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The interdisciplinary nature of modern economic research contributes to the growing scientific popularity of spatial economics, which performs as an integrator when exploring various objects. The paper aims at investigating the explanatory potential of spatial economics in relation to the economic well-being of municipalities. Methodologically the study relies on a host of theories forming the foundation of spatial economics. The methods include the abstract logical method, deduction and induction. The study identifies and analyses five stages in the evolution of the theoretical basis of spatial economics and shows the spatial aspect of creating municipalities’ economic well-being, which manifests itself in maintaining the economic activity in the territory as well as its population and is based on the reproduction process. The reproduction process then is a space-forming one, while such parameters as distance (connectedness), (dis)advantages of location, and distribution (concentration) reflect spatial inclusiveness of a municipality, presence of objects either increasing the risks of its development or its attractiveness, and the limits of territorial capacity, respectively. These parameters can also be applied to determine the level of municipalities’ economic well-being. The findings may underlie the development of a research methodology and a method for measuring the level of municipalities’ economic well-being.

The paper analyzes interregional trade in Russia using gravity models. The model estimates the trade elasticity with respect to the size of exporting and importing regions and the distance between them. In addition, the impact on trade of additional factors, such as the common border of trading regions, the presence or absence of railroads, land or sea borders with other countries, is studied. Special attention is given to the issue of measuring distances between regions. The influence of the method of calculating the distance matrix (from the simplest orthodromic to the proposed weighted matrix of the shortest road and rail distances) on the coefficients of the models is studied. The all-Russian estimates of trade elasticities by the size of the exporting and importing region, equal to 1.15 and 1.05, showed high accuracy and robustness to the set of factors included in the model, the observation period, and the distance matrix. Both values were greater than one, which is significantly higher than typical estimates for international trade. This suggests that large and wealthy regions in Russia trade more, further increasing their welfare, while small and depressed regions are unable to escape the poverty trap, further increasing the current high level of regional heterogeneity. Distance is also very important in Russia (the elasticity of trade with respect to distance is –1.15, which is much higher than the world average, but still lower than the previous estimates for Siberia and the Russian Far East). This indicates insufficient transport infrastructure, higher costs of information search, transactions, contract execution, and other difficulties associated with long-distance trade. The absence of railroads in a region reduces its trade by about one-third, while neighboring regions increase the quantity of goods transported between them by about 75%. An external land or sea border facilitates domestic imports, some of which are re-exported abroad and some are consumed with the money earned from exports. At the same time, domestic exports from border regions, which cannot compete with external exports, are reduced. The method of calculating the distance matrix has a significant effect on the elasticity of trade with respect to distance, and to a limited extent on other coefficients of the model. In this case, it is recommended to use the weighted matrix proposed in this paper, which uses road distances for nearby regions and rail distances for distant regions

The purpose of the article is to summarize theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of such a phenomenon as inversions and inversion processes in socio-economic sciences and to identify the features of the application of these approaches in research in the field of spatial economics, as well as their use in assessing the development of the border North Arctic territories of the Far East both at the national and international levels. The analysis of existing research approaches to understanding the essence, characteristics and tools for studying inversion processes in scientific areas in the socio-economic field allows us to interpret them in relation to spatial-economic research and identify specific methods of their application that are related to spatial economics. The identified research methods are used to study the Far Eastern North Arctic territories, which are currently undergoing deep qualitative transformations in their production specialization, auxiliary cycles and chains, as well as in the infrastructure that provided these processes. On the basis of both previous and current author’s studies, it is stated that in the regulation of inversion processes both in the spatial economy as a whole and in the conduct of specific studies on the development of the North Arctic territories, the leading role is played by the balance of opposing endogenous and exogenous elements of the infrastructure of spatial- economic formations at all their hierarchical levels. In conclusion, the article presents the generalizing results of the research in all its directions

The Sraffian tradition has mostly overlooked the role of space, treating it as a static and abstract concept. This work introduces a fresh perspective, with a reappraisal of its significance in economic modeling and the examination of the locational distribution of economic agents. Our research bridges the gap in economic theories between the Surplus approach and the Critical Quantitative Geography literature. This study has multiple objectives. First, the reappraisal of the linkages between these two theories occurred from the publication of Sraffa's seminal contribution. Second, novel concepts such as space capacity, the physical location of workers, and its simple graphical representation are introduced. Third, a demand-side closure of the model in line with the Sraffian Supermultiplier tradition. In conclusion, our research introduces a novel possibility to incorporate space into economic analysis, shedding light on how the spatial distribution of economic agents affects prices, distribution, and growth. Space as much as institutions, should play a central role in economic analysis. The direction taken in this work promises to facilitate the exchange of ideas between Critical Geography and the Surplus Approach literature, offering valuable insights for policy-making and a better understanding of regional economic dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This editorial, introducing the nine papers comprising this issue of Spatial Economic Analysis (SEA), shows that novel methodologies applied to spatial data allow for a better understanding of the location phenomena at different spatial and sectoral scales. Global processes also have local specificities, which should be investigated, but, in parallel, local processes might hide a component of global structure in the spatial data that can drive estimation results, as the first paper shows. The papers in this issue henceforth present novel analyses, which enable the study of phenomena whose extent is usually considered to be global showing their spatial relevance, such as the location of energy facilities, job polarisation and the effects of devaluation on trade. Other aspects such as the Okun's law, the efficiency of firms, and the market for liquid petroleum, the performance of start-ups and the happiness of people are studied and shown to depend on local characteristics and interactions. Furthermore, the issue introduces a number of novel techniques, such as spatial stochastic frontier estimations, new decompositions and mixed spatial analysis of variance (MS-ANOVA) models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a spatial and time-continuous Ramsey-type equilibrium model for households and firms that interact on a spatial domain to model labor mobility in the presence of commuting costs. After discretization in space and time, we obtain a mixed complementarity problem that represents the spatial equilibrium model. We prove existence of equilibria using the theory of finite-dimensional variational inequalities and derive a tailored diagonalization method to solve the resulting large-scale instances. Finally, we present a case study that highlights the influence of commuting costs and show that the model allows to analyze transitory effects of industrial agglomeration that emerge and vanish over time as in the real economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on the economics of location regarding creative activities is relatively scarce. Estimations, based on 369 newly created firms operating in creative industries in Portugal, which incorporate spatial effects of neighbouring regions in the location choices, yield the following results: (i) the concentration of creative and knowledge-based activities play an important role in location decisions of new creative establishments; (ii) creative firms tend to favour a diversified industrial tissue and related variety, in order to enjoy from inter-sectorial synergies; (iii) high education at a regional level has a highly significant, positive effect on location decisions, while lower educational levels of human capital negatively affect those decisions; (iv) tolerant/open environments attract creative activities; (v) creative firms tend to favour municipalities where the stock of knowledge and conditions for innovative activity are higher; (vi) municipality's attributes are more important in terms of firms' location decisions than the characteristics of nearby regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Domestic tourism demand has dominated the global tourism market and has been more resilient during the COVID-19 pandemic; yet, it is under-studied compared to international tourism demand. Digital financial inclusion (DFI) enables the provision of formal financial products and services to small and medium-sized tourism enterprises and tourists through cost-effective digital means, potentially boosting domestic tourism demand. Integrating micro- and macro-level data from 335 prefecture-level regions in China, we investigate the impact of DFI on domestic tourism demand using spatial panel models. Our analysis reveals significant and positive effects, both direct and spillover, of DFI on domestic tourism demand within a region and across regions. Notably, among the three dimensions of DFI, the usage depth exhibits the most substantial spillover effects. Furthermore, our findings also highlight the crucial role of DFI in internalizing domestic tourism revenues. Our study provides practical implications for sustainable domestic tourism development in the digital era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clusters of knowledge-intensive industries and manufacturing industries form industrial agglomeration in Step I and activate innovation in Step II. Industry clusters are formed by building segments. "Construction sequencing" in the construction industry refers to the process of determining the sequence of segments to optimize a project's resources, budget, and scheduled timeline. The process usually begins by dividing a project into segments. Urban segments consist of public spaces, airports, factories, health, housing, etc. A "segment" is a component of a cluster; the organization of a cluster consists of constructing segments. These segments can be divided into four main categories: human resources, physical infrastructure, institutions, and the living environment. Each segment has a specific function in the process of building a cluster. This study focused on innovation in Step II and extended the Fujita–Thisse model of spatial economics to hypothesize that research expenditure per researcher leads to value being added. The Granger causality was tested for the knowledge and manufacturing industries in nine major countries including China and the U.S. The results showed that the hypothesis was significant in identifying the starting segment of innovation in Step II. Accordingly, it can be concluded that research funding is the start switch that triggers innovation. The policy implication is that activating innovation in cluster policies begins with the establishment of a research fund for researchers in its assigned clusters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Gestão & Tecnologia is the property of Revista Gestao & Tecnologia 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.)

A "segment" is a component of the organization of an agglomeration. The organization of agglomeration is formed by the construction of segments. Manufacturing agglomeration segments can be divided into four main categories: human resources including engineers, physical infrastructure, institutions, and living environment. Each segment then has a specific function in the process of building industrial agglomeration. We focus on the process of building segments in agglomeration formation. We define a "brake segment" as a segment that has a "function" to decelerate the speed of the process. The purpose of this paper is to identify the existence of this brake segment in the process of constructing the segments of the manufacturing agglomeration. We obtained the following three results. First, a modified version of the spatial economic model yields that the number of agglomerated firms is inversely related to the wages of skilled workers. Second, a factor analysis of the data on investment environment costs indicates that in the case of the manufacturing industry, the number of agglomerated firms are inversely related to the wages of engineers. Third, the factor analysis of the six countries in the JBIC survey reveals that the segment that poses the investment issue in foreign direct investment in India is engineers as human capital. We conclude that engineers as human capital are a brake segment. The implication is that the sustained development of "engineers" as human capital is essential for the success of manufacturing industry agglomeration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relevance of the study is due to the need to develop agent-based modeling (ABM), especially in the context of creating complex models covering several industries and regions. The key problems in this area include the low speed of model development and their insufficient connection with real-world processes. This work aims to address these problems related to the development of agent-based models (AB models) of spatial economics. Additionally, the study is aimed at systematizing the experience and knowledge of the author team in the field of ABM platforms. The goal of the research is to develop a conceptual framework for an open platform for agent-based modeling of spatial economics (OPABMSE). The work is comprehensive and is based on a systemic and structural approach and draws on, among others, the following areas of scientific literature: issues of development of digital and software platforms, application of ABM in decision support and decision-making systems, digital and spatial economics, application of agent-based multiregional input-output models for analyzing the Russian economy. The paper introduces a new definition of OPABMSE as an instrumental and infrastructural digital platform with an open architecture based on software for developing AB models. The platform is designed for joint work of a large community of researchers on large AB models of the Russian economy and the provision of ABM services. A conceptual framework for OPABMSE is proposed, which takes into account the external environment, information infrastructure, and users from industry, economic science and education, as well as government bodies. The main structural elements of the platform are described. The use of OPABMSE is very promising due to its potential in solving a wide range of scientific and applied problems. This platform can be used as part of a decision support and decision-making system in economy. OPABMSE will help government bodies and industry representatives analyze the possible consequences of making certain decisions. Economic science and education will be able to use OPABMSE to solve various problems in the field of spatial economics. This platform can become a useful tool for research work when writing graduate qualification papers in economic specialties. The proposed conceptual framework for OPABMSE has the potential for further practical implementation.

Space has always been essential within the economy, yet its importance in economics has been downplayed in several ways. This editorial introduces the seven papers comprising this issue of Spatial Economic Analysis (SEA) and shows that while the classics of economics acknowledged the importance of the location of economic activities, for many years the study of space was left to heterodox economics scholars and geographers. This is despite the established tradition of learned societies, such as Regional Science International and the Regional Studies Association, which are placed at the intersection of these fields. Space finally became mainstream in economics again due, on the one hand, to the introduction of the new economic geography some 30 years ago and, on the other, to the fact that several different economic sub-disciplines have come to understand and consider space as essential for the processes they study. This was facilitated by methodological advancements, such as in spatial econometrics. The seven papers in this issue henceforth illustrate some of the situations and approaches which make space relevant to contemporary economic questions. Essential are, in particular, the interactions between different locations and the interactions between individuals and geographical features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bu çalışma, mekânsal iktisat perspektifinden neoklasik yakınsama hipotezini incelemeyi amaçlamakta ve mekânsal komşuluk ilişkilerini ve etkileşimlerini yakınsama hipotezinin test edilmesini amaçlayan çalışmalara dahil etmenin önemini vurgulamaktadır. Çalışmada öncelikle yakınsama hipotezine ilişkin öncü çalışmalar incelenmekte, ardından mekânsal etkileşimleri içeren akademik araştırmaların bir analizi yapılmaktadır. Ayrıca, Türkiye'de yakınsama hipotezi üzerine yapılan çalışmaların kapsamlı bir incelemesi sunulmakta ve özellikle bu çalışmaların analizlerinde mekânsal ilişkileri dikkate alıp almadıklarına odaklanılmaktadır. Elde edilen bulgular, mekânsal komşuluk ilişkilerinin özellikle ülke içi bölgesel yakınsama analizlerinde önemli bir rol oynadığını ortaya koymaktadır. Sonuç olarak çalışma, Türkiye'de ülke içi yakınsama analizlerine yönelik literatürdeki çalışmaların büyük oranda mekânsal etkileşimi göz ardı ettiğini ortaya koymakta ve mekânsal komşuluk etkilerinin yakınsama analizlerine dâhil edilmesini savunmaktadır.

Clusters of knowledge-intensive industries and manufacturing industries form industrial agglomeration in Step I and activate innovation in Step II. Industry clusters are formed by building segments. “Construction sequencing” in the construction industry refers to the process of determining the sequence of segments to optimize a project’s resources, budget, and scheduled timeline. The process usually begins by dividing a project into segments. Urban segments consist of public spaces, airports, factories, health, housing, etc. A “segment” is a component of a cluster; the organization of a cluster consists of constructing segments. These segments can be divided into four main categories: human resources, physical infrastructure, institutions, and the living environment. Each segment has a specific function in the process of building a cluster. This study focused on innovation in Step II and extended the Fujita–Thisse model of spatial economics to hypothesize that research expenditure per researcher leads to value being added. The Granger causality was tested for the knowledge and manufacturing industries in nine major countries including China and the U.S. The results showed that the hypothesis was significant in identifying the starting segment of innovation in Step II. Accordingly, it can be concluded that research funding is the start switch that triggers innovation. The policy implication is that activating innovation in cluster policies begins with the establishment of a research fund for researchers in its assigned clusters.

Copyright of Dynamics in Social Sciences & Humanities is the property of Ataturk University Coordinatorship of Scientific Journals 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.)

Studying microbial communities through a socio-economic lens, this paper draws parallels with human economic transactions and microbes' race for resources. Extending the 'Market Economy' concept of social science to microbial ecosystems, the paper aims to contribute to comprehending the collaborative and competitive dynamics among microorganisms. Created by a multidisciplinary team of an economist, microbiologists, and mathematicians, the paper also highlights the risks involved in employing a socio-economic perspective to explain the complexities of natural ecosystems. Navigating through microbial markets offers insights into the implications of these interactions while emphasizing the need for cautious interpretation within the broader ecological context. We hope that this paper will be a fruitful source of inspiration for future studies on microbial communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high level of power supply and technical provision of logging, along with advanced technologies, ensure the enterprise’s competitiveness. The current state of facilities and resources at forestry institutions in the regions is, as a rule, unsatisfactory. Significant engineering and technological backwardness of facilities and resources is due to the specifics of the modern structure of the forest sector. With the purpose of ensuring the production effectiveness of forestry institutions in the regions on the basis of increasing the level of power supply and technical provision for logging, it is necessary to carry out appropriate research. The methods for assessing the forest as an ecosystem are a relevant area of theoretical and applied research. There are 3 basic methods used in world and Russian practice in the assessment of natural resources: comparative, cost, and income. The methodology of cost estimate for natural resources provides a flexible system of indices, which allow assessing natural resources depending on the amount of available information and practical purposes. In terms of spatial economics we propose to develop a pilot project to improve the efficiency of production in the state autonomous forestry institutions of the Republic of Bashkortostan. The project is intended to provide practical guidance on the allocation of 2–3 groups of forestry institutions. We used an expert approach to assess the rating of forestries. Our earlier estimates for forestry enterprises in the Republic of Bashkortostan (state autonomous institutions) were used as the basis for it. The values of quantitative criteria include expert estimates and statistical information from numerous sources, such as reports, handbooks, results of surveys, interviews, etc. The criteria were divided into 2 groups: quantitative (availability of logging equipment, transport accessibility, calculated logging area) and qualitative (state of the logging equipment, repair depot, and management structure). According to the results of the integral assessment, the forestries are divided into 4 groups. Based on the assessment performed, it is advisable to identify the points of growth in the pilot project of modernization the facilities and resources of forestry enterprises. For citation: Konshakova S.A., Bulkhov N.A., Zaikin A.N., Kuznetsov S.G., Sivakov V.V. Assessment of the Development Potential of Forestry Enterprises of the Republic of Bashkortostan. Lesnoy Zhurnal = Russian Forestry Journal, 2023, no. 4, pp. 202–214. (In Russ.). https://doi.org/10.37482/0536-1036-2023-4-202-214

In this paper we investigate a modern topic in the regional economics literature, namely the concept of microeconomic competitiveness. Particularly, we investigate the influence of the collaborative activities of the large and medium firms, as a regional prerequisite for cluster formation and development, and the relationship with various regional level performances. For years already, scholars debated within the economics literature if the regional clusters drive the regional performance. Therefore, we contribute to this stream of research through investigating if the specific conditions in the regional context, in our case the collaborative aspects of the companies operating in the region, influence the regional performance. Through a statistical analysis of the data provided by 40 best performers medium and large companies, operating in three regions for economic development in Romania, we found significant associations between the proposed variables. Specifically, we found that the regions in which the companies reported higher scores for proactivity regarding collaboration identification and formation, higher commitment for collaboration participation, respectively higher scores for their collaborative competences and abilities are the regions which also reported higher regional level performances. The results from our study are valuable for the regional economics literature since underline the fact that in order to build regional competitiveness, respectively to accelerate the economic growth and development, the existent companies operating in the regions also need to take some specific actions. The companies and firms play an important and active role in the regional economic development. In contrast to a ‘orthodox’ top-down approach for economic development, the paper brings support to the stream of research on regional economics which militates for collaboration between the public and private sector, and for regional development through microeconomics competitiveness building, local and regional.

University campuses are known to be a driving force of knowledge. Moreover, due to campuses’ impact on their surroundings, they are also considered as a driving force of physical, social, cultural, and economic change. Therefore, this paper conducts a statistical multi-variate analysis to uncover campus-neighbourhood interaction and the following socio-economic outcomes. Thirteen different variables related to 43 university campuses in Japan and their neighbourhoods’ attributes have been collected and measured. Principal component analysis and multi-linear regression analysis have been applied to uncover associations between selected variables. Additionally, k-means cluster analysis has been applied to discover hidden spatial trends between selected cases studies. Findings have shown that campuses located in highly urbanised accessible neighbourhoods create numerous benefits for students such as maximising students’ residential preferences and modes of transportation. The main outcome of this paper lies in providing the grounds for a holistic framework towards a better decision making for campus development.

This paper identifies the importance of reducing fixed costs for establishing industrial zones as part of an agglomeration policy. China's economic growth has been driven by the agglomeration of manufacturing firms via industrial zones that attract foreign direct investment. This investment enables the export of products by importing intermediate capital goods. According to the new trade theory of spatial economics, the number of firms in an agglomeration is inversely proportional to the fixed costs. The main accelerator of agglomeration after the master switch is the formation of segments that reduce firms' fixed costs. Via a factor analysis of manufacturing agglomeration segments in sequencing economics, this paper finds that "leased" industrial zones are accelerator segments in the formation process of manufacturing agglomerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scaling laws are an evaluation method used in many disciplines for frequency-based data. Various statistical methods have been developed to scale for different data types and applied in fields such as literature, physics, biology and economics. Zipf's law has also been used as a scaling law to reveal the distribution structure of many different datasets. The validity of Zipf's law also varies when tested with different data types and statistical methods. With this study, we test the validity of Zipf's law with patent data for Turkish cities. In this context, it is aimed to reveal whether the regional differences in the structure of patent distribution follow a scaling law. A data set covering 1995-2022 is used, and each province's patent data is classified geographically. Then, scaling for the patent data is measured in the context of Zipf's law. According to our results, Zipf's law regarding patent distribution in Turkish cities could not be accepted. On the other hand, the measured scaling coefficient for Turkish cities revealed that the geographical distribution of patents follows a power law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A “segment” is a component of the organization of an agglomeration. The organization of agglomeration is formed by the construction of segments. Manufacturing agglomeration segments can be divided into four main categories: human resources including engineers, physical infrastructure, institutions, and living environment. Each segment then has a specific function in the process of building industrial agglomeration. We focus on the process of building segments in agglomeration formation. We define a “brake segment” as a segment that has a “function” to decelerate the speed of the process. The purpose of this paper is to identify the existence of this brake segment in the process of constructing the segments of the manufacturing agglomeration. We obtained the following three results. First, a modified version of the spatial economic model yields that the number of agglomerated firms is inversely related to the wages of skilled workers. Second, a factor analysis of the data on investment environment costs indicates that in the case of the manufacturing industry, the number of agglomerated firms are inversely related to the wages of engineers. Third, the factor analysis of the six countries in the JBIC survey reveals that the segment that poses the investment issue in foreign direct investment in India is engineers as human capital. We conclude that engineers as human capital are a brake segment. The implication is that the sustained development of “engineers” as human capital is essential for the success of manufacturing industry agglomeration.