Search

In 2005, the Ontario government passed the Places to Grow Act and the Greenbelt Act, both major changes in land use policy designed to preserve greenspaces and combat urban sprawl in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, Canada's largest conurbation. This article examines the actors, actor beliefs, and inter-actor alliances in the southern Ontario land use policy subsystem from the perspective of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). Specifically, this paper undertakes an empirical examination of the ACF's Belief Homophily Hypothesis, which holds that inter-actor alliances form on the basis of shared policy-relevant beliefs, creating advocacy coalitions. The analysis finds strong evidence of three advocacy coalitions in the policy subsystem-an agricultural coalition, an environmentalist coalition, and a developers' coalition-as predicted by the hypothesis. However, it also finds equally strong evidence of a cross-coalition coordination network of peak organizations, something not predicted by the Belief Homophily Hypothesis, and in need of explanation within the ACF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several theories compete to explain observed race- and ethnicity-based environmental injustice in society. This paper focuses on analyzing the extent to which firms' siting decisions based on community privilege can explain this outcome. A unique feature of this analysis is that we include analysis of both unwanted land uses (disamenity firms) and desired land uses (amenity firms). The environmental justice analysis of amenities other than green spaces is rare, but amenities are crucial components of urban areas to which environmental justice studies must attend. We use an agent-based model to explore community outcomes when environmental disamenities choose locations based on low community privilege, and compare this with scenarios in which disamenities only seek to minimize the cost of land. We also assess differences in environmental justice outcomes when amenities choose locations in areas with high community privilege. While disamenities' focus on locating in areas with low community privilege indeed affects environmental equity, the effect of amenity location is also important, and there are powerful interaction effects. The importance of privilege-based location is found in these simulations regardless of which social group-majority or minority-is assumed to be the privileged group. This study suggests a limitation of EJ policies and models that focus on the politics of disamenity siting without considering the politics of amenity siting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the impact of the institutional environment on the performance of 291 microfinance institutions in 34 sub-Saharan Africa countries during the period 2006 to 2014, by analysing the unbalanced panel data using fixed effects and generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation techniques. The panel regression results demonstrate strong evidence that a strong institutional environment has a positive effect on the performance of microfinance institutions in sub-Saharan Africa. More specifically, the findings reveal a positive and significant relationship between business freedom and microfinance performance in sub-Saharan Africa. These vital findings not only provide useful information to policy makers and key microfinance industry players, but also highlight the impact that institutional qualities have on microfinance performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the link between foreign direct investment (FDI), democracy and economic growth on a panel of eight Southern African countries for 1980-2014 using the system generalized method-of-moment (GMM) estimator. We find that FDI has a direct positive effect on economic growth and that strong democratic institutions are a significant driver of economic growth in the sample countries. The impact of FDI on economic growth is dependent on the level of democracy in the host countries. This implies that countries with strong democratic institutions are better able to absorb the positive spillovers from FDI. In policy terms, Southern African countries should sustain the institutional reform policy agenda already in place in order to benefit more from the significant inflows of FDI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the structural change in small-island economies-sometimes labeled offshore financial centers ( OFCs)-that have seen wealth-generating activities through offshore financial services decrease in value since 2008. At the same time, OFCs have come under increasing scrutiny from supranational organizations such Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and European Union for perceived unfair tax practices and money laundering activities. Some OFCs have proactively adjusted to this sea change by broadening the economic base through development of new offshore business activities such as e-gaming, film industry, and niche manufacturing. Most have increased co-operation with onshore regulatory bodies to promote service and product legitimacy. Econometric analysis explores the assertion that OFCs that do not have a political link to the onshore may be exposed to greater capital inflows volatility than OFCs that have such a link. Case study analysis using the theoretical lens of evolutionary economic geography illustrates that a small OFC is creating spatialities of economic novelty by adapting economic development strategies deployed during the successful development of the center prior to the recent recession. Our findings reveal the importance of political links to the onshore to reduce capital inflow volatility and the importance of local public-private interaction to legitimize post-recession development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the fundamental aspects of the economic and social viability of the local and regional areas of Turkey is the degree to which they have access to the wider national economic and social system. Accessibility is, therefore, of major social, economic and political significance in Turkey and it directly affects Turkey's regional growth and the quality of life in local communities. However, the importance of the economic and social viability of the communities is increasingly complicated in the face of rapid global economic recession. It is argued that countries need to develop knowledge economies to compete successfully as knowledge is a critical factor for growth. This paper integrates accessibility and the importance of knowledge creation in understanding local and regional economic development. This empirical study has shown that although there is a high correlation between the accessibility index and the population figures of Turkey, accessibility to knowledge differs across Turkish provinces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's total floating population exceeded 245 million at the end of 2013 and is the largest mobile population in the world. This paper explores the spatial distribution pattern and change characteristics of the net floating population at county scale from 2000 to 2010 using census data. The results show the following: (1) the net floating population increased by 120 million over 10 years, and the mobility of the population had enhanced in this period; (2) the floating population migrated to the three economic zones and provincial capital cities, while the traditional agricultural regions with dense populations experienced continuous outflow of population (which altered spatial agglomeration patterns); (3) eastern China has a high level of natural environment suitability and was a major destination area, but more pressures were placed on the carrying capacity of big cities; and (4) western China, with a relatively weak carrying capacity for resources and environment, was a net outflow region in 2010 - although five provinces had small-scale net inflow because of western-style development strategies. This study is offered as a contribution to understanding the features of China's floating population and will be useful for those shaping policies that guide population migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many questions regarding local economic phenomena involve issues of spatial and temporal dependence and heterogeneity. One of the main ideas of the socialist market economic system which was set up in 1978 in China is 'those becoming rich earlier bring along other people, all achieving the common richer eventually'. However, after several decades, having performed a series of balanced development strategies and policies, is this purpose true or not? How about the outcome of regional level of planning strategies under the socialist-market system? This paper focus on the intra provincial development, and uses per capita GDP of Guangdong, one of the most developed provinces in China to analyse the economic development of prefecture-level cities from 1978 to 2013 with a new exploratory space-time method. Three conclusions can be drawn as follows: first, the degree of regional economic development is gradually deepening along with rapid economic development in Guangdong province and the per capita GDP difference is gradually widening between the Pearl River Delta region and the non-Pearl River Delta region. The core-periphery relation is clear within the provincial level's development. Second, the trend and position of space-time paths are different across regions. Third, the space-time paths have not intersected across poor and rich regions during the last 33 years. Widening uneven development is concealed by the 'fast growth' economic phenomenon. The macro-economic environment has had some effects on different regions, with the effect on fast growing areas, such as the core region of the Pearl River Delta the most obvious. There is a lag effect on other undeveloped areas. At the same time, under the socialist market economic system, the market is the main motivation behind regional discrepancies, and some policies and strategies aimed at narrowing the gap have had limited success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically studies the key drivers of gender equality in youth employment over the period, 1991 and 2011. Using the pooled OLS method with year, sub-regional, and oil fixed-effects, our results suggest that for Africa as a whole and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), quadratic levels of real per capita GDP, gender equality in primary education, trade openness, FDI inflows, political globalization, economic growth, urbanization, female population, and being a net oil-exporting country are significantly positively associated with gender equality in youth employment. The level of real GDP per capita, equality in secondary education, gross domestic investment, access to telephone, youth unemployment, and Muslim faith tend to lower it. Government consumption expenditure also lowers it in SSA. However, North Africa is different: the level of real GDP per capita, gender equality in secondary education, and government consumption expenditure tend to increase gender equality in youth employment, while being an oil-exporting country and youth unemployment tend to lower it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines global production networks through the lens of uneven development. Although originally concerned with asymmetries in the global economy, in the 1990s, global production network studies shifted decidedly towards a focus upon realizing the mutual benefits of engagement between multinationals, their suppliers, and the regions where the latter were located. Recent trends in supply chain restructuring, thrown into sharp relief by the 2008 financial crisis, have spurred more attention to the downsides of participation in global production networks, framed as empirical outcomes. Here, I explore this literature through the lens of three inter-related processes of uneven development: strategies to defer devaluation, regional disinvestment, and constitutive exclusion. Viewed from this perspective, the global production network can serve as a powerful heuristic device to grasp emerging forms of territorial and social unevenness in the global economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper studies the link between knowledge, innovation, and growth in European regions using nonparametric methods. Our findings suggest that knowledge inputs and the share of innovative firms have a heterogeneous and nonlinear relationship with growth. This evidence has been exploited to examine the consequences of alternative policies using a counterfactual estimation setup, the results of which imply that increasing the formal knowledge base may be optimal in most regions. Less knowledge and innovation intensive regions will also benefit from a higher innovation potential and from a trustworthy and entrepreneurial economic environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review article addresses the phenomenon of urban experimentation. Urban experimentation has achieved notable significance in recent years. Viewing the city as a laboratory for field-testing new practices, or as a setting for experimental sites, has earned significant cache when it comes to contemporary urban issues such as governance reform, urban sustainability and economic development. In this regard, urban experiments are an important vehicle for not only understanding the city but also transforming it. This article reviews how experimentation has been defined teasing out some basic concepts before examining how experimentation has been broadly applied across urban studies. The paper then draws attention to three realms of urban development - social, economic, and sustainability - and asks how experimentation in these realms acts as a mode of problematization that summons particular forms of governance, the implications of which are summarized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The common narrative on e-waste recycling in contemporary Ghana refers to a sector that is primarily a marginalised, 'survival entity' involving excess workers living in poor urban neighbourhoods. Other narratives highlight the environmental health challenges associated with e-waste recycling management practices. In this paper, we explore how such recycling in Accra, notwithstanding the health and environmental externalities, also involves a vibrant entrepreneurial part of the urban economy. This case-study-based article was conducted through community asset mapping and 17 key informants' interviews. The study identified within the e-waste economy a network of worlds of work that intersect with both formal and international industries. Based on our findings, we propose that when properly nurtured, regularised and managed, e-waste recycling can foster economic growth and job creation. In conclusion, we highlight three foci that can enrich theory, practice and research, all three of which are in need of broader understandings. These foci will also support progress towards achieving a democratic account of everyday life and work complexities within the informal economy in Ghana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely believed that there is no alternative to capitalism. Over the last two decades however, the critical geography literature on diverse economies has demonstrated the existence of alternatives to capitalism by revealing the persistence of non-capitalist forms of work and organisation. The aim in this paper is to question the validity and usefulness of continuing to frame these non-capitalist practices as 'alternatives'. Positioning non-capitalist economic practices as 'alternatives' fails to capture not only the ubiquity of such practices in everyday life, but also how those engaging in them do not see them as 'alternatives' in the sense of a second choice, or less desirable option, to capitalist practices. The intention in doing so is to reveal that it is not non-capitalist practices that are 'alternative' but rather, capitalist practices themselves, thus opening up the future to the possibility of a non-capitalist world more fully than has so far been the case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses change in oil and gas policies pushed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) during the administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Administrative policy changes occurred not only because of election outcomes and the emergence of new governing coalitions but BLM's selective utilization of policy tools such as rulemaking, planning, environmental impact analyses, and the use of discretionary authority to increase or relax enforcement decisions. The data reveal that BLM put more emphasis on the use of discretionary authority to limit environmental inspections and to limit environmental reviews of proposed drilling projects under Bush while agency officials gave priority to adopting new planning procedures to allow greater stakeholder input under Obama as well as increasing the number of environmental inspections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the dynamic effects of external debt on economic growth in Nigeria from 1970 through 2013. We begin by constructing an external debt sustainability index using principal component analysis to capture the overall effects of external debt indicators on economic growth. The empirical analysis is based on the ARDL bound test. The results show a long-run cointegration relationship between the variables. While external debt exerts an adverse effect of −0.069 per cent on growth in the long run, the external debt sustainability index shows a positive effect of 0.072 per cent and 0.024 per cent on growth in the long and short run. The findings suggest the government should reduce its expenditure and mobilize revenue through domestic sources to invest in projects with a high rate of return to enable debt repayment and stimulate growth. To maintain debt ratios within a manageable threshold so as to avoid being debt trapped, foreign loans should only be contracted on concessional terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the nexus of international development and emotion has received increasing attention from diverse sectors. While scholars from postcolonial, post-structural, and feminist perspectives have long called for increased attention to emotions and the more-than-rational, more recent pieces such as the World Bank's World Development Report 2015 on Mind, Society, and Behavior have also taken up the refrain that 'emotions matter' in development. Whether viewed as motivating factors, explanatory devices, or phenomena to be harnessed and manipulated, emotions are emerging as a key piece in development theory and practice. This paper critically analyzes the ways in which the nexus of emotion and development has been conceptualized from various perspectives. In particular, it raises questions related to geographies of power and control and highlights the implications of this emotional turn for both the theory and practice of development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the effect of individual responsibility on economic development using an instrument derived from rainfall data. I argue that a taste for collective responsibility was adaptive in preindustrial societies that were exposed to high levels of agricultural risk, and that these attitudes continue to influence contemporary social norms and economic outcomes. The link between agricultural risk and collective responsibility is formalized in a model of optimal parental socialization effort. Empirically, I find a robust negative correlation between rainfall variation, a measure of exogenous agricultural risk, and a measure of individual responsibility. Using rainfall variation as an instrument, I find that individual responsibility has a large positive effect on economic development. The relationships between rainfall variation, individual responsibility and economic development are robust to the inclusion of variables related to climate and agricultural and institutional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper investigates regional development dynamics in a sample of 254 NUTS 2 European Union regions over the period 2000-2010. To that end, we propose a new version of the regional Lisbon index containing changes with respect the index developed by Dijkstra. The regional Lisbon index includes employment, education and R&D indicators. Targets for these indicators are related to an action and economic development plan for the EU regions and have been incorporated into European Regional Policy programming. The analysis of regional development is based on the estimation of the spatial Durbin model, containing endogenous and exogenous interaction effects. We compare the performance of different specifications of the spatial weights matrix describing the spatial arrangement of the sample regions finding evidence in favour of an exponential-decay distance matrix. Using this matrix, we determine the extent to which a change in a covariate in a particular region affects development in other regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although we are steadily getting a better understanding of why regional population decline occurs, little is known about the causes of differentiated levels of decline between municipalities in the same region. In this paper we address the causes of intra-regional differentiation in decline in the Dutch region Southern-Limburg. The quantitative and qualitative analyses reveal that in the 1900-1945 period, differentiation in population development was the result of economic boom and bust in the mining areas. After 1945 (except for 1985-1989) however, the economic argument lost much of its relevance: intra-regional differentiation has primarily been the result of intra-regional and international migration and these flows are steered predominantly by life course motives, the uneven spatial distribution of housing opportunities and access to these opportunities within the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes the notion of territorial patterns of innovation as a new conceptualization to understand the relationship among knowledge, innovation, and economic growth at the regional level. The territorial patterns of innovation approach reject the simplistic view of an invention-innovation equivalence and advance alternative patterns, alternative ways in which knowledge and innovation can take place and mix in space. Each of them represents a different way of innovating, one not necessarily more efficient than the other. On the empirical ground, the paper demonstrates this statement for all NUTS2 regions of the 27 European Union states by showing that the efficiency in taking advantage of innovation does not only link to the strength of the local knowledge base; rather, territorial patterns of innovation characterized by relatively low knowledge intensity can be relatively more efficient in grasping and exploiting innovation returns for growing. Interesting policy implications can be drawn from the empirical analysis presented. If the results do not deny the importance of research and development ( R&D) activities for regional growth, and therefore the right focus put forward by the Europe 2020 on a 'smart growth' based on knowledge and innovation, they call for particular attention when the Europe 2020 goal is translated into a regional setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the changing institutional framework within which export manufacturing takes place in Vietnam and its influence on the management of export oriented companies. The paper draws on research undertaken in two companies in the garment and footwear sectors respectively. The paper examines the context of export oriented manufacturing within a framework defined by international treaty arrangements, supply chain relationships and the framework of employment relations law and institutions, as a basis for understanding the range of HR issues which managers in export oriented companies must face. This overview suggests that the economic development pathway being pursued by the Vietnamese government imposes a range of obligations on export companies. The paper observes that there are strong pressures for institutional reform emanating from foreign-owned export companies, but that the process of institutional development is yet to deal with bargaining systems and conflict resolution in a way which provides a reliable basis for companies in export industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, China and North Korea have been described as 'blood brothers' because of their common socialist ideological ground. Since 2000 the basis of their relationship has shifted from one-sided economic support by China into strategic and mutual cooperation. In this paper, we analyse changes in their relationship by examining two specific points: first, China's growing investment and trade in North Korea, and second, close linkages of regional development strategies between the two countries. While the prevalent discussions around North Korea and its relations with China concentrate on geopolitical issues, this research shed more light on geoeconomic engagement between China and North Korea. This paper argues that it is crucial to grasp how China and North Korea perform geoeconomic calculations toward each other and how this affects geopolitical conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the endogenous development ( ED) approach has gained influence within the rhetoric of European rural development policies ( RP). This paper provides a fundamental critique of the approach and shows that neither the economic elements of RP in general nor ED in particular are targeted towards the specific economic needs and capabilities of rural areas. The second part of this paper consists of the search for possible alternative concepts for a more targeted and effective RP. Based on a synopsis of existing theories, an integrated approach is proposed that builds upon the different coordination mechanisms for economic activity suggested by different theories. The new, integrated perspective enables an economic characterisation of rural areas and indicates that the successful support of local coordination of economic activity is determined by specific local conditions. It also makes evident that localised approaches usually cannot compensate rural areas for the lack of agglomeration advantages. Therefore, programmes for the economic development of rural areas which support the local coordination of economic activity remain a second-best policy. As such, they do not free the state from policies of spatial redistribution if the political aim is the creation of comparable living conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One major aim of the Greater Mekong Subregion ( GMS) integration programme, supported by the Asian Development Bank ( ADB), is to foster regional 'community' for sharing resources, people and financial flows. This 'community' is the target of both economic growth and poverty reduction. The emphasis on 'community' in the ADB's mushrooming quantity of documents raises important questions about what kinds of people are included, in what roles and with what kinds of support and protection. This paper explores these questions in relation to the political economy of regulating ethnic migrants from Myanmar working in Thailand. This paper argues that extra-legal relations between migrants and state/para-state agents constitute a crucial part of regulation. In transferring the regulation of migration to the national scale, the ADB inadvertently reinforces national differences between Thais and cross-border people. Additionally, the complicated and fluctuating implementation of national regulations in both countries leaves migrants subject to violence and extortion from state and quasi-state agents in Thailand. This paper shows that the dynamics of global capitalism require 'deportable labour' supplied by ethnic migrants who are included in the GMS community as the most invisible, vulnerable and exploited members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper employs a spatial Durbin growth model to estimate the impact of trade openness on regional per capita income in Brazil using a data set of 469 Brazilian micro-regions over the period 2004-2007. We calculate the direct, indirect and cumulative impact on per capita income of trade openness and human capital in these micro-regions. Results indicate that greater trade openness in a region promotes economic development locally, while exerting negative influence on per capita income of the neighbouring regions. Our findings also show that human capital has a positive - direct and indirect - impact on the economic development of Brazilian micro-regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests the hypothesis of a negative relation between openness and inflation in the context of African countries. A dynamic model of inflation in which openness enters alternately as an endogenous and exogenous variable is estimated with different panel data estimation procedures. The paper finds no robust evidence that openness served as a mechanism to restrain inflation in the region. On the contrary, the results suggest that increased openness, treated as an endogenous variable, is associated with higher inflation on holding constant such factors as food supply constraint and level of economic development which are found significant co-determinants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic growth literature suggests that knowledge spillovers are subject to distance decay effects. In this paper the main aim is to provide a theoretical framework and empirical evidence on the role played by other kinds of proximities, namely relational, social and technological proximity, in explaining productivity growth. Using a sample of 249 EU 27 NUTS 2 regions in the period 1990-2004, semiparametric spatial autoregressive models are estimated. Results provide evidence of a positive role of social and relational proximities as important channels of knowledge spillovers, and on the fact that, when simultaneously present, different kinds of proximities generate synergic effects on growth. Resumen La literatura sobre el crecimiento económico sugiere que los spillovers de conocimiento están sujetos a efectos de deterioro por distancia. El objetivo principal de este artículo es proporcionar un marco teórico y pruebas empíricas sobre el papel desempeñado por otros tipos de proximidades (relacional, social y tecnológica), a la hora de explicar el crecimiento de la productividad. Utilizando una muestra de 249 regiones NUTS 2 de la UE 27 para el período 1990-2004, se estiman modelos autorregresivos espaciales semiparamétricos. Los resultados aportan pruebas del papel positivo de las proximidades sociales y relacionales como canales importantes de spillovers de conocimientos, y del hecho de que, cuando se presentan simultáneamente, los diferentes tipos de proximidades generan efectos sinérgicos sobre el crecimiento. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current paper seeks to examine the relationship between energy consumption and real output in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) economy. Technically, we assess the following two questions: 'does the increase in energy consumption cause more economic growth in the UAE economy?' or 'does the rapid economic growth lead to more energy consumption?' We utilise the bounds testing approach to cointegration and error correction model and Granger causality test to achieve the paper goal. The paper employs an annual data series of the UAE real gross domestic product and energy consumption over the 1973-2008 period. The findings of the paper have two levels: short-run and long-run. In the short-run, the results reveal a clear statistically significant bidirectional positive relationship between energy consumption and real output in the UAE economy. However, in the long-run the estimate illustrates only one relationship prevails from the short-run. This one is the statistically significant positive unidirectional relationship running from real output to energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT During the past few years, the Dutch education system has been confronted with a sharp decline in the number of pupils. Especially in rural villages, inhabitants fear for the closure of their local primary school, which is perceived as a very negative development for local village life. This paper shows that the relatively sharp decline of the number of pupils in the next decade can be explained by a wavelike pattern in the past and projected number of pupils, resulting from the baby bust of the 1960s and 1970s. The relative decrease in pupils will almost be as strong in future depopulating ( Anticipeer) regions as in present day declining ( Topkrimp) regions. However, municipalities in the Topkrimp regions have many smaller primary schools which implies that they will have to deal with school mergers and closures in the near future. The paper concludes that long term effects of school closures on local society are not as devastating as often perceived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the impact of public investment on regional economic growth and convergence at the NUTS 3 level in Greece. Using a new database of public expenditure per region for the period 1978-2007, it proposes a model which captures not just the impact of public investment in Greek prefectures, but also the spillover effects related to the existence of externalities from neighbouring regions. The results point to a positive long-run impact of public investment per capita on regional economic growth - but not on convergence - which also generates considerable spillover effects. However, the returns vary according to different types of public investment, with education and infrastructure spillovers having the highest impact. In general, public investment externalities seem to be more relevant for regional growth than direct public investment in each region. Finally, the impact of different types of public investment in Greece is mediated by politics and political factors, but the effect of politics disappears once we control for political-period-specific spatial-invariant variables. Resumen Este artículo estima el impacto de la inversión pública en el crecimiento económico regional y la convergencia a nivel NUTS 3 en Grecia. Haciendo uso de una nueva base de datos de gasto público por región para el periodo 1978-2007, se propone un modelo que identifica no solamente el impacto de la inversión pública en las prefecturas griegas, sino también los efectos de spillover relacionados con la existencia de externalidades procedentes de regiones vecinas. Los resultados apuntan a un impacto positivo a largo plazo de la inversión pública per cápita en el crecimiento económico regional - pero no en la convergencia - el cual genera unos efectos de spillover considerables. Sin embargo, los retornos varían de acuerdo con los diferentes tipos de inversión pública, siendo la educación y los spillovers de infraestructura los de mayor impacto. En general, las externalidades de inversión pública parecen tener una mayor relevancia para el crecimiento regional que la inversión pública directa en cada región. Para terminar, el impacto de los diferentes tipos de inversión pública en Grecia se ve influido por sus políticas y otros factores políticos, pero el efecto de las políticas desaparece una vez que se controlan las variables espacialmente-invariantes de tipo político ligadas a un periodo específico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universities are commonly seen by policy makers as being key actors in the knowledge-based economy. In the United States, universities, but particularly research universities, have been the focus of many studies which have sought to document and explain the commercial impact of university-based research on regional economies. For example, studies have analyzed the extent and outcomes of academic entrepreneurship and of university-industry collaborations. The focus of this paper is to review this literature with a specific focus on contradictory and inconclusive results. Data for these studies are obtained from a number of sources such as self-administered surveys, patent office, the National Science Foundation and the Association of University Technology Managers. This paper reviews the literature and highlights the variety of conceptual frameworks, data, and methodology used. It has a specific focus on assessing impact over time as well the difficulty in generalizing the result obtained from one study to another context. In spite of these problems, the evidence from a broad range and increasing volume of literature on trends and characteristics of academic entrepreneurship and university-industry collaborations shows that universities indisputably play a major role in their regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Summer Olympics bring hundreds of thousands of visitors and generate upward of $10 billion in spending for the host city. This large influx of tourism dollars is only part of the overall impact of hosting the Olympic Games. In order to host the visitors and sporting events, cities must make sizable investments in infrastructure such as airports, arenas, and highways. Additionally, the publicity and international exposure of a host city may benefit international trade and capital flows. Proponents argue that this investment will pay off through increased economic growth, but research confirming these claims is lacking. This paper examines whether hosting an Olympiad improves a city's long-term growth. In order to control for the self-selection of cities that host Olympic Games, this paper matches Olympic host cities with cities that were finalists for the Olympic Games, but were not selected by the International Olympic Committee. A difference-in-difference estimator examines post-Olympic impacts for host cities between 1950 and 2005. Regression results provide no long-term impacts of hosting an Olympics on two measures of population, real Gross Domestic Product per capita and trade openness. ( JEL O18, R11) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether related variety, among other types of spatial externalities, affected regional growth in Spain at the NUTS 3 level during the period 1995-2007. We found evidence that related variety matters for growth across regions, especially when using two new methods that measure revealed relatedness between industries. The first method is based on Porter's cluster classification while the second method uses the proximity index proposed by Hidalgo et al. Our analyses show that Spanish provinces with a wide range of related industries tend to show higher economic growth rates, once we control for other determinants of growth. Este artículo investiga si la variedad relacionada, entre otros tipos de externalidades espaciales, afectó el crecimiento regional en España a nivel NUTS 3 durante el periodo 1995-2007. Hallamos pruebas de que la variedad relacionada influye en el crecimiento entre regiones, especialmente al utilizar dos métodos nuevos que miden el grado de conexión manifiesto entre industrias. El primer método está basado en la clasificación de conglomerados de Porter, mientras que el segundo método utiliza el índice de proximidad propuesto por Hidalgo et al. Nuestros análisis muestran que las provincias españolas con un amplio rango de industrias relacionadas tienden a mostrar tasas de crecimiento económico más altas, una vez que se logra controlar otros factores determinantes del crecimiento. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a spatial neoclassical growth model for a system of N regional economies. Regional output growth is determined by interregional fixed capital relocations which depend on initial factor endowments as well as a region's relative location in space. The dynamics of the model are captured by a Taylor approximation, which provides a testable spatial econometric model specification that is applied for European regions on the NUTS 2 level. Both theoretical and empirical results show how relatively high human capital endowments are beneficial to growth if found within one region, but disadvantageous if found in neighbouring regions. Este artículo proporciona un modelo de crecimiento neo-clásico espacial para un sistema de N economías regionales. El crecimiento del producto regional viene determinado por deslocalizaciones interregionales de capital fijo que dependen de la dotación de factores inicial, así como de la relativa localización espacial de una región. Las dinámicas del modelo son capturadas mediante una aproximación de Taylor, que proporciona una especificación comprobable de modelo econométrico espacial que se aplica a regiones europeas a nivel NUTS 2. Tanto los resultados teoréticos como los empíricos muestran como las dotaciones relativamente elevadas de capital humano son ventajosas para el crecimiento cuando se concentran en una región, pero una desventaja si se encuentran en regiones vecinas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a method for reducing the economic risks associated with predictable natural hazards by enhancing the resilience of national infrastructure systems. The three-step generalised framework is described along with examples. Step one establishes economic baseline growth without the disaster impact. Step two characterises economic growth constrained by a disaster. Step three assesses the economy's resilience to the disaster event when it is buffered by alternative resiliency investments. The successful outcome of step three is a disaster-resistant core of infrastructure systems and social capacity more able to maintain the national economy and development post disaster. In addition, the paper considers ways to achieve this goal in data-limited environments. The method provides a methodology to address this challenge via the integration of physical and social data of different spatial scales into macroeconomic models. This supports the disaster risk reduction objectives of governments, donor agencies, and the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the experience of two severe disasters (the Hanshin Awaji Earthquake disaster of 1995 and the Great East Japan Earthquake disaster of 2011), I wish to consider 'subsistence' as human life, existence equaling the basic activities of life, an essential mutual act-like existence economy. In this paper, I pursue a positive development of 'disaster-time economics' as a research object under the larger framework of the formation of a 'moral economy,' as part of a critical process. In this paper, in order that a stricken area and society may aim at the realization of a new methodology about 'creative revival' for newly developing independent research involving the state of the revival fund of a wide sense is carried out. Nevertheless, there is an overall understanding of who, in what areas, and using what methodology, has conducted research in the restoration and revival process, as well as the weak points that tend to hinder the process. There is no research on the rationality and function of public finance expenditures or national sources expenditures. Therefore, in this paper, the term 'disaster-time economy' is newly prepared. From this concept, many activities of the project, service, support, self-efforts etc. of a social and private domain are grasped from a public sphere in connection with the process of maintenance/restoration under the disaster. The feature and subject point of the process are clarified. The market economy order that is going to be produced in this process does the basic work and determines the economic order for another self-subsistence over life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ongoing economic crisis has shifted much of the policy debate to problems of financial sector regulation, productive capacity collapse, among others. However, this leaves unattended the real situation with labour migration, which directly impacts social and economic inner components of being of millions of individual families across the world. The somewhat ad hoc nature of the process poses several policy issues for the home and host economies alike. Immediate concerns relate to streamlining migrants and remittances flows. This involves sensitive aspects of inequality in migrant workers' labour efforts vis-à-vis domestic workers; migrants' social and legal status; and less obvious, but still profound, unproductive misallocation of labour resources. Derived from this premise and recognizing the need for an institutional approach, this paper offers alternative policy solutions to temporary labour migration regulation. This research's original propositions include a Diaspora Regulatory Mechanism and a Migration Development Bank, both operating within a state-managed temporary labour migration regime. Fiscal action, including multilateral agreements, is crucial. The functionality of these mechanisms will directly impact infrastructure, human capital and entrepreneurial projects development in both home and host economies. Discussion is inspired by the analysis of actual circumstances in the economies of the Commonwealth of Independent States, where migration is a social, economic, and increasingly political issue. In the interlinked world, diasporas become dominant actors across all society strata. The development plateau of the post-socialist states offers a rich economic and social soil to conduct responsible policy with future outlook. Moreover, conditions of ongoing economic crisis offer a unique opportunity for daring research to propose and for a motivated decisionmaker to implement original, proactive, and beneficial policy solutions aimed at streamlining the (temporary) labour migration process. This paper contributes to the emerging literature on topics of diaspora, labour migration, and remittance flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary The objective of this paper is to improve our understanding on how the former Italian prime minister formed and kept his exceptional political consensus despite the never-ending series of scandals in which he has been involved. Specifically, we carry out an empirical assessment of the relationship between trust in television and trust towards the prime minister. Many Italian commentators argue that television does not exert any particular bias on public opinion. If the assumption of television's irrelevance were true, one could reasonably expect to find no significant relationship between trust in TV and trust in Mr Berlusconi as prime minister. Contrary to this hypothesis, our empirical analysis shows that trust in television was the strongest predictor of trust in the Italian prime minister in Spring 2011, thus suggesting that Mr Berlusconi's media empire played a key role in the building of his political consensus. This result is based on probit and ordered logit estimates and is robust to different specifications. However, there are three reasons for which this finding could be interpreted as the fruit of a spurious correlation. First, it is difficult to distinguish the effect of trust in television from that of other phenomena that potentially influence trust in the prime minister. To deal with this problem, we include in the main equation a wide set of individual and household control variables. Second, individual effects, such as individuals' exogenous shocks, may be correlated with trust both towards television and the prime minister, thus creating a common bias. Third, as we explain in the paper, it is reasonable to assume the existence of reverse causality. To deal with the last two problems, we turn to instrumental variables ( IV) estimates. When we address endogeneity in IV estimates, trust in television remains the best (most significant and strongest) predictor of trust in the prime minister. By contrast, we find that the dependent variable is significantly and negatively correlated with educational qualification, trust in the judicial system and with a measure of tolerance towards immigrants. Even if these results pass robustness checks and hold in IV estimates, it must be remarked that the cross-sectional design of the research dictates extreme caution in the interpretation of correlations as causal relationships. Nonetheless, the paper contributes to the literature by carrying out the first econometric investigation into the role of television in individuals' political opinions, with a focus on trust towards the Italian prime minister. The relationship between television and political attitudes and beliefs is an important topic for economics, in view of the unquestionable role that political institutions, particularly the government and the prime minister, play in a country's economic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Rio Declaration of 1992 called for states to integrate environmental protection in their process of development in order to achieve the ultimate goal of sustainable development (Principle 4). The paper investigates to what extent the People's Republic of China (PRC) has integrated environmental protection into her fisheries policy. The environment/development nexus is analysed in relation to the adoption and implementation of the Fisheries Law of 2000. Official documents and, more importantly, interviews conducted in several organizations at multiple levels of governance disclose a complex reality beyond the formal commitment to sustainable fisheries. Diverging interests, goals and strategies can be traced beyond formal policy documents in Beijing, Guangdong and between the Centre and the Province. Inter-organizational divergences at the central and local levels, as well as between them, hinder the pursuit of environmental protection in the development of China's fisheries sector. The paper highlights the political complexity of pursuing more responsible fisheries in the multi-actor and multi-level political-administrative system of the PRC. Here, as well as in many other developing countries, economic development constitutes the policy priority. Environmental protection often remains not only an ambitious objective but also an unperceived need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, interest has soared in the development potential of well-designed cash transfer programs. One particular application is the use of transfers by resource-rich countries (as recently initiated by Iran) to distribute rents across their populations. An emerging body of research suggests that the development impact of such programs tends to be positive and that, especially when received by poor individuals or households, they can unlock constraints on economic activities, allowing a further increase in income. This paper considers the use of biometric technology to underpin transfer programs and how new technology is opening up possibilities for effective transfer programs that, up to now, have only been a theoretical option in the institutional conditions that prevail in many developing countries. Once implemented, biometric identification systems can be used to support a wide range of other development initiatives including banking, voting, health care, and general identification systems. The paper reviews some of the programs using these technologies and how it is enabling poor countries to leapfrog rich ones in the area of identity, much as the cellphone revolution did in the area of communications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relatedness has become a key concept for studying the diversification of firms, regions and countries. However, studies tend to treat relatedness as being time‐invariant or, alternatively, consider its evolution as exogenously given. This study argues that relatedness is inherently dynamic and endogenous to technological and economic developments. Using patent data, we test the extent to which relatedness between technologies developed along co‐location and differences in technological complexity in 1980–2010. Our results show that co‐located technologies are more likely to become related over time. Moreover, our results suggest that co‐location and complexity of technologies are conducive to the intensification of relatedness over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic crisis has had significant short-term effects in most countries around the world, including those in sub-Saharan Africa. Many of the economies are now expected to begin recovering, although the recovery is anticipated to be protracted, uneven across indicators and countries, and may be fragile. Despite the recovery, will the crisis have long-term consequences for human development and Millennium Development Goal (MDG) achievements in Africa? If so, what are the mechanisms through which such impacts could take place, and what is the role for policy? This paper seeks to address these questions by examining the evidence from similar episodes in the past, and by using a simple framework to assess the long-term impact on human development including trends towards the MDGs. Using growth projections to 2014 for the countries in the region, and a range of observed trends, it models possible impacts on the MDGs, and demonstrates how the crisis could lead to real slow-downs or reversals in the rate of progress. Based on these results the paper suggests that a series of active policy interventions are needed both to accelerate progress towards the MDGs and to build resilience for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, in the context of a spatial model we generalize two indices. One is a dynamic generalization of the emanating effect that was introduced by Kelejian and colleagues. This index describes how events in one unit spill over time to other units due to spatial interactions. As an analogy, it corresponds to the effect that the smoking habits of a given teenager might have on the smoking habits of each of his/her friends. In a sense, our second index, termed the vulnerability index, is the reverse of the first one in that it describes the response of a given unit over time to events in neighbouring units. The analogy here would be how the smoking habits of a given teenager is affected by the smoking habits of all of his/her friends. Second, we empirically implement our indices in the context of a model explaining GDP per capita growth in various countries. In this context the vulnerability index describes the sensitivity of GDP growth in one country with respect to events in other countries; the emanating effect describes how events in one country effect the GDP growth in other countries. Resumen Este artículo tiene un doble objetivo. En primer lugar, y dentro del contexto de un modelo espacial, generalizamos dos índices. El primero es una generalización dinámica del efecto de emanación introducido por Kelejian y colaboradores. Este índice describe cómo lo que sucede en una unidad se extiende con el paso del tiempo a otras unidades por motivos de interacciones espaciales. A modo de analogía, se corresponde con el efecto que podría tener el hábito de fumar de un adolescente en el hábito de fumar de cada una de sus amistades. En cierto sentido, nuestro segundo índice, denominado índice de vulnerabilidad, es lo contrario del primero ya que describe la respuesta de una unidad a lo que sucede en unidades vecinas con el paso del tiempo. La analogía en este caso sería el efecto que podrían tener los hábitos de fumar del conjunto de amistades de un adolescente en particular en su consumo de tabaco. En segundo lugar, realizamos una implementación empírica de nuestros índices dentro del contexto de un modelo que explica el crecimiento per cápita del PIB en varios países. Dentro de este contexto, el índice de vulnerabilidad describe la sensibilidad del crecimiento del PIB de un país en relación con lo que sucede en otros países, mientras que el efecto de emanación describe como lo que sucede en un país afecta al crecimiento del PIB de otros países. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the prospects and potential problems of incorporating the resilience concepts into regional development research. A growing interest in regional resilience may be interpreted as a reflection of the rising awareness of increased socio-economic and environmental uncertainties, as well as a reaction to the disproportionate theoretical focus on regional growth in the past regional development research. Regional resilience research is still in its infancy, characterized by lively debates over conceptual definitions, research methodology, theoretical significance and practical utility. The paper first addresses conceptual dimensions of the regional resilience research, and explores how the regional development research may incorporate resilience concepts beyond a metaphor. The panarchy framework is then reviewed as an example of a broad framework, originally developed by ecologists, gaining attention in regional research. The paper then explores opportunities and challenges of empirical assessment of regional resilience. Despite the potentially exciting intellectual cross-fertilization of resilience research across diverse fields, I emphasize that the value of regional resilience research should be ultimately based on whether the explanations and insights from the study can be connected to, and consistent with, the views and experiences of those who are affected locally, rather than its theoretical consistencies with the broader resilience literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Policy makers and scholars often regard the life science industry in general, and bio-technology in particular, as an engine of future economic growth. The expectation is that growth in the industry will ultimately provide a major boost to national employment numbers. However, in this paper, I find that the Swedish life science industry (encompassing pharmaceutical, bio-technology, and medical technology firms) accounts for only a small proportion of total employment in Sweden. Given the recent discussion on jobless growth (i.e., economic growth without employment growth), it is here argued that focusing on employment is not necessarily the best policy approach to assessing the impacts of the life science industry on the overall economy. This paper maps and analyses the scope, structure, and geography of the life science industry and its workforce in Sweden using a unique set of data covering approximately 1,200 firms and 53,000 employees. The industry's workforce has education and income levels significantly higher than national averages, and is heavily concentrated in larger metropolitan areas and major university cities. Despite employing relatively few people and being more or less dependent on the existence and success of a few major pharmaceutical firms, the industry may still have a significant impact on the national economy by engendering high levels of education, income, and export revenues, particularly in specific regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Knowledge drives the growth of nations and regions in a competitive space-economy. Hence, we would expect a strong correlation between investments in R&D, knowledge and learning processes, on the one hand, and productivity increases, on the other. However, the empirical evidence shows consistent discrepancies between knowledge inputs and economic performance across geographical units. This paper addresses this intriguing issue at the regional level, by highlighting theoretically and empirically the strategic importance played by intangible elements as part of 'territorial capital' in mediating between knowledge production and regional growth. The main proposition of the paper, subject to empirical testing, is that intangible elements as part of territorial capital magnify the contribution of knowledge by determining the formation of increasing returns to knowledge exploitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1990s, studies utilizing descriptive statistics have documented factors in the business environment, which hinder the performance of Ugandan micro and small enterprises (MSEs). Based on secondary data, this paper assesses the trend of critical factors since 1994 to 2010. The paper also utilizes the primary data from MSEs to examine the effects of these factors on the growth potential of MSEs, while controlling for the owner's and the firm's attributes. Results from the trend analysis reveal that the business environment has been deteriorating over time. Results from the regression analyses reveal that MSEs' growth potential is negatively associated with limited access to productive resources, high taxes and lack of market access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to understand how the determinants of economic growth in Brazil may manifest themselves differently on various spatial scales between 1991 and 2000. Analysing this issue sheds light on the modifiable areal unit problem (a measurement issue). In addition, it also suggests potential explanations for the origin of this variability. This latter issue relates to the scale-dependent determinants of economic growth (a structural issue). The analysis reveals that the results change as the scale level changes and suggests a general framework for dealing with multiple spatial scales and model uncertainty. Moreover, the extent of the effects of spatial externalities and the issue of spatial heterogeneity are investigated. Resumen El objetivo de este artículo es entender como los factores determinantes del crecimiento económico de Brasil pueden mostrarse de manera diferente según la escala espacial entre 1991 y 2000. El análisis de este tema ilustra el problema de la unidad de superficie modificable (problema de medición). Además, sugiere también posibles explicaciones para el origen de esta variabilidad. Este último asunto esta relacionado con los factores dependientes de la escala que determinan el crecimiento económico (un problema estructural). El análisis revela que los resultados cambian a medida que lo hace la escala y sugiere un marco general para tratar con escalas espaciales múltiples y modelización de incertidumbre. Además, se investiga el alcance de los efectos de las externalidades espaciales y el problema de la heterogeneidad espacial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to show the relationship between co-development projects with transnational interests and the governance of migration by the Spanish and Ecuadorian governments. On one hand, the emergence of co-development is linked with the political dimension of migration, and therefore, with the challenges that its management poses for both the sending and receiving states. Simultaneously, the state exists in a context of the reconfiguration of its traditional functions, and above all, the manner in which it goes about performing them. For these reasons, co-development projects form part of state governance strategies, based on a special understanding of the nexus between migration and development in European social space, involving international organizations, state governments, and civil society, linked by migratory flows. This is demonstrated in the case of Ecuador and Spain. Since Spain stimulated co-development, the implementation of projects with Ecuador has been emphasized, due to the dimensions achieved by Ecuadorian migration. Co-development politics and projects are analyzed in this paper as areas of intervention integrated by values, guide lines and cultural understandings about migration, including appropriate forms of control and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]