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This paper investigates the impact of the city’s urban spatial structure in shaping population density distribution over time. This research question is relevant in Barcelona because urban population grew at a sustained pace in various decades due to intense immigration inflows. When the urban spatial structure fails to behave as the backbone of population density distribution, population distribution can suffer from polarization problems. We conduct our empirical study using an urban monocentric framework, tracking the different spatial distribution patterns of the overall population and a few selected urban communities in light of the degree of attractiveness of the central business district (CBD). To this end, we construct an original database by each district in Barcelona from 1902 to 2011 and perform an econometric analysis. Our results reveal that the urban spatial structure continued to be a crucial determinant over time for shaping the overall population distribution in Barcelona and in almost all selected communities. However, its importance fluctuated over time, bottoming out in the 1950s–1960s, and whose resurgence was mostly driven by the political initiative to create a new centrality in the urban periphery. This policy reinforced the attractiveness of the CBD, resulting in the de-facto avoidance of urban polarization.

La convivencia a Barcelona entre habitants de diferents etnies genera segregacio per diferencia de renda; no per raons etniques. Aixi ho mostra l'analisi exhaustiva de l'estructura espacial urbana de la ciutat que han dut a terme investigadors del departament d'Economia Aplicada de la UAB. Aquests han determinat, d'una banda, el desplacament de grups amb un nivell adquisitiu baix cap a barris pobres, privats d'aconseguir una residencia a llocs d'interes encarits per la gentrificacio i, d'altra banda, l'educacio com a via esperancadora per introduir aquest sector en l'espai "vetat" per motius economics.

We analyze the impact on wages of the adoption of a rent-sharing remuneration scheme aimed at making labor institutions more flexible. We work within a quasi-experimental setting referring to a sample of Italian companies before and after the introduction of the Treu Reform (1997). Our estimations confirm that this reform not only increased insider workers' wages via rent-sharing, but also fueled a σ−convergence process of the rent-sharing elasticity across the sectors at a different rate. Finally, we deliver a reasoned discussion of the consequences of implementing this reform on the Italian job market. This reform produced advances in the quality of job remuneration but it deepened a structural gap in the Italian labor market composition.

This study provides an empirical application of the Bayesian approach for modelling the evolution of population density distribution across time. It focuses on the case of Massachusetts by tracking changes in the importance of spatial distance from Boston concerning citizens' choices of residence according to data for 1880- 1890 and 1930-2010. By adopting a Bayesian strategy, results show that Boston reinforced its attractiveness until the 1960s, when the city's accessibility no longer represented the unique determinant of population density distribution. Referring to selected historical evidence, a few possible interpretations are presented to endorse these results. La modélisation de la densité de la population au fil du temps: l'importance de la distance spatiale. Regional Studies.

The effectiveness of local spatial dependence in shaping the population density distribution is investigated. Individual location preferences are modelled by considering the status-related features of a given spatial unit and its neighbours as well as local random spatial dependence. The novelty is framing such a dependence through conditionally autoregressive (CAR) census random effects that are added to a spatially lagged explanatory variable X (SLX) setting. The results not only confirm that controlling for the spatial dimension is relevant but also indicate that local spatial dependence warrants consideration when determining the population distribution of recent decades. In this respect, the framework turns out to be useful for the analysis of microdata in which individual relationships (in a same spatial unit) enforce local spatial dependence.

In a natural experiment, we observed that the influence of a norm depended upon the gender and cultural background of participants. Both gender and cultural background contributed to the effect of peer pressure that partly controlled against the act of cheating among participants as they completed a group task. Furthermore, both factors served to describe the characteristics of hardworking individuals in the group. We therefore conclude that the effectiveness of a norm in a group is expected to depend upon the presence of hardworking individuals therein.

We analyze the conditions driving the organization of the territory near airports by studying the distribution of economic activities. We consider how commercial firms, service operators, and consumers compete for land. The theoretical setting identifies an aerotropolis (airport city) as a land equilibrium outcome characterized by the following spatial sequence: services area, commercial area, residential area. Using data on the distribution of establishments in the United States, we analyze the existence and determinants of aeropolitan configurations. Estimations performed with parametric methods detect some interesting dynamic patterns affecting the density and distribution of activities around selected U.S. airports.

This paper proposes an empirical analysis of the role of memory in determining the size of credits granted by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) during 1991–2003. We first build an original database from information associated with the number and contract types granted by clients, after which we develop an empirical strategy for capturing the role of memory, namely by defining three different indicators to approximate each client’s reputation. These indicators rely on the client’s identity and, when available, information associated with previous EBRD-financed investment projects. With the fixed-effects estimation technique, our results unambiguously show that the value of the first investment project financed by the EBRD, as a proxy for reputation, is the most effective indicator for established clients to determine the size of the credits they receive to finance further investments.

The problem of Spanish productivity is a recurrent topic in economic literature. The importance of identifying the sources of productivity is even more relevant in the current economic landscape, because the Spanish economy is passing through important adjustments, after going through an intense period of huge immigration inflows. This aims of this paper include assessing the evolution of Spanish productivity, by providing a quantitative evaluation of current results with reference to potential ones. Considerable focus is also placed on identifying the determinants of the productivity changes which have been incurred in recent years by focusing on the role of the entry of immigrants into the local labour market. In this way, our results show that, in a few specific situations, immigrants play the role of environment-builders, encouraging the transition of firm strategies fostering productivity from the cost reduction side to the hiring of skilled labour.

This article proposes an empirical investigation of regional trade flows following a cross-section method. For this purpose, the author refers to a regional context looking at a chosen sample of European regions. She mainly intends to assess the role of the home market effect and the level of transport costs in driving regional export flows. In particular, she is interested in testing the importance of spatial components in regional trade analysis. By simply adapting the gravity model approach to her framework, she is able to prove that physical distance smooths the intensity of trading flows while local transport facilities as well as local demand foster them.