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Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper investigates aspects of the urban hierarchy and concentration of patent sub-categories in United States metropolitan areas by estimating Zipf, Gini and Moran's I coefficients. Results do not support a power law depiction of the location of disaggregate patenting in the entire metropolitan system. The most concentrated and hierarchical patent technologies are computer hardware and software, computer peripherals, information storage, communications, surgery and medical instruments, nuclear and x-rays, semiconductor devices, optics and organic compounds. Technologies are cross-classified, which reveals aspects of variety in locational patterns and offers clues into systems of knowledge exchange in urban-based technological advance. Resumen Este artículo investiga los aspectos de la jerarquía urbana y la concentración de subcategorías de patentes en áreas metropolitanas de los Estados Unidos, mediante la estimación de los coeficientes de Zipf, Gini, y la I de Moran. Los resultados no siguen una ley de potencias para la localización de patentes desagregadas en la totalidad del sistema metropolitano. Las tecnologías de patentes más concentradas y jerárquicas son las de hardware y software, periféricos informáticos, almacenamiento de información, comunicaciones, cirugía e instrumentos médicos, radiología (rayos X, nuclear), dispositivos semiconductores, óptica y compuestos orgánicos. Las tecnologías muestran una clasificación transversal, que revela aspectos de diversidad en los patrones de localización y ofrece indicios sobre los sistemas de intercambio de conocimientos en el avance tecnológico de carácter urbano. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is intended to examine how regional diversity in terms of cultural and racial diversity affects new firm formation in 10 disaggregated industrial sectors across US counties. Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo method is used to estimate the spatial autoregressive regression models. It is suggested that regional diversity positively affects new firm formation, both in its own and neighbouring counties, in selected industries examined. Resumen Este artículo tiene por objeto examinar cómo la diversidad regional expresada en forma de diversidad cultural y racial afecta a la formación de nuevas empresas en 10 sectores industriales desagregados en condados de los Estados Unidos. Se utiliza el método de Monte Carlo bayesiano basado en cadenas de Markov para estimar los modelos de regresión espaciales autorregresivos. Se sugiere que, en las industrias seleccionadas examinadas, la diversidad regional afecta positivamente a la formación de nuevas empresas, tanto en el propio condado como en los vecinos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines two labour market outcomes experienced by users of federally-funded transportation services for low-wage workers in the United States, using primary data from 23 locations. The propensity of users to be unemployed prior to using the service is found to be related to the type of service (fixed-route/demand-response) and location type (urban/rural) but not to aggregate local unemployment, variability in local unemployment rates or local welfare policies. The propensity to earn higher wages is related to the type of employment transportation service and location, and local unemployment levels. Results imply a need for locally-derived, coordinated employment transportation plans. Resumen Este artículo examina dos consecuencias del mercado laboral sufridas por los usuarios de servicios de transporte subvencionados por el gobierno federal para trabajadores de bajos ingresos en los Estados Unidos, haciendo uso de datos primarios de 23 localizaciones. Se ha encontrado que la propensión de los usuarios a estar desempleados antes de utilizar el servicio está relacionada con el tipo de servicio (ruta fija/demanda-respuesta) y el tipo de localización (urbana/rural), pero no con el desempleo local agregado, la variabilidad de las tasas de desempleo local o las políticas locales de asistencia social. La propensión a ganar salarios más altos está relacionada con el tipo de servicio de transporte del empleo y la localización, y las tasas de desempleo locales. Los resultados implican la necesidad de planes coordinados de transporte del empleo basados en las condiciones locales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The effective management of convicted sex offenders continues to challenge local law enforcement agencies and public safety officials. While recently enacted legislation at the federal level seeks to increase the monitoring and tracking of sex offenders, legislation at the state and local levels seeks to limit the residential options of convicted sex offenders through various geographic constraints. An issue that arises, however, is the extent to which some communities and/or neighbourhoods are exposed to a disproportionately high number of offenders, potentially placing vulnerable populations at risk. The purpose of this paper is to outline spatial optimization approaches to assess and benchmark spatial risk and the geographic distribution of sex offenders within a community. Results suggest that these approaches are useful decision support tools for crafting and evaluating sex offender residency policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the association between industrial agglomeration and productivity has been widely examined and documented, little work has explored the possibility that these ‘external’ productivity shifts are the product of more advanced technologies. This paper offers a look at this hypothesis using data on individual-level computer usage across a sample of U.S. metropolitan areas over the years 1984, 1989, 1993 and 1997. The results indicate that, for a wide array of industries at the two, three, and four digit SIC level, an industry's scale within a metropolitan area is positively associated with the frequency of computer use by its workers. However, in spite of these observable differences in workplace technology, I also find that estimated localization effects on wages are largely not explained by computer usage. Even after controlling for computer use, there remain significant own-industry scale effects in labour earnings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Regional Science Association was founded 50 years ago in December 1954; however,the institutional origins of the field were much earlier, perhaps when Walter Isard began his graduate studies in economics at Harvard University. This article briefly traces the history of the field of regional science and its association from those beginnings to the present. The focus of the article is the evolution of the association as an institution, and some of its major contributors, and to a much lesser extent, on the scope and scholarly content of the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on the plans of the Regional Science Association in the U.S. to organize a year-long celebration for its 50th anniversary in 2004. Focus of the conference sessions being planned by the association; Advantage of the journal "Papers in Regional Science" over other regional science journals; Topics included in the golden anniversary issue of the journal.

Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper explores how external economies influence the survival of new, independent business establishments in the continental United States using a confidential, establishment-level dataset on new firm longevity. Industrial localization has a positive influence on new businesses survival in five of the eight industries examined. Regional industrial diversity is also beneficial to new firms in five study industries, particularly those that are more knowledge-intensive. The benefits of city size are limited to two study industries, with diseconomies of size found for an additional three. Resumen Este artículo explora cómo influyen las economías externas en la supervivencia de nuevos establecimientos comerciales independientes en la parte continental de los EE.UU. y utiliza la longevidad de nuevas empresas incluida en un conjunto de datos confidencial a escala de establecimiento. La localización industrial tiene una influencia positiva en la supervivencia de nuevos negocios en cinco de los ocho sectores examinados. La diversidad industrial regional es también beneficiosa para las nuevas empresas de cinco de los sectores de estudio, en particular en los que dependen más del conocimiento. Los beneficios del tamaño de la ciudad están limitados a dos de los sectores estudiados, y se encontraron deseconomías de escala para tres sectores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on urban agglomeration theories to empirically investigate the relationship between the economic performance of US metropolitan areas and their respective amounts of sprawl. To measure urban sprawl, we construct a distinctive measure that captures the distribution of population density and land-use within metropolitan areas. Using both ordinary least squares (OLS) and instrumental variables (IVs) approaches, we find that higher levels of urban sprawl are negatively associated with average labour productivity. This pattern holds even within given industries or within given occupational classifications. Resumen Este artículo se basa en las teorías de aglomeración urbana para investigar empíricamente la relación entre el desempeño económico de las áreas metropolitanas de los EE.UU. y la dispersión de cada una. Para medir la dispersión urbana, creamos una medida distintiva que incorpora la distribución de la densidad de población y el uso del suelo dentro de áreas metropolitanas. Por medio del uso de métodos de mínimos cuadrados ordinarios (MCO) y de variables instrumentales (VI), descubrimos que los niveles elevados de dispersión urbana están asociados con una productividad laboral media. Esta patrón se mantiene incluso para sectores o clasificaciones laborales específicas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests the hypothesis of conditional β-convergence in per capita income across the United States by extending the neoclassical growth model to incorporate public capital, government taxation, and human capital, and controlling empirically for technology growth. We expand the period of analysis from the late 1980s when studies using public capital stock have stopped, investigate spatial variation across the United States under various cross-sectional and panel spatial models, and tackle the issue of nonlinearities. All model variations provide evidence of economic convergence across the United States over the period 1960–2005. Resumen Este artículo evalúa las hipótesis de beta-convergencia condicional en renta per cápita en los Estados Unidos, ampliando el modelo de crecimiento neoclásico con la incorporación de capital público, tributación gubernamental y capital humano, y controlando empíricamente el crecimiento tecnológico. Hemos ampliado el periodo de análisis desde finales de los ochenta, momento en que se suspendieron los estudios que utilizaban reservas de capital público, hemos investigado la variación espacial para los Estados Unidos de acuerdo con diferentes modelos transversales y espaciales de panel, y hemos abordado el tema de las no linealidades. Todas las variaciones del modelo aportan pruebas de convergencia económica dentro de los Estados Unidos para el periodo 1960-2005. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the causal relationship between highway infrastructure and employment within the U.S. We estimate dynamic panel models in a vector autoregressive framework using time-series cross-sectional data on lane miles of roadway capacity and private sector employment for the 48 contiguous states over the period 1984–1997. The issue of spatial dependence is explicitly taken into account by means of a spatial filtering technique. Our analysis reveals evidence of employment growth temporally influenced by annual growth in the provision of major highways within the same state and all other states, as well as the other way around. However, the results show that the existence and direction of these temporal and spatial effects depend on the type of highways and time lags considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the occupational segregation of white women in the US at a metropolitan area level. Our results show substantial variation across areas and suggest that the national scale does not reveal the real situation of white women. The proportion of white women who would have to shift occupations to achieve zero segregation ranges between 20 per cent in some areas and 40 per cent in others. The consequences that occupational segregation has in terms of earnings also vary dramatically within the country, which suggests that in dealing with labour inequalities, local authorities should play an active role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops a growth-based regionalisation of the United States using both principal components and cluster analyses to endogenously sort states into regional transition clubs with somewhat uniform annual rates of per capita real GSP growth in the period 1977–2004. I correlate the principal components with annual growth in per capita real GDP and assess spatial dependencies in the identified transition clubs. Growth variability in the transition clubs is compared with growth variability in BEA and Census regions. Results show a large Coastal transition club that contains most of the New England, Middle Atlantic, and South Atlantic census regions. California, Minnesota, and Arizona belong to this grouping. A second growth transition club titled Eastern Interior groups most of the states in the East North Central and the East South Central census regions. A Western Interior region groups states in the southern Great Plains. Coefficients of variation show that these three large interstate groupings grow more uniformly compared with associated census and BEA regions. Growth in western states is idiosyncratic. Most western states group with one or two related states, California and Arizona associate with the Coastal club, Nevada does not pigeonhole well with other states, and Alaska's annual growth trajectory is unique. Este artículo desarrolla una regionalización de los Estados Unidos basada en crecimiento usando componentes principales y análisis de cluster para agrupar los estados en grupos de transición regional según tasas anuales de crecimiento más o menos uniformes en el producto estatal bruto (GSP) real per capita en el periodo 1977–2004. Correlaciono los componentes principales con el crecimiento anual en el producto interior bruto (GDP) real per capita y evalúo dependencias espaciales en los grupos de transición identificados. La variabilidad de crecimiento en los grupos de transición se compara con la variabilidad de crecimiento en regiones BEA (Bureau of Economic Analysis) y Censuales. Los resultados muestran un grupo de transición grande en la Costa que contiene la mayoría de regiones censuales de New England, Atlántico Medio, y Atlántico Sur. California, Minnesota, y Arizona pertenecen a este grupo. Un Segundo grupo de transición de crecimiento llamado Interior Este aglutina la mayoría de estados de las regiones censuales Central Norte Oriental y Central Sur Oriental. Una región Interior Occidental agrupa los estados de las Grandes Llanuras del Sur. Los coeficientes de variación muestran que estos tres grandes grupos interestatales crecen más uniformemente en comparación con las regiones censuales y BEA asociadas. El crecimiento en los estados occidentales es idiosincrásico. La mayoría de los estados occidentales se agrupan con uno o dos estados relacionados, California y Arizona se asocian con el grupo de la Costa, Nevada no se clasifica bien con ningún otro estado, y la trayectoria de crecimiento anual de Alaska es única. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the formative years of biotechnology, ‘star’ bioscientists possessed intellectual capital of extraordinary scientific and pecuniary value. In America and Japan, 35 percent of star bioscientists became involved with firms in commercialising their discoveries (a crucial determinant of success) versus 7 percent in Europe. Did star involvement come at expense of scientific progress? No, the publication rate of these ‘involved stars’ increased very significantly whilst actively involved with firms. Furthermore, citations per article were unchanged or significantly increased; so quality was maintained. Top academic scientists and firms working together led to faster commercial and scientific progress – a truly virtuous circle. Durante los años formativos de la biotecnología, los bioinvestigadores “estrella” acumulaban un capital intelectual de extraordinario valor científico y pecuniario. En América y Japón, el 35 por ciento de bioinvestigadores “estrella” se involucraron con empresas en la comercialización de sus descubrimientos (determinante crucial del éxito) comparado con un 7 por ciento en Europa. ¿Fue este involucramiento a costa del progreso científico? No, la tasa de publicación de estos investigadores estrella aumentó muy significativamente mientras que estaban activamente involucrados con dichas empresas. Es más, el número de citas de sus artículos no cambiaron o aumentaron significativamente, y por tanto la calidad se ha mantenido. Los investigadores más eminentes y las empresas punteras trabajando juntos nos llevan más rápidamente al progreso comercial y científico – un círculo virtuoso verdadero. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a spatial hedonic growth model, this paper empirically assesses the roles of natural amenities and urban agglomeration economies in US regional growth patterns from 2000 to 2010. Natural amenities and urban agglomeration are measured using the USDA Economic Research Service county classification codes. The general finding is that natural amenities and urban agglomeration both influenced regional growth. Yet, the natural amenity ranking is estimated to be positively related to increased productivity over the period rather than increased attractiveness to households. Urban agglomeration is positively related to increased amenity attractiveness to households. Within census regions, household natural amenity demand played a stronger role in non-metropolitan areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies regional impact of three mature public surface transportation infrastructures in the Northeast corridor of the US: highway, public railway and public transit. Infrastructure stock is valued in real terms from 1991 to 2009. A spatial panel approach with fixed effects is adopted to test the hypothesis of spillovers by allowing for spatial dependence. The result shows that public surface transportation infrastructure in general does have a significant impact on regional output, most of which is from spillover effect; highways have an overwhelming influence through both local effects and spillover effects. The impacts from public railway and public transit are not significant, but transit does show a positive though small spillover effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper analyses four statistical distributions used to describe city size distributions: lognormal, double Pareto lognormal, q-exponential, and log-logistic. We use un-truncated city size data for the US, Spain and Italy from 1900 until 2010, and, in addition, the last available year for the remaining countries of the OECD. We estimate the four functions by maximum likelihood. To check the goodness of the fit we use the Kolmogorov- Smirnov and Cramér-von Mises tests, and compute the Akaike information criterion and Bayesian information criterion. The results show that the distribution which best fits data in most of the cases (86.76%) is the double Pareto lognormal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Conservation Reserve Program ( CRP) is the largest land-based agricultural policy in the US. Several economic studies have studied this programme; however, only a few have studied its implications for non-enrolled land, that is, its regional effects on land use decisions. This paper examines the CRP's indirect effect on the conversion of non-agricultural land to agriculture, phenomenon known as land slippage. Building on earlier studies, I model county-level slippage empirically using satellite imagery, which allows observation of specific land cover changes (e.g., forest to agriculture). Results suggest the existence of CRP slippage, but at varying rates according to initial land covers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The new economic geography (NEG) has become a mainstay of regional science in the last two decades, as signified by the awarding of Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize. Yet, most American regional scientists and urban/regional economists do not use NEG in determining regional growth patterns. Instead, they rely on factors such as natural amenity migration, whose roots lie back to the work of Philip Graves in the mid 1970s. Conversely, two of the world's leading economic geographers – Allen Scott and Michael Storper – have strongly argued that job availability not household amenities have determined US regional dynamics. Given the disparity of views over the largest developed economy in the world, we hold a competition to determine which of these leading contenders accurately predict US interregional growth dynamics over the last 40–60 years. The runaway winner of the duel is natural amenity led growth with the crown going to Graves. Implications are drawn for both empirical research and EU economic integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at contributing to the research on knowledge spillovers and their spatial extent by presenting new empirical evidence on a key mechanism driving and directing knowledge diffusion processes, namely, the mobility of knowledge and highly-skilled workers. The analysis is based on a rich data set on US inventors and their patents filed at the European Patent Office from 1978 to 2004. Findings indicate that two distinctive spatial patterns can be detected: inventors move both at short and large spatial distances (i.e., three hours and more than 8 hours driving distance, respectively) in similar proportions. Interestingly, in the largest innovative urban areas inventors' inflows and outflows primarily involve distant rather than neighbour areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses factors influencing the destinations chosen by 13 different categories of migrant engineers in the USA between 1994 to 1999. Migration patterns are analysed with the aid of fractional-response regression models. The objective is to assess the relative weight of employment opportunities and selected amenities in guiding the migratory shifts of these workers. Engineers are divided into two categories representing individuals of working age and those who are either retired or are close to retirement. The results indicate that local employment opportunities have a dominant impact on the destinations chosen by the former group and that amenities play virtually no role in this regard. However, warmer winters have some modest positive effect on destinations chosen by the latter group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A simultaneous model of house values, cancer mortality and total releases is estimated to study the economic cost of environmental health risks. Health risks include county level total releases from the Toxics Release Inventory, number of Superfund sites, and cancer mortality in the Southeastern U.S. The generalized spatial two stage least squares model is applied to obtain parameter estimates. Results suggest the average value of statistical life for a representative at the county level to be 4.77 million in 2000 dollars. Further, based on model simulations, we find that a 1 percent reduction in releases should result in the total benefits of $3.3 billion in perpetuity. Resumen Se estima un modelo simultáneo de valor de la vivienda, mortalidad por cáncer y emisiones totales para estudiar el costo económico de los riesgos de salud medioambiental. Los riesgos de salud incluyen emisiones totales a escala de condado del Censo de Emisiones Tóxicas, número de sitios de Superfund y la mortalidad por cáncer en el sureste de los EE.UU. Se aplica el modelo espacial generalizado de mínimos cuadrados bietápico para obtener estimaciones de los parámetros. Los resultados indican que el valor promedio estadístico de la vida a escala de condado es de US$4.77 millones en el año 2000. Además, basado en simulaciones con un modelo, encontramos que una reducción de un 1% en las emisiones debería resultar en unos beneficios totales de US$3,300 millones a perpetuidad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe a tops-down method for regionalising results from a detailed national CGE model. Using a 500-industry U.S. model, we generate macro and industry effects of removing major U.S. import restraints and translate these effects into employment results for U.S. states. Our results indicate that for most industries, the output change would be negligible but for sugar, butter and several textile industries output contractions would be large. The state employment changes are all between −0.5 and 0.2 percent. We explain the results by elementary mechanisms in a way that does not require prior knowledge of the underlying CGE model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the process of growth and change within the American constellation of metropolitan areas. It begins with the premise that regional development happens in two interconnected ways: via demand-induced growth, which is driven by economic opportunity, and supply-induced growth, which is driven by personal preference. The nature and spatial outcome of these mechanisms are investigated by estimating a series of three-equation regional adjustment models wherein changes in population density, employment density, and the average annual wage are endogenously determined. In order to account for spatial dependence in the development process, each model is specified with spatial lags of its three dependent variables and is estimated using a spatial two-stage least squares technique. The results of the analysis illustrate the evolving nature of metropolitan growth and yield insight into the land use patterns that it produces. Resumen. Este artículo examina el proceso de crecimiento y cambio en la constelación norteamericana de áreas metropolitanas. Comienza bajo la premisa de que el desarrollo regional ocurre de dos maneras interconectadas: por un crecimiento inducido por la demanda, el cual esta impulsado por la oportunidad económica, y por un crecimiento inducido por la oferta, el cual está impulsado por las preferencias personales. La naturaleza y resultado espacial de esos mecanismos son investigados mediante la estimación de una serie de modelos de ajuste regional de tres ecuaciones donde los cambios en la densidad de población, la densidad de empleo y el salario promedio anual están determinados endógenamente. Para poder tener en cuenta la dependencia espacial en el proceso de desarrollo, cada modelo especifica intervalos espaciales de sus tres variables dependientes y es estimado mediante un procedimiento espacial de mínimos cuadrados en dos etapas. Los resultados del análisis muestran la naturaleza evolutiva del crecimiento metropolitano y aportan conocimiento sobre los modelos de uso del suelo que produce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We try to identify the determinants of regional variation in both exploitative and exploratory innovative competencies. Hereby, we focus on how a knowledge‐creation mechanism with specialized externalities differs from one with diversified externalities. Innovative competence in the US is measured by local patenting performance; exploitative and exploratory patenting performances are distinguished by the degree of backward citation. Based on the extended knowledge‐production function, including the two agglomeration externalities, our findings show that specialized externalities are associated with exploitation, while diversified externalities are positively related with both exploration and exploitation, regardless of industrial sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic effects of tax and expenditure limits (TELs) have been often studied in the literature. However, little research has addressed how TELs might influence the propensity for a jurisdiction to default on its obligations. This study specifically fills that void. Overall, the results indicate that while the likelihood of default increases as TELs become more restrictive, the magnitude is not particularly large. Once decomposed, it would appear that property tax limits increase the likelihood, while expenditure limits have the opposite effect, though the latter result is insignificant. The findings are robust to a number of specifications and provide potential policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of new industries demands access to local capabilities. Little attention has yet been paid to the role of spillovers from neighbour regions for industrial diversification, nor has the role of network linkages between neighbour regions been investigated. As the spread of capabilities has a strong geographical bias, we expect regions to develop new industries in which their neighbour regions are specialized. To test this hypothesis, we analyse the development of new industries in US states during the period 2000-2012. We show that a US state has a higher probability of developing a comparative advantage in a new industry if a neighbour state is specialized in that industry. We also show that neighbour US states have more similar export structures. This export similarity seems to be explained by higher social connectivity between neighbour states, as embodied in their bilateral migration patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The location of households within metropolitan areas has been a topic of interest for many decades. It has been receiving more attention by researchers recently because of the increasing attractiveness of many cities in the United States to certain types of households and to certain types of jobs. This study considers whether 15 large cities and the boroughs of New York City are attractive to families with school-age children, especially those with college-educated parents. It is shown that overall more affluent and educated families with school-age children are less likely to live in many large central cities with a few important exceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, Duranton and Turner estimated the impact of interstate highways on the average growth of US cities between 1983 and 2003. By estimating a structural model, one of their striking points is that increasing a city's initial stock of highways by 10 per cent leads to a 1.5 per cent positive respond of the city's employment over the sample period. This note mainly argues that their investigation leaves out potential spillovers of labour input from neighbouring growth centres/cities in the steady-state directly implied by the open city assumption. More specifically, this contribution readily extends Duranton and Turner's work by a general equilibrium effect induced by the urban system's labour market fluctuations which is a direct consequence of the open city assumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research evaluates the impacts on poverty rates of government funds for education, health and hospitals, and public welfare allocated to poverty reduction for counties with persistently high poverty in the Southern United States. Our analysis found that increases in education funding in a poverty hot-spot county reduce the poverty rates of that county and its neighbouring hot-spot counties. We also found that higher health and hospital funding in a hot-spot county is associated with higher poverty rates in neighbouring hot-spot counties and that public welfare funding is not effective in mitigating poverty either within or outside of poverty hot-spots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faced with declining economic bases, many non-metropolitan areas find themselves balancing the need to be cost-competitive in terms of lower taxes against the need for provision of valued government services. Using a spatial equilibrium framework, this study econometrically examines the nexus between US state and local fiscal policies and non-metropolitan county growth in earnings and housing rents during the 1990s. The results suggest that state and local fiscal characteristics significantly influenced firm and household location. Some characteristics could be clearly identified as having dominant firm profit effects, while numerous others were identified as having household amenity effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the relationship between self-employment and income growth, employment growth, and change in poverty in metro and non-metro areas in the United States using county-level panel data. We investigate the impact of the relative size of the self-employment sector measured by the share of non-farm proprietorships (NFPs) in total full and part-time employment on three key economic performance indicators. We first estimate an income growth model to analyse the effects of self-employment on income growth. Then we investigate the independent effects of self-employment on employment growth and changes in family poverty rates. Our results indicate that higher self-employment rates are associated with statistically significant increases over time in income and employment growth, and reductions in poverty rates in non-metro counties. We find similar effects on metro county income and employment, but not on poverty dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which examined the reasons behind the performance of the exporters in the various states in Mexico from 1994 to 2002. The researcher categorized the Mexican exports into two components, namely their foreign market potential and the supply capacity. He found that an increase in supply capacity is directly related to export expansion. He also mentioned that export growth is caused by an increase in the demand from the U.S. rather than an improvement in the competitiveness of exporters.

Although the New Economic Geography (NEG) has been used extensively to formally explain the emergence of the American urban system, few studies investigate its success in explaining current population dynamics in a more established urban system. This study explores whether proximity to same–sized and higher–tiered urban centres affected the patterns of 1990–2006 US county population growth. Rather than casting NEG agglomeration shadows on nearby growth, larger urban centres generally appear to have positive growth effects for more proximate places of less than 250,000 people. However, there is some evidence the largest urban areas cast growth shadows on proximate medium–sized metropolitan areas and of spatial competition among small metropolitan areas. Resumen Aunque la Nueva Geografía Económica (NEG, por sus siglas en inglés) ha sido utilizada ampliamente para explicar de modo formal el surgimiento del sistema urbano estadounidense, pocos estudios investigan su éxito en explicar las dinámicas de población actuales en un sistema urbano más establecido. Este estudio explora la posibilidad de que centros urbanos del mismo tamaño y de elevada magnitud afectó a los patrones de crecimiento poblacional en condados de los EE.UU. en 1990-2006. En lugar de proyectar sombras de aglomeración de acuerdo a la NEG sobre el crecimiento cercano, los centros urbanos más grandes parecen tener en general efectos de crecimiento positivos en lugares cercanos de menos de 250,000 habitantes. Sin embargo, existen indicios de que las áreas urbanas más grandes proyectan sombras de crecimiento sobre áreas metropolitanas próximas de tamaño mediano y de competencia espacial entre áreas metropolitanas pequeñas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines spatial aspects of distributional dynamics and finds that the distribution of US metropolitan incomes relative to their neighbours has diverged during the 1969-1999 period. Use of a spatial Markov approach shows that non-metropolitan neighbours of metropolitan regions have tended to converge during the period, with roughly equal rates of upward and downward mobility within the distribution. Non-metropolitan regions, not neighbouring metropolitan regions, show much less tendency to converge and reveal higher rates of downward rather than upward mobility. Results highlight regional differences in mobility coherence, with metropolitan areas in the West tending to outpace their non-metropolitan neighbours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the following location problem: align a regularly spaced grid of new facilities as well as possible with a set of existing centres. The problem has some similarity to a problem in classical central place theory, namely the spatial arrangement of services with a particular range of coverage. The article poses the problem, gives a non-linear formulation, and details solution approaches. A robust heuristic, based on geometric insights, is also devised: if the basis for the new grid is centred on at least one fixed centre, an enumeration of various rotation angles will be effective for finding local minima (and maxima). As a practical application of this problem, a region may wish to supplement an existing system of fixed siren locations with additional facilities in such a way as to fill in, or complete, the partial coverage pattern. An evaluation of the siren system in Dublin, OH, USA, is utilised to demonstrate the effectiveness of the technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines whether the growth of information technology (IT) is associated with a dispersion or concentration of economic activities. The locational Gini coefficient and Moran’s I are first applied to ascertain the relationship between the growth of information technology and the distribution pattern of economic activities at the metropolitan scale. Next, using the Gi* statistic as the dependent variable and the level of information infrastructure as the independent variable, the above relationship is analysed at an intra-metropolitan scale. The results suggest that trends at a metropolitan scale do not necessarily reflect the trends at an intra-metropolitan scale in association. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban sprawl has evolved into an exceptionally complex public policy problem in the United States over the course of recent decades. One factor that has made it particularly difficult to deal with is its relationship to the fragmented structure of the American system of land use governance. Acting on behalf of their residents, local governments enact land use regulations to secure lifestyle preferences for low density, suburban living environments while at the same time ensuring a high quality of public service provision. This article examines the effect of this process on metropolitan spatial structure through a series of econometric models designed to test the following hypothesis: that fragmentation promotes sprawl by increasing the proportion of growth that occurs at the unincorporated urban fringe. The estimation results reveal substantive evidence that municipal fragmentation and several related factors - including special districts, infrastructure investments, and white flight processes - have a significant and enduring effect on the growth of outlying areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American policy analysts have assumed that poverty is increasingly concentrating in the inner suburbs of large cities. This study demonstrates that that assumption is inaccurate. Using data on household income and poverty for suburban civil divisions from the 1970, 1980 and 1990 US Censuses, this article calculates values for two indicators of the change in the relative concentration of income and poverty, the coefficient of variation, and a regression of changes on initial values. Results indicate that poverty and income concentrations have not generally increased among suburbs over the last twenty years. There is evidence, however, that poverty has increasingly concentrated within some suburban municipalities of older metropolitan areas in the northeast and midwest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economists know little about how the role of part-time workers affect regional labor market dynamics during economic expansion. This study examines this issue using U.S. state data from the 1980s and 1990s. Compared to the 1980s, the labor market during the late 1990s is associated with widespread labor shortages, making this an excellent comparison of how part-time employment responds to economic growth. One key finding is that part-time employment was less responsive to job growth during the 1990s than the 1980s, especially for women. Several explanations are put forth, including firm responses to labor shortages, employer perceptions of inferior part-time worker characteristics and welfare reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The potential for further economic integration among Canadian and American regions is measured by comparing province-to-state trade with state-to-state trade, where the latter is used as a benchmark of integration. To accomplish this, an attraction constrained gravity model is derived from micro foundations and estimated. The analysis demonstrates that after controlling for variations in output, distance, wages, productivity, and localization economies, the border remains a significant barrier to trade, although much less than previous estimates of the border effect using internal Canadian trade as a benchmark. The model's results also indicate that the border's influence varies across sectors, and the influence appears to be, in part, related to the presence of tariff and non-tariff barriers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This note examines the role of academic-industry linkages in the innovation performance of New York State manufacturers of medical devices. Evidence from a pilot survey of 63 specialised producers suggests that innovation rates are higher among firms that exploit university resources. The contribution of the academic sector to industrial innovation is quantified via a series of OLS regressions. These models suggest that geographic proximity to academic resources is less important to the innovation process than the extent of academic-industry interaction (though the two are positively correlated). While the empirical results confirm that close proximity to academic research units is a helpful factor in product development, the data reveal that non-geographic factors play a stronger role overall. Factors of notable significance include in-house R&D effort, investment in academic interaction and the extent of collaborative research with other manufacturing firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new economy hypothesis identifies the southern and western parts of the United States as important source points for industrial creativity that can rival the northeast. This study shows that this viewpoint, based on patent activity, is warranted. Regional technology production in the country is being helped by the presence of professional, skilled labor, rather than manufacturing and related activities as in times past. While the northeast or midwest now operate in a much more competi tive inventive spatial system, and are being outperformed technologically by California, Texas, and Florida combined, all regions of the country are patenting inventions more than ever before. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research note proposes new summary measures for migration that use geographic distance as a descriptive factor, establishing a linkage between migration fields and earlier measures of migration – net migration and migration efficiency. By factoring distance into migration efficiency and net migration, we create analogous and complementary measures defined as attraction efficiency and net attraction, respectively. These measures differentiate between proximate and distant migration flows and summarize the spatial extent of flows to or from a region that we discern in the study of migration fields. The analysis uses BEA level geography and migration data from the 1990 census to examine and illustrate these measures, and to compare the results with the traditional measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]