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This special issue of the I International Regional Science Review i brings together a collection of articles presented at the Seventh International Workshop on Regional, Urban, and Spatial Economics (RUSE) in China held in Changsha, China, in the summer of 2018. Finally, China is grappling with growing income inequality as China manages its transition from central planning to more market mechanisms. The publication of this special issue reflects the continued commitment to regional, urban, and spatial economics in the I International Regional Science Review i . [Extracted from the article]

Although extant studies proposed various models and frameworks for sustainable supplier selection problems, they paid limited attention to the incorporation of regional economic, social, and environmental factors simultaneously for global supply chain design due to the difficulty in reflecting various dimensions of the global business environment and their associated risks in a decision model. Existing supplier selection models also tend to focus on the formulation of a simplified supply chain structure rather than considering more realistic supply chain operations under multiple sourcing and product designs. To facilitate the complex decision-making process of global supplier selection problems, this study proposes an integrated approach that consists of two phases to effectively reflect the multi-perspectives of global supply chain design for sustainability. The first phase identifies sustainable supplier regions through multi-attribute utility theory, considering four regional sustainability indices for economic and social factors in global business and logistics, to reflect the decision maker's risk attitudes on global business opportunities. In the second phase, a multi-objective integer linear programming model for multiple sourcing and multiple product designs that minimizes economic and environmental objectives is applied to find optimal suppliers and their order quantities in the regions selected from the first phase. The proposed approach is illustrated through a bicycle supplier selection case study. The results show that the multi-objective sustainable decision under a multiple sourcing strategy for different product designs leads to a supply chain that is significantly different from the single-objective non-sustainable decisions. The case study under different decision scenarios shows that a decision maker should hold a balanced perspective under the multi-objective decision environment for sustainable supply chain design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scope of this research is to make quantitative estimates of the potential economic and employment impacts of renewable energy self-sufficiency. The study aims to make generalizations on a regional, or even national level, and to give directions for future research. This paper analyses direct monetary values and employment impacts in two regions, in a theoretical situation where all energy is produced by renewables from the respective region. Renewable energy, especially utilization of existing but presently unused resources, can play an important role in vitalizing regional economies, especially in rural areas. The money spent on fossil energy could be kept circulating in the regional economy. The amount spent on energy in the research areas was almost €4860 per capita per year, totalling more than €300 m annually. The existing data shows that there is the potential for self-sufficiency, or even surplus production. The results suggest that the regional economic impacts increase considerably if the region is self-sufficient in raw materials, including intermediates. On a larger scale, e.g., nationally, the loss of jobs in the fossil energy industry and the eventual variations within economies potentially based on renewable energy, will affect the overall impacts. There is at present insufficient scientific literature, knowledge or quantitative data for analysing these impacts thoroughly. This paper contributes to filling this gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate variability has been shown to have adverse effects on morbidity and mortality. Less is known about its effects on psychological well-being, especially in developing countries with agriculture-based economies. In this paper, we test whether extreme temperature and precipitation in India have an effect on self-reported depression symptoms, cognitive and sleep difficulties, and ability to cope with and control life. We use time and geographic variation in weather and show that hot weather in the previous year worsens psychological well-being among rural, but not urban, Indian adults. We examine potential mechanisms and show that the effect is largely driven by hot temperatures during the agricultural season and could be partly attributed to a reduction in agricultural production. We further provide suggestive evidence that the effects of weather shocks could be mitigated with poverty reduction programs such as India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. Poor mental health has been associated with low productivity and high healthcare expenditures and is a serious concern in India and many developing countries. The adverse impacts of climate change on rural, agriculture-based economies such as India are likely to increase over time. Given that nearly half of the global population lives in rural areas and is vulnerable to climate variability, understanding the effects of climate on psychological well-being and identifying potential resolutions is critical for insuring vulnerable populations and breaking the poverty cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do intergovernmental transfers reduce revenues collected by local government authorities (LGAs)? There is already a well-established body of literature in public finance, which argues that intergovernmental grants “crowd out” local revenues. Most existing studies, however, explore the fiscal implications of intergovernmental transfers in high-income countries where sound fiscal systems are taken for granted. In this paper, I explore the impact of intergovernmental transfers on local revenues in sub-Saharan Africa, a region where local fiscal capacity is limited and endogenously determined by financial support from international donors and the central government. I argue that in places where the existing capacity of LGAs to administer tax collection is weak and political costs of enforcing taxation are low—which are perennial features of many rural districts in Africa—intergovernmental transfers facilitate local revenue generation instead of undermining it. Analyzing newly available quarterly fiscal data on local revenues in Tanzania, I show that intergovernmental grants improve the mobilization of local revenues, and also that the positive effect of fiscal transfers on local revenue collection seems to be more pronounced in rural districts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 EUFand 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A three-dimensional evaluation model was established to evaluate the carrying capacity of regional ecological environment to social economic development, based on the study on the relationship between environmental quality, ecological quality and social economy. It includes socio-economic subsystem, ecological subsystem and environment subsystem. X axis represents the level of ecological quality index; Y axis represents the level of environment quality index; Z-axis represents the level of socio-economic development index. The three-dimensional cube model divides into eight blocks of “I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII”, which represent different social and economic development levels and the integrated status of ecological environmental quality. It covers 25 indicators of social economic development, ecological quality, and environmental quality. Entropy weighting method was adopted to determine the weight of each index. Ecological quality index, environmental quality index and socio-economic development index were divided into three grades; the subsystem index of grade Ⅱ is taken as the inflection points Xip, Yip and Zip respectively. 11 prefecture-level cities in Jiangxi province in China were used as a study on carrying capacity evaluation for regional ecological environment to social economic development by the three-dimensional evaluation model. The comprehensive evaluation index and indexes of each subsystem were calculated. The actual ecological environmental quality and socio-economic values of the study area were compared with the corresponding indexes. The study shows that the environment subsystem has a great influence on the comprehensive model. The comprehensive evaluation index of 11 prefecture-level cities in Jiangxi province has exceeded the medium value (grade Ⅱ ). Jiujiang, Ganzhou, Yichun and Shangrao in Jiangxi province are in the model block Ⅷ , other cities in Jiangxi province are in the model block Ⅴ . It shows that all cities of Jiangxi province are still at the intermediate level of carrying capacity and are in the development stage of economic and environmental coordination. The three-dimensional model effectively reflects the actual situation of regional ecological environment, provides a way for other regional carrying capacity evaluation. It is feasible and scientific, and the results are more intuitive, spatial, and visual. The model provides a reference for the macro-management and decision making of ecological environment in the government sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

City networks have been a critical topic in the fields of urban geography and regional economics. Numerous studies have explored city networks, focusing mainly on infrastructure and industrial networks. Unlike traditional urban network of which the major measuring indexes are population sizes and entity industries, online commodity service networks could reflect well the influencing of emerging economies, especially the Internet economy, on city networks. This study analyzes and reveals structural features of China's city networks through online commodity services, providing the internet economic approach on city networks. Results indicate that the core cities of online commodity service networks are mainly concentrated in eastern coastal areas. In addition, spatial polarization and layer structure of network connections are obvious, descending from the centers in eastern China to peripheral cities in central and western China. Online commodity services of different cities show apparent differences and uncertainties in terms of specialization rates of international connection, which presents a tendency toward diversification. Online commodity service networks are not only associated with goods production, supply, and consumption in physical space but also reflect virtual information, capital, and technology flows, thus providing a new empirical approach for understanding city networks in information and internet economic age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this study we estimate space‐time impacts of the embeddedness in R&D networks on regional knowledge production using a dynamic spatial panel data model with non‐linear effects for 229 European NUTS 2 regions in the period 1998–2010. Embeddedness refers to the positioning in networks where nodes represent regions that are linked by joint R&D projects funded by EU Framework Programmes. We find evidence that increasing embeddedness in EU funded R&D networks leads to positive immediate impacts on regional knowledge production, and that regions with lower levels of own knowledge endowments more likely exploit the positive effects. However, the long‐term impacts of a region's embeddedness in these R&D networks are comparatively small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Punjab, Pakistan is famous for rice production in all over the world, but economic indicators are low toward rice contribution in the regional economy. Climatic and physical factors are responsible for rice yield degradation. Suitable land for rice cultivation can be mapped keeping in view these climatic and physical factors. In this research, rice cultivation season was calculated using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectro-radiometer (MODIS) time series datasets for the complete year 2014. Landsat 8 thermal datasets were obtained for the rice cultivation season and temperature based growth variability maps were generated. The total area under investigation was 13,657 km² out of which 931.61 km² (6.8%) was found to be least suitable, 3316.69 km² (24.2%) was moderately suitable, 6019.63 km² (44%) was highly suitable and 3395.28 km² (24.85%) was not suitable for rice crop cultivation. Results showed that highly suitable area was characterized by a temperature range between 21 and 32 °C, soil pH level between 5.5 and 7.2, soil type was < 78% clay and the soil was imperfectly drained. We compared land suitability map covering the complete land use with rice cultivated area only and found the results as follows: 592 km² (5.9%) rice cultivation was in least suitable, 4385 km² (44%) cultivation was in highly suitable, 2210 km² (23.2%) cultivation was in moderately suitable and 1674 km² (16.8%) cultivation was in not suitable regions. The techniques applied in this research may be used by local farmers to select cropping patterns and land suitability for rice crop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the majority of studies and reports highlight, during the 2001-2013 period the Eastern eu states showed accelerated rhythms of economic convergence. The general conclusion stays that as the economic performance of the Eastern EU countries approaches that of the Western EU states, the level of internal disparities also increases, indicating that the trends of convergence might be affected by the territorial context of data aggregation and specific processes of economic accumulation at each NUTS scale. This paper analyzes how the territorial scale of data aggregation can explain different intensities of the economic convergence, in a flexible multi-scalar approach to the indicators. A top-down descriptive approach is employed, starting with the national level and continuing to the nuts3 spatial frame of data modeling, estimating how the trends of the convergence process are shifting when the scale of analysis is modified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voters’ ability to hold politicians accountable has been shown to be limited in systems of multilevel government. The existence of multiple tiers of government blurs the lines of responsibility, making it more difficult for voters to assign credit or blame for policy performance. However, much less is known about how the vertical division of responsibility affects citizens’ propensity to rationalize responsibility attributions on the basis of group attachment. While these two processes have similar observable implications, they imply markedly different micro-mechanisms. Using experimental and observational data, this paper examines how the partisan division of power moderates the impact of voters’ partisanship and feelings of territorial attachment on attributions of responsibility for the regional economy. Our analyses show that partisan-based attribution bias varies systematically with the partisan context, such that it only emerges in regions where a party other than the national incumbent controls the regional government. We also find that responsibility judgments are rationalized on the basis of territorial identities only when a regional nationalist party is in control of the regional government. Our results contribute to explaining the contextual variations in the strength of regional economic voting and more generally to understanding one of the mechanisms through which low clarity of responsibility reduces government accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although economic geography has made considerable progress in explaining the emergence of new industrial development paths, a number of issues have yet to be sufficiently explored. The purpose of this article is to contribute to economic geography research on path creation by developing a conceptual framework that specifies key conditions and reinforcing mechanisms for path creation, on the one hand, and barriers to the materialization of such conditions and mechanisms, on the other hand. As such, the framework moves beyond firm-centric perspectives and argues that path creation needs to be understood as a collective endeavor incorporating both firm and nonfirm actors. By implication, this necessitates an understanding of the broader contexts that shape path creation processes, including how the dynamics of an emerging path are affected by the dynamics of established paths. The authors employ this framework to analyze Norway's offshore wind power (OWP) industry. Their analysis reveals that an initial enabling context for OWP path creation turned into more constrained conditions. Similar to findings from a number of other studies, they identify branching between related sectors as a primary path creation mechanism. However, they find that this mechanism is vulnerable to shifting contextual conditions, which for various reasons resulted in the studied emerging path losing resources and legitimacy, thus implying potential negative path interdependence. The authors also identify barriers to path creation in the institutional environment, particularly in terms of lack of policy coherence in support for key resource formation processes that are pivotal for path creation processes to generate sustained momentum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the mid-15thcentury, the space economy in Africa has assumed an imperial outlook under the influence of European mercantilism. It was the era that unfettered capitalism prevailed as economic orthodoxy for control of regional economies. At the inception of fettered capitalism in the mid-20thcentury, an imperial structure that served western interests under colonial rule was further entrenched in many African countries. At the turn of the 21stcentury, neoliberalism emerged as global economic orthodoxy, and free-trade relations implemented to manage Euro-American and Chinese mercantilism worldwide. This unleashed epistemological ideologies that ushered in urban productivity decline in the African space economy. As an entry point to address this urban development challenge in new regionalism, this article makes a case for neo-mercantilism as an alternative development ideology for Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has experienced an outstanding economic expansion during the past decades, however, literature on non-monetary metrics that reveal the status of China’s regional economic development are still lacking. In this paper, we fill this gap by quantifying the economic complexity of China’s provinces through analyzing 25 years’ firm data. First, we estimate the regional economic complexity index (ECI), and show that the overall time evolution of provinces’ ECI is relatively stable and slow. Then, after linking ECI to the economic development and the income inequality, we find that the explanatory power of ECI is positive for the former but negative for the latter. Next, we compare different measures of economic diversity and explore their relationships with monetary macroeconomic indicators. Results show that the ECI index and the non-linear iteration based Fitness index are comparative, and they both have stronger explanatory power than other benchmark measures. Further multivariate regressions suggest the robustness of our results after controlling other socioeconomic factors. Our work moves forward a step towards better understanding China’s regional economic development and non-monetary macroeconomic indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses the gaps in financial centres' competitiveness and their impact on regional economic convergence in 23 European Union Member States during the period of the Global Financial Crisis. In particular, we explore the economic convergence and divergence patterns among regions from two different perspectives across the selected European Union Member States and within each country. From a methodological viewpoint, we apply a fully non-parametric framework to the club convergence model and address the endogeneity problem between financial centres' competitiveness and regional economic convergence. Our results show that the large and internationally-oriented financial centres experienced a diverging trend in terms of the competitiveness of financial centres' business environment during the peak of the crisis. We also find evidence that the convergence of financial centres reduces regional economic inequalities between the regions where financial centres are located. In contrast, the increase in the competitiveness of financial centres only serves to widen existing inequalities at the national level. Finally, we examine and discuss the impact of competitiveness drivers of financial centres on the convergence pattern of European Union regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eco-efficiency has been receiving increasing attention across the world. This paper proposes an extended data envelopment analysis model, which combines global benchmark technology, directional distance function and a bootstrapping approach to investigate the dynamic trends of regional eco-efficiency in China from 2003 to 2014. Moreover, a developed slacks-based measure is utilized to decompose the performance fluctuations into resource, environmental and economic efficiency. Then, the key factors responsible for the changes in eco-efficiency are explored using the global Malmquist–Luenberger index. The empirical results demonstrate an upward trend of eco-efficiency in China. During the study period this trend was high in eastern and northern areas but low in northwestern areas. However, it should be noted that some eco-efficient regions still consume much land, water and energy and emit much environmental pollutants in absolute terms. The whole of China performs well on the economic front, while resource and environmental performances are not encouraging, particularly on environmental efficiency. The eastern and northern regions have experienced the greatest advances in both resource and environmental efficiency, while the undeveloped areas have not shown much progress, which further widens the gaps between developed areas and undeveloped areas. The decomposition of productivity growth indicates that technical progress is the decisive factor in promoting China's eco-efficiency, while decreasing management level is the major obstacle hampering the improvement in eco-efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brain drain has long been a concern. However, little is known about the brain drain within a country. China is a developing country which is experiencing not only overseas brain drain but also a domestic cross-regional and cross-departmental flow. In this study, we investigate the flow of high-level talent (HLT) given the background of constructing world-class universities and disciplines (WCUDs) in China and its dynamic mechanisms, and then we discuss its potential implications. The results show that over the past four decades, eastern China has been a net-inflow area, and the northeastern and midwestern regions saw a net outflow. The eastern region shows more internal regional flow. Furthermore, a large amount of HLT has flowed from scientific research institutes to colleges and universities (CUs). Regional socioeconomic gaps, imperfect systems and inadequate management are the main reasons for the flow of HLT. Regional HLT flow is not as serious as expected, but irrational flow will probably aggravate the already interregional disparity in educational resources and human capital accumulation as well as regional unbalanced development. Therefore, some measures should be taken to fight irrational high-level talent flow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The bioeconomy transforms the fossil-based economy by forming new value chains and linking until now distinct industrial sectors. It provides an opportunity for rural as well as industrialized regions. The transformation process can be accelerated by building bioeconomy clusters comprising industries, academia and investors. Using the model of the German cluster CLIB2021 the role of cluster organisations and professional cluster management in moderating the transformation process and gaining a competetive advantage is discussed. In addition examples of how cluster management supports the formation of an industrial consortium and the analysis of regional options are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses recent government initiatives in biotechnology and various federal and regional initiatives. It presents an overview of the most visible industrial biotechnology projects under implementation and highlights changes in legislation affecting development of the bioeconomy in the Russian Federation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the paper, the research is presented dealing with evaluation of regional higher education system of the Republic of Bashkortostan, with the region's economy structure and strategic development taken into account. The suggested approach allows identifying the level of a higher education institution's influence on development of the regional economy through the potential available in training of qualified personnel who the region needs, forecasting the higher education institution's influence level proceeding from its development strategy, and based on this figuring out prospects of the regional economy. The system of values for scoring the influence levels of the higher educational institutions has been determined and indices for assessment of the effect have been suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article systematically examines the issues of reforming local state administration, especially the transformation of administrative and territorial objects on the example of Georgia. It emphasizes the necessity of taking into account the economic, political, social, ethnic, cultural and environmental features that exist in the country. It is emphasized that for any planned changes in the territorial structure, the initial basis should be the satisfaction of the primary fundamental human needs and the general system requirements of the state. Together with this, the special importance is attached to the new realities and challenges of the modern stage of globalization, which defines general paradigm requirements for economic science itself, for regional research in particular. The article emphasizes that the object of regional research should be considered the socio-economic system of the regional level which allows you to comprehensively reflect the full range of factors of life and social development in the framework of local territorial systems as well as entrepreneurial activities. The socioeconomic approach to the object of study allows the culture to be considered as an important factor in the socioeconomic development of the region and in increasing the level of business effectiveness. Studies show the directions of possible major changes in the cultural factor on the example and taking into account the peculiarities of Georgia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper examines the extent to which sectoral diversification can act as an insurance mechanism against fluctuations in regional gross value‐added growth rates. Portfolio theory is applied to the growth‐instability properties of German districts. Furthermore, a comprehensive diversification measure is defined. Stochastic Frontier Analysis is deployed in order to estimate whether diversification allows regions to achieve more efficient growth‐instability combinations. The results confirm that diversification does generate such effects. Spatial interactions do also play a role: The effects are less pronounced for regions whose economic performance is mainly driven by the surrounding regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing complexity of innovation has triggered a plenty of studies on external knowledge sourcing and innovation performance of clustering firms. While existing economic geography literature places much emphasis on the geographical dimension of knowledge flows, the relative importance of different types of knowledge sources and their geographical identity in innovation have been largely undervalued. Drawing upon a firm-level questionnaire survey and face-to-face interviews on the software firms in a Chinese regional economy, we reveal that, contrary to the conventional wisdom of distance decay and geographical proximity, no significant difference is found between local and non-local suppliers, customers, and rivals as the external sources of knowledge for firm innovation. Local universities and research institutions are identified by firms as the better and more effective sources of knowledge than others outside of the region. Whereas suppliers and rivals make no significant difference to firm innovation, knowledge obtained from customers is reported to be highly significant to the innovation performance of software firms. Findings of this research cast doubts over the prevailing uncritical and undifferentiated perception of the functioning of geography and inter-firm linkages in the processes of firm innovation as well as the under-socialized understanding of knowledge flows between different agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key public policy issue in regional economic development is whether governments should act pro-actively with strategies to achieve local economic growth. Using an Australian region, this article presents projections that test a number of such scenarios to establish whether pro-active strategies of investment provide the greatest growth. When developing pro-active strategies for a given region, economic and community development planners typically target specific industries. Key industries can be identified on the basis of high relative employment growth rates and connectivity with other industries. The case region in this analysis, not unlike other regions in Australia and across the globe, has undergone significant restructuring in recent years with a shift in its economic base from agriculture to mining. In light of the shifting nature of the regional and national economies, this article provides a foundation for building planning perspectives for the future of a regional economy using economic and population projections and scenario analyses. These analyses help highlight industrial sectors that should be targeted in the region's plans. Broader implications for regional economic development and planning generally are also drawn from the case experience. Developing projections for the growth of regional economies is no easy task. The complexities of inter-industry subsector interactions and the distinction between driving and adapting subsectors make formal modelling at the local level challenging and potentially prohibitive in terms of cost. These factors corroborate to make such bottom-up modelling beyond the capacity of most local organizations. By contrast, the approach used in this article is simple but requires care and intuition to bring these various factors together into a coherent set of projections. For the case region, optimal growth is possible provided that employment policy builds job specialization. This means directing strategies away from mining into agriculture and the trade and tourism related sectors, such as wine tourism. The economic base theory and scenario testing techniques used in this article demonstrate and deliver a useful contribution to the literature by exploring which industries contribute most to more diversified and sustainable growth. Through pre-emptive strategies, perennial growth of a regional economy can be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Who introduces structural change in regional economies: Entrepreneurs or existing firms? And do local or nonlocal establishment founders create most novelty in a region? We develop a theoretical framework that focuses on the roles different agents play in regional transformation. We then apply this framework, using Swedish matched employer–employee data, to determine how novel the activities of new establishments are to a region. Incumbents mainly reinforce a region’s current specialization: incumbent’s growth, decline, and industry switching further align them with the rest of the local economy. The unrelated diversification required for structural change mostly originates via new establishments, especially via those with nonlocal roots. Interestingly, although entrepreneurs often introduce novel activities to a local economy, when they do so, their ventures have higher failure rates compared to new subsidiaries of existing firms. Consequently, new subsidiaries manage to create longer-lasting change in regions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Few studies of agrarian transition examine what farmers themselves feel about farming. Are they cultivating out of choice or a lack of options? What distinguishes farmers who like farming from those who do not: their personal/household characteristics and endowments? The local ecology and regional economy? Or a mix of these and other factors? Understanding farmer satisfaction is important not only for assessing citizen wellbeing but also for agricultural productivity, since occupational satisfaction can affect a farmer’s incentive to invest and reveal production constraints. Using a unique all-India data-set which asked farmers, ‘Do you like farming?’ this paper provides answers and policy pointers, contributing a little-studied dimension to debates on the smallholder’s future and subjective wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In discussions about the use of public money for popular sports such as clubs in Germany’s 1. Bundesliga, it is often argued that the funds are well invested due to the cash flows generated by these organizations for their home regions. However, others claim the opposite. They argue that actually no positive impact is generated and, even worse, that money is leaving the region due to the clubs. The study presented here analyses the financial flows generated by the 1. FC Kaiserslautern for its home city (Kaiserslautern) and home state (Rhineland-Palatinate) during the 2010/11 season when the club participated in the 1. Bundesliga. Based on a 3-step model, the economic impact is calculated by considering spectator spending and cash flows generated by the business activities of the club. It turns out that additional cash flows of approximately €16.5 million and €25.8 million were generated for the state and the city, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews parts III and IV of the recent Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics. Many of the surveys within the Handbook relate to two phenomena of interest: the recent boom and bust cycle in U.S. housing markets, and the striking growth of home prices in a few global 'Superstar Cities.' Real Estate and Urban economists have made progress in modeling these phenomena. There is considerable room for future research, however. There is no coherent story explaining U.S. home price movements in the 2000s that does not run afoul of important stylized facts. We also have not yet identified the relative importance of supply constraints and demand growth in the rise of Superstar City prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper undertakes a meta-analysis of the effect of agglomeration economies on foreign direct investment (FDI) location. It finds strong differences in these economies arising from both measurement and study-specific characteristics. Economies generated from domestic rather than foreign activity have the strongest effects on FDI, with the latter only significant if related to the home country of the investor. Support is also found for studies that identify different sources of agglomeration economies, although this is largely underexplored in the empirical literature. The average agglomeration economies estimate is not influenced by publication bias and indicates genuine effects for agglomeration economies on FDI location choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a method to measure competitiveness performance at the subnational level, with an application to Peruvian regions. For this, we propose a benefit-of-the-doubt composite index that summarizes the information of several indicators that characterize competitiveness. It is based on an optimization approach, using data enveloping analysis (DEA) techniques, so that each indicator is weighted in an endogenous way, and each unit is evaluated in the most favourable light. Our proposed index is a non-radial variant of the typical DEA scores, which avoids the traditional pitfalls of DEA-based composite indices, such as unreasonable weights. Additionally, we propose a meta-frontier approach in order to compare the competitiveness performances across different periods of evaluation. Our assessments of the Peruvian regions' competitiveness performance improve on the results of traditional DEA methods, which award high marks to regions with very heterogeneous performance (i.e., regions with very high scores in some indicators, and very poor in others). Additionally, the comparison of the performance across time shows a general decrease in the average competitiveness between 2008 and 2014 of the Peruvian regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper has two objectives. Firstly, to disentangle several debates with regard to regional economic resilience: What is it exactly? Which types can we distinguish? How can we operationalise it? And how can we conceptualise how it works? The second objective is to outline new directions for researching regional economic resilience. Thus far, research on regional economic resilience has been dominated by quantitative studies looking at how regional economies resisted and recovered from macro-economic downturns (especially the most recent one). I will argue that fruitful new directions are to be found in further developing evolutionary conceptions of regional economic resilience, especially in relation to structural changes in the wider economy. Such evolutionary conceptions do away with notions of equilibrium altogether and can thus encompass the complete transformation of regional economies. In terms of research focus, this entails homing in on the possible mechanisms through which the processes of reorganisation and reorientation take place within regional economies that undergo adaptation. And in terms of research methodology, this will require more research based on a comparative case study design, using a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The employment and population growth equilibrium model is extended to allow for differentiated linkages between rural and urban regions and among rural regions. The model is applied to examine the regional disparities within the rural economy of Northern Ireland between 2001 and 2007. To represent the theoretical idea of commuter shed, commuting data are used to construct the spatial weighting matrix. The results reveal positive rural-urban but negative rural-rural linkages, suggesting that rural regions benefit from economic growth in urban regions but compete with each other. The direct and indirect spillover effects are shown using simulation examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we estimate the technical efficiency of Mexican states using stochastic production frontier models. The empirical section uses panel data over the period 1988-2008. A distinctive feature of the paper is the use of socioeconomic and location data in order to control for the heterogeneity of the states. We find that crime rate negatively affects the efficiency of the states and that its effect is only significant after a certain level. Our results also show that education and productive specialization shift the production frontier upwards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the point of view on four aspects which contain transportation investment, infrastructure construction, freight turnover and transportation of human resources, this paper using the spatial econometric methods on the spillover effect of 31 Provinces Panel Data of traffic infrastructure on regional economic growth in China from 2013to2015. The empirical analysis are as follows, (1) The comprehensive variable traffic infrastructure has significant spatial spillover effect on regional economic growth; (2) The opening degree, capital stock and the level of scientific research also has significant positive effects on regional economic growth; (3) Transport infrastructure on regional economic growth spatial contribution reached 37%; (4) The rate of city effect on regional economic growth is not significant; (5) The transportation infrastructure significantly affect the growth of the regional economy of the Central part and Western part in China but not so significant in eastern regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latin America's largest federations have significantly reduced their levels of income inequality in recent years, perhaps reflecting a structural change toward egalitarianism. However, we argue that the political geography of federalism in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico strongly shapes preferences against centralized redistribution likely to promote equity in the long term. While federalism does not necessary lead to lower redistribution in theory, the geographic spread of income and malapportioned political institutions limit egalitarianism in these nations. These dynamics help explain why fiscal structures are distinct in Latin American federations as compared to federations in high-income countries. First, we show that the territorial structure of inequality and malapportionment are associated with lower redistributive effort in the global context and that the Latin American federations have extreme values for both variables. Second, using a new data set of income distributions within and across Argentina, Brazil and Mexico over time, we demonstrate that the conditions that favor fiscal transfers from the national to subnational governments are consistently strong, but conditions are rarely favorable for centralized policies to equilibrate national income. Unequal income patterns are reinforced by legislative malapportionment, which encourages interregional transfers to regions and limits the political voice of more populated and unequal regions that would benefit from centralized redistribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics (the Principles) are the overarching standards for official statistics across countries and for the global statistical system. The Principles were adopted by the UN Statistical Commission in 1994 and endorsed by the UN General Assembly in January 2014. They provide a compass and point of reference for all official statistical work and operations in all countries. As such, statistical personnel engaged in official statistics are expected to know them well and to apply them all the time in their work. In the African region, the importance of the Principles is very well recognized and the Principles are viewed as the cornerstone for official statistical work and operations, as well as the basis for the public to have confidence in official statistics. There are different initiatives through which implementation of the Principles is supported in Africa including through: National statistical legislations, Statistical training programmes, Codes of Practice, African Charter on Statistics, Strategy for the Harmonization of Statistics in Africa, and Strategic planning for statistical development. This paper outlines these initiatives and shows how they support implementation of the Principles in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forecast combination has been studied in econometrics for a long time, and the literature has shown the superior performance of forecast combination over individual predictions. However, there is still controversy on which is the best procedure to specify the forecast weights. This paper explores the possibility of using a procedure based on Entropy Econometrics, which allows setting the weights for the individual forecasts as a mixture of different alternatives. In particular, we examine the ability of the Data-Weighted Prior Estimator proposed by Golan (J Econom 101(1):165-193, 2001) to combine forecasting models in a context of small sample sizes, a relative common scenario when dealing with time series for regional economies. We test the validity of the proposed approach using a simulation exercise and a real-world example that aims at predicting gross regional product growth rates for a regional economy. The forecasting performance of the Data-Weighted Prior Estimator proposed is compared with other combining methods. The simulation results indicate that in scenarios of heavily ill-conditioned datasets the approach suggested dominates other forecast combination strategies. The empirical results are consistent with the conclusions found in the numerical experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions industry has developed greatly in recent decades, and has become an important driver of the regional economy. Many big cities are eager to develop the meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions industry as a means of stimulating their economies. As is well known, convention site selection is one of most important research topics related to the meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions industry, and this article presents an optimization-based method for convention site selection. This proposed method takes the non-quantifiable factors of site selection into account, and it adopts the use of second-hand data to quantitatively evaluate the performance of candidate sites with respect to several quantifiable factors. The proposed method is applied instead of using questionnaire surveys, and it is applicable for selecting convention sites even when the candidate sites are in the same cities. The method presented in this article takes various site-level factors into account (such as the meeting and accommodation facilities), along with city-level factors (such as the site environments). The main focus of this article is to provide a concrete method, along with a series of suggestions to help convention planners in making appropriate site-selection decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Emergy evaluations of three benthic ecosystem networks found in Mejillones, Antofagasta and Tongoy Bays, located on the coast of northern Chile, were carried out with the intent of documenting the contributions of these coastal ecosystems to the economy. The productivity of these bays is strongly influenced by the Humboldt Current System, as well as by the loss of upwelled flows that occurs during El Nino events. The results of the emergy evaluations were expressed as emdollars (EM$), a combined emergy-money measure that can be used to examine the equity of the emergy exchanges between fishermen and the buyers of the harvested algae and shellfish. In addition, an estimate of the total ecosystem services provided by these coastal ecosystems was made. The emdollar (Em$ y −1 ) and the hypothetical monetary value (US$ y −1 ) of the nitrate nitrogen upwelled constituted the highest inflow of emergy to all three benthic ecosystems. The empower density expressed as Em$ m −2 y −1 was highest in Mejillones Bay; however, the natural capital (biomass) of the ecological components (EM$ m −2 ) was highest in Antofagasta Bay, where La Rinconada Marine Reserve is located. The relationship between the coastal zone system and the regional economic system was assessed using the emergy benefit after exchange, EBE, which showed that there were net gains to the overall welfare of the sellers in two regions, 3,280,000 Em$ to those in Mejillones Bay, and 34,000,000 Em$ to those in Tongoy Bay, but a net loss of 2,000,000 Em$ to the sellers of algae and shellfish harvested from Antofagasta Bay. By supplying a clearer picture of the equity of trade relationships for individual organisms, fisheries and bays, emergy evaluation can help develop and implement management strategies for the conservation and preservation of coastal ecosystems to ensure that they are sustainable in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most empirical applications, forecasting models for the analysis of industrial land focus on the relationship between current values of economic parameters and industrial land use. This paper aims to test this assumption by focusing on the dynamic relationship between current and lagged values of the ‘economic fundamentals’ and industrial land development. Not much effort has yet been attributed to develop land forecasting models to predict the demand for industrial land except those applying static regressions or other statistical measures. In this research, we estimated a dynamic panel data model across 40 regions from 2000 to 2008 for the Netherlands to uncover the relationship between current and lagged values of economic parameters and industrial land development. Land-use regulations such as land zoning policies, and other land-use restrictions like natural protection areas, geographical limitations in the form of water bodies or sludge areas are expected to affect supply of land, which will in turn be reflected in industrial land market outcomes. Our results suggest that gross domestic product (GDP), industrial employment, gross value added (GVA), property price, and other parameters representing demand and supply conditions in the industrial market explain industrial land developments with high significance levels. It is also shown that contrary to the current values, lagged values of the economic parameters have more sound relationships with the industrial developments in the Netherlands. The findings suggest use of lags between selected economic parameters and industrial land use in land forecasting applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the relationship between foreign investment flows and the economic performance of Bulgaria's economic regions. It is a well-known fact that some imbalances exist in the level of development of the economic regions and the territorial localization of foreign direct investments. This uneven distribution - both in terms of economic development and investment allocation - creates serious prerequisites for economic backwardness, depopulation and deepening of demographic problems in some regions. The purpose of this paper is to draw some conclusions and make recommendations using the methods of economic and statistical analysis with a view to overcome the negative consequences and initiate a process of creating prerequisites for a balanced development of Bulgaria's regions and a more even placement of foreign capital flows at both regional and sectoral level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of novices, which often are children, in domestic craft production and the replication of crafting knowledge is a topic that is often ignored in archaeological discussions of domestic economies. However, ethnographic and ethnohistoric examples repeatedly indicate that children played a number of roles in household economies. The presence of novice obsidian core production was identified in a domestic habitation context at the Zaragoza-Oyameles obsidian source area in eastern Puebla, Mexico. Miniaturized polyhedral cores were found along side standard-sized macrocores and polyhedral cores, and all stages of core reduction debitage at a large, domestic core manufacturing site. This, coupled with evidence from experimental core replication and ethnographic examples, suggests that these miniature cores represent the detritus of craft learning. The presence of domestic core production and the role of craft learning are then contextualized within the regional economy centered on the nearby city of Cantona. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]