受更高的经济压力,因而更容易陷入贫困危机。目前,下岗失业人员和进城农民工已成为中国城市新贫困的两个主要群体。同时,中国城市出现了三种类型的贫困邻里：老城区衰败邻里、衰落的单位大院、城中村。一些国外学者基于小型的社会调查和个案研究分别对这些贫困群体和贫困邻里进行了具体研究,对深入了解和探讨中国城市贫困的现状、成因、后果及对策作出了重要贡献。本文将对这些研究按照不同的主题进行评述,具体包括家庭户调查和贫困研究、下岗失业人员贫困研究、农民工贫困研究、贫困人口住房研究、制度变迁与贫困成因探讨等。最后,本文对这些研究进行总结,并探讨其未来的主要研究方向。     

Urban Tourism and Evolutionary Economic Geography: Complexity and Co-evolution in Contested Spaces

Urban tourism is an important research topic whether in mass tourism resort areas where tourism is the economic staple or in metropolitan areas where it is one (or more) development path(s) among many. Urban areas are dynamic and fast-paced environments but are also places where social and economic inequalities are most stark. Economic geography is one theoretical perspective through which researchers address urban tourism. The recent “evolutionary turn” in economic geography is finding its way to tourism studies but has only been applied to a few urban tourism cases. This paper sets out the potential of evolutionary economic geography (EEG) as a conceptual framework for urban tourism studies. The analysis draws on recent studies of urban tourism from an evolutionary perspective to highlight the strengths of taking such an approach and a number of avenues yet to be explored are put forward. Urban tourism affects large numbers of residents and businesses as well as influencing labour flows, and so understanding the dynamic nature of its development paths is vital. Tourism development does not occur in a vacuum, and urban tourism is one area where the complexity of the tourism economy and its place within broader regional development strategies is most obvious. Under recent neoliberal policies of urban development, tourism has become closely associated with place-based competition and large capital investments. Urban tourism also enters the fray in matters of contested urban spaces with issues of local governance, such as privatisation of public space, moving increasingly to the fore. The paper concludes with a list of future approaches to evolutionary studies of urban tourism to broaden the scope beyond the dominant financial metrics of tourism success.