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This article offers new evidence on agglomeration economies by examining the link between total factor productivity (TFP) and employment density in Italy. We investigate whether and how the TFP–density nexus contributes to explaining a relevant share of the marked productivity gap between the northern and the southern Italian regions. We estimate TFP for a large sample of manufacturing firms and then aggregate it at the level of local labour market areas. We tackle the endogeneity issues stemming from the presence of omitted covariates and reverse causation with an innovative set of diagnostic tests and an instrumental variable approach that relies on geological and historical data. Our estimate of the TFP elasticity to the spatial concentration of economic activities is about 0.045, a magnitude comparable to those measured for other developed countries. We also show that no significant heterogeneity emerges in the intensity of agglomeration economies across the country and that the positive TFP difference in favour of the firms located in the North is not due to the tougher competition taking place in those areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing returns to scale is essential to both spatial economics and macroeconomic growth. Spatial externalities imply external local increasing returns that generate an uneven spatial distribution of economic activity. While non-rival knowledge also implies increasing returns – in order to endogenise growth – this is not a spatial micro-foundation. Spatial theories of growth must be carefully specified to avoid unintended conclusions about the spatial economy and scale effects. This is demonstrated with a spatial endogenous growth model without scale effects that includes a spatial mechanism that facilitates agglomeration economies for innovation. In this class of models that combine spatial mechanisms with endogenous growth without scale effects, local increasing returns to scale imply that productivity, growth and interest rates are functions of the economy's spatial distribution, but not its scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of studies has investigated the geography of entrepreneurship in developed countries, with entrepreneurship researchers recently extending this topic to the developing country context. However, geography-oriented studies that consider extreme spatial differences in such contexts remain scarce. To address this gap, this paper provides a spatial-econometric analysis of the role of agglomeration economies and knowledge spillovers on start-up rates across cities in Turkey between 2009 and 2018 by considering extreme spatial differences, a common characteristic of many developing countries. By doing so, this paper determines whether the leading stylized facts that are empirically tested in developed countries hold for developing countries and analyses the extent to which extreme spatial differences matter to regional entrepreneurship performance. The spatial-econometric analysis also offers an evaluation of the mimicking effect, which examines how nearby cities influence each other in the new firm formation process. The econometric model reveals that while the entrepreneurial patterns of developed countries have some relevance to Turkey in general, the outcomes vary significantly between leading and lagging regions. This underscores the crucial importance of accounting for entrenched spatial disparities in developing countries when researching entrepreneurship and the need to identify suitable policy combinations for promoting local ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Export performance is a highly debated topic in the literature, with no consensus on how to measure it or what factors determine it. Most studies divide these factors into internal and external determinants, with a focus on internal determinants. This study, however, focuses on external determinants, namely agglomeration economies such as localization and urbanization economies and export spillovers, and their impact on a firm's export intensity. Based on a large sample of Portuguese manufacturing SMEs over the period 2010 to 2018 (191,920 firm/year observations), the estimation results through the two-stage least squares method with fixed effects strongly indicate the existence of a positive relationship between agglomeration economies, particularly localization economies and export spillovers, and export performance. These findings suggest that firms located in areas with a high concentration of other firms in the same industry and other exporting firms tend to have better export performance, which has important implications for policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates peer effects and agglomeration impacts on the cost efficiency of South Korean rice farms using a five-year panel dataset of production costs. We employed a time-varying stochastic frontier cost function approach to estimate cost efficiency and a linear-in-means model to quantify peer influences. The findings underscore peer effects as central to understanding and enhancing farm productivity, particularly in rice farming regions. Both specialisation and diversity of agglomeration positively influenced efficiency, with specialisation having a larger impact. Peer effects were stronger in highly rice-specialised areas. These findings indicate the necessity of incorporating peer influences and regional specialisation in agricultural policymaking for productivity enhancement. A nuanced, evidence-based approach leveraging peer dynamics and agglomeration economies is advocated to boost the efficiency of farming practices.

Agglomeration economies can bring about positive externalities, while excessive agglomeration backfires. However, existing literature on place‐based policies mainly focuses on policies that enhance agglomeration economies. Few studies discuss dispersion policies coping with the negative externality from excessive agglomeration. Owing to the unclear effects of dispersion policies, we conduct empirical research on the noncapital function relief (NCFR) policy, which is implemented to decrease the agglomeration in Beijing, the capital of China, and promote the development of surrounding areas. Exploiting the difference‐in‐difference model, we find that the NCFR policy implementation significantly facilitates the economic growth of the surrounding areas of Beijing. Changes in the distribution of new firm entry and population are two main channels, while no significant effect on the productivity is found. Furthermore, areas that are less‐developed could benefit more from the NCFR policy. Our findings may enlighten other developing countries in urban economic management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction of specialty towns is positioned as an important breakthrough and down-to-the-ground path in the implementation of China's new-type urbanization strategy. It highlights the roles of place-based industrial specialization and agglomeration economics. In this process, the Chinese government plays a supportive and guiding role in enabling and aligning multiple actors to engage with to build new platforms for innovation and entrepreneurial activities that integrate the functions of production, living, and ecology. The specialty towns construction strategy is aimed at promoting people-based urbanization and the regional ability of endogenous development. Given the "top-down" and standardization-led nature of the specialty towns policy program, implementation and practices at the local level are both challenging and problematic. This paper adopts perspectives and concepts from evolutionary economic geography and agglomeration economics to explore the antecedents and mechanisms of urbanization. It emphasizes the geographical spatiality of the program in local implementation. Taking 134 provincial specialty towns of Zhejiang province as research cases, the paper refers to a mixed set of methodologies of on-site, interview-based fieldwork; an online survey; and a document analysis to identify the historical foundations, industry attributes, and development objectives of the specialty towns. It also generates a typology of the 134 specialty towns, as well as a typological guideline regarding policy intervention for the broader implementation of specialty towns in China. Three main types of specialty towns are identified in our study: The first type is built on the basis of state-led, sci-tech industrial parks/new towns, whose development aims are oriented toward the development of new industrial paths. The second type is based on firm-led specialized markets located in small administrative towns that support the upgrading and renewal of existing local traditional industries. The third type is featured by the local presence of place-specific natural or sociocultural resources, and it is based on scenic spots. It is oriented to the development of the tourism economy. In conclusion, this study promotes the incorporation of evolutionary economic geography perspectives into the policy implementation of specialty towns and calls for taking the concepts of history, space, and place into account for a better understanding of these towns. By so doing, future policy methods will not be standardized, quota-based, and top-down.

This study examines the effects of South Korea’s Innovative City (IC) policy, which aims to redistribute public institutions to local cities to alleviate urban congestion and mitigate regional disparities. Utilizing the synthetic control method, this study evaluates the policy’s influence on local productivity and investigates its spillover effects. The findings reveal a marked increase in productivity within rural cities, highlighting the policy’s efficacy in less urbanized areas. However, the outcomes vary across different locales, with some urban ICs experiencing productivity enhancements, while rural ICs near expanding urban areas do not. Additionally, the study observes limited spillover effects in cities near ICs, indicating that indirect benefits are not uniformly distributed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatial dynamics of logistic allocation in large urban centers has gained relevance in urban economics, public policy formulation and transport engineering. A crucial aspect of these spatial, agglomerative, and dispersive phenomena are the causal links that such processes generate or by which they are generated. This study investigates the causal relationships linked to the allocation of logistics warehouses in the context of the sub-regions of the São Paulo Metropolitan Region (SPMR) based on the theory of agglomeration economies. Two variables related to the urban distribution of goods were selected: (a) Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and (b) Cargo Theft (CT) and contrasted with the number of logistics warehouses (NW). Five regions of the SPMR were considered both for spatial descriptive analysis and for the study of causality based on the Granger methodology, adapted by Hurlin, and on the cointegration methodology and Panel Vector Error Correction Model. For SPMR, the relationships obtained demonstrate, in the short term, unidirectional causalities between GDP/NW. In the short term, the causal relationship between CT/NW for the metropolitan region was unidirectional from the amount of cargo theft to the number of warehouses. The subregions showed strong heterogeneity in causal relationships, both in the short and long term, demonstrating the complexity of the logistical allocation phenomena in the SPMR. • Cargo theft is a crucial decision factor when installing a logistic warehouse. • The demand in high-GDP regions increases the need for nearby logistics services. • The number of warehouses affects long-term economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the economic significance of micro-enterprises, the empirical evidence on the contextual factors unlocking their growth potential is somewhat scant. This study pitches into this stream of research by linking micro-enterprises, agglomeration economies, and place attachment literature. Specifically, this research explores whether micro-enterprises benefit the most from the location in agglomerations and from having a local manager in charge of the business capturing the connections to the immediate surroundings. By drawing on secondary data from Italian manufacturing companies, our findings show that micro-enterprises are less productive than the larger ones and that having a local manager further exacerbates the productivity gap. However, the influence of place attachment on productivity reverts to positive when micro-enterprises dwell in agglomerated areas, where they are better positioned to capitalize on localization economies. Our study unveils the ambivalent effect of place attachment on productivity, allowing micro-enterprises mainly to achieve higher productivity gains from agglomerations. Theoretical contributions to contextualizing entrepreneurship research and micro-enterprises growth as well as policy and managerial implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to empirically analyse the relationship between technological intensity profile and local socio‐economic development, using the theories of path dependence and microregional agglomeration economies. We applied the technique of linear hierarchical modelling with data from 645 municipalities in Brazil. Our results demonstrated that current municipal socio‐economic development could be explained by the local technological path itself but even more so by the technological intensity of the microregion. This article's contribution lies in its union of two theoretical perspectives and its adoption of a quantitative approach, allowing for the analysis of municipal development at two levels, local and microregional. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction of specialty towns is positioned as an important breakthrough and down-to-theground path in the implementation of China's new-type urbanization strategy. It highlights the roles of placebased industrial specialization and agglomeration economics. In this process, the Chinese government plays a supportive and guiding role in enabling and aligning multiple actors to engage with to build new platforms for innovation and entrepreneurial activities that integrate the functions of production, living, and ecology. The specialty towns construction strategy is aimed at promoting people-based urbanization and the regional ability of endogenous development. Given the "top-down" and standardization-led nature of the specialty towns policy program, implementation and practices at the local level are both challenging and problematic. This paper adopts perspectives and concepts from evolutionary economic geography and agglomeration economics to explore the antecedents and mechanisms of urbanization. It emphasizes the geographical spatiality of the program in local implementation. Taking 134 provincial specialty towns of Zhejiang province as research cases, the paper refers to a mixed set of methodologies of on-site, interview-based fieldwork; an online survey; and a document analysis to identify the historical foundations, industry attributes, and development objectives of the specialty towns. It also generates a typology of the 134 specialty towns, as well as a typological guideline regarding policy intervention for the broader implementation of specialty towns in China. Three main types of specialty towns are identified in our study: The first type is built on the basis of state-led, sci-tech industrial parks/new towns, whose development aims are oriented toward the development of new industrial paths. The second type is based on firm-led specialized markets located in small administrative towns that support the upgrading and renewal of existing local traditional industries. The third type is featured by the local presence of place-specific natural or sociocultural resources, and it is based on scenic spots. It is oriented to the development of the tourism economy. In conclusion, this study promotes the incorporation of evolutionary economic geography perspectives into the policy implementation of specialty towns and calls for taking the concepts of history, space, and place into account for a better understanding of these towns. By so doing, future policy methods will not be standardized, quota-based, and top-down. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The musicians' working scenario is characterized by unstable employment, professional oversupply, and competition. To cope with uncertainty musicians frequently migrate to artistic cities for more working and learning opportunities. We introduce dynamical aspects in a well-known model of artistic goods' production, to shed light on artists' career choices. The model shows that leaving the city the musicians are in is always a possible choice and when artists decide to migrate their behavior may follow cycles. Finally, the model suggests that the musicians' working scenario is complex and mutable; therefore, to properly interpret the results, several aspects are to be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of high-tech firms is a vital driver for the economic growth of a city but their distribution and location determinants at the intra-urban level are still unclear. We aim to deepen the understanding of location determinants of high-tech firms, so we construct an analytical framework and use GeoDetector to investigate high-tech firms in Shenzhen based on firms and POI open data in 2023. We find that high-tech firms are distributed in a spatial pattern of ‘one core and six clusters’ with high density in the western area despite industrial heterogeneity. Agglomeration economies and amenity-based factors play a significant role in the distribution of high-tech firms. Institutional factors and classical locational factors have more significant effects on the location of high-tech service and manufacturing firms, respectively. This study contributes to the literature on study spatial units, the influence of amenities, and industrial specificities. These findings highlight public policies on industrial park planning, transportation systems, and public services.

Copyright of Revista Venezolana de Gerencia (RVG) is the property of Revista de Filosofia-Universidad del Zulia 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.)

We focus on the extent to which polycentric urban regions can substitute for the agglomeration economies provided by large cities. Building on an open‐source software tool that helps identifying polycentric developments in urban regions, we analyse the spatial structure (in terms of size, dispersion and polycentricity) of 94 regions across 34 European countries and link this to their level of total factor productivity. We find that both more polycentric regions and more dispersed regions are associated with lower productivity levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The benefits derived from the spatial concentration of economic units, resulting from the close positioning of firms, may stem from economies of scale, a technical labor pool, low transportation and communication costs, and technology transfers. However, for this concentration to be effectively evaluated and regional policies to be developed efficiently for economic growth and development, spatial concentration measurements need to be consistent. At this point, attention is drawn to the modifiable areal unit problem (MAUP), a problem encountered in spatial analysis arising from the use of aggregated data and administrative boundaries, which impacts spatial analysis results. This study outlines the MAUP issue in the literature, emphasizes proposed solutions, and evaluates the impact of MAUP on measurements of the spatial concentration of economic activities. In a general assessment, it can be concluded that an unrestricted spatial structure and the use of personalized spatial data are crucial for mitigating MAUP effects. Additionally, in studies related to the spatial concentration of economic activities, approaches utilizing cluster-based indicators tend to neglect MAUP, while distance-based approaches are noted to minimize MAUP effects from various perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop an urban growth model where human capital spillovers foster entrepreneurship and learning in heterogeneous cities. Incumbent residents limit city expansion through planning regulations so that commuting and housing costs do not outweigh productivity gains from agglomeration. The model builds on strong microfoundations, matches key regularities at the city and economy‐wide levels, and generates novel predictions for which we provide evidence. It can be quantified by relying on few parameters and gives us a basis to estimate them. We examine counterfactuals relaxing planning regulations or constraining city growth to assess the effect of cities on economic growth and aggregate output. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACTThis study investigates spatial autocorrelation and the formation of spatial export clusters of Brazilian mesoregions based on technological intensity. It also analyzes how regional knowledge and agglomeration economies explain regional exports, using spatial econometric techniques. Brazilian exports exhibit a stronger spatial autocorrelation. Non-manufacturing sectors, which are less technology-intensive, exhibit lower spatial dependence than manufacturing sectors. The results also show an autocorrelation between exports and R&D expenditure, identifying the formation of clusters in the southeastern and southern regions. R&D expenditure fosters the growth of regional exports and the spatial lag effects of exports and R&D expenditure are significant in the high technology-intensive manufacturing sector.

Commercial gentrification is a common cause of urban transformation in modern cities. Former residential and industrial areas are being transformed into commercial ones specializing in the food and beverage (F&B) industry because of their unique atmosphere. However, F&B businesses in the gentrified commercial areas are prone to intense competition for survival that debate on the emerging commercial street's sustainability. Thus, this study analyzed F&B street businesses' survival characteristics where commercial gentrification has occurred. The research site was selected among Seoul's commercial streets by performing data analysis. The Cox proportional hazards model and urban spatial indicators were used to analyze the factors affecting survival time. The research findings were as follows: First, physical attractiveness, such as openness or visual accessibility, lowered the closure risk. Second, accessibility to cultural facilities or open spaces was beneficial for the nearby F&B demands; however, it occasionally intensified the competition. Finally, competitive businesses' agglomeration increased the closure risk, while non-competitive ones' agglomeration and diversification decreased it. This research's results could be useful for policymakers in promoting a more sustainable business environment for F&B entrepreneurs.

This article studies how three sets of regional factors—knowledge, agglomeration, and openness—impact and interact differently with startups and incumbent firms in their innovative capacity building. Based on a large dataset of Chinese high‐tech firms, regression analysis shows that the speed of growing startup innovative capacity relies positively on regional knowledge stock and localization economies. In addition to regional knowledge stock, incumbent innovative capacity building benefits from urbanization economies and regional openness. Favorable regional factors, including the presence of universities and the clustering of knowledge‐intensive peers, also enable startups (but not incumbents) to leverage internal knowledge assets into their innovative capacity. The results suggest that it is not only the access to the external knowledge environment but also proactive endeavors to cross‐fertilize between internal and external knowledge that underlie the eco‐systemic nature of startup innovative capacity building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines a regional economic model within the framework of welfare economics under various economic and spatial constraints. These constraints include decreased local budgets, limited conditions for markets for goods and services, markets for factors of production, public goods, and fewer opportunities of agglomeration economies. In many areas of a given region, such constraints can be more evident, partly because of external forces of severe economic competition among different regions and countries. Unless effective planning and policy remedies are considered, these regions may cause obstacles to pursuing stable and sustainable growth and development. This paper presents the sustainable resilience policy of a generalised framework of smart planning strategy that uses an intra- and inter-regionally coordinated cooperative networking system. The regional economic model used in this paper reveals that the system may work sufficiently only if the scale and scope of coordination are optimally organised because of the presence of the barriers of physical distance; complexity of contracts; and other economic, spatial, and administrative restrictions. Our scenario enables the region not only to passively receive incoming external economies but also to actively discharge the spill-over effect to others, which forces involved economic agents to cooperate rather than compete. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As production and economic activities shaped the growth of cities during the pre-industrial era, they are still the most important factors explaining modern urbanization. Economic restructuring is being reshaped with agglomeration economies, bringing spatial restructuring with it. Regional economic growth, emergence of new centers and production foci are formed in the equilibria of positive and negative externalities of agglomeration. Positive externalities do not arise solely from internal economies of scale related to factors of production such as easy accessibility in the region. It also results from external economies of scale, including economies of localization and urbanization. On the other hand, as cities grow the attractiveness of large agglomeration and advantages of economies of scale decrease. Negative externalities in the larger agglomerations may eventually lead to decreasing returns to scale in cities. Economic view of regional science and geography considers cities maintaining equilibrium between two competing forces, i.e., centripetal forces (agglomeration) and centrifugal forces (dispersion). This study examines recent agglomeration and dispersion processes in the settlement pattern from the relationship between urbanization and economic growth. To do so, we take Izmir as a case and use general explanatory variables such as population and employment. Specifically, we investigate spatial agglomeration in the Izmir city region and metropolitan area by using population and employment data of 2009 and 2019. Based on empirical results, we discuss new sub-regions, urban centers, and clustering that emerged due to economies of scale as well as positive and negative externalities of agglomeration.

Numerous studies have established strong connections between air traffic and economic growth at the regional level. However, without consideration of individual airports' immediate vicinities, this aggregate view can lead to an overly simplistic conclusion about the role of airports in their urban environment. The impact of airports on local economic development is evaluated through a case study of Brisbane Airport by using primary data sourced from semi-structured interviews and a survey. The results demonstrate that the role of airports as transport hubs is not the dominant mechanism that drives industries to locate in airport areas. Rather, the local urban context is a dominant driver for development in and around airports. Based on the survey and interview results, urbanization economies have the highest significance on the landside industrial location decision, with a mean of 3.53 in terms of importance level. The findings provide a reference for policymakers regarding investment in airport expansion or construction, as well as a refinement of the understanding of the local economic impact of airports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a new unified theoretical general equilibrium model in which the interactions between heterogeneous workers and firms influence heterogeneous city evolutions. Given the heterogeneous worker–firm–city framework, I study in depth the possible heterogenous city evolutions and the resulting implications on the labor market, as well as on overall productivity. In particular, it is shown that the same exogenous shocks may lead to completely different results depending on the relative dominance of the two countervailing effects of congestion and agglomeration. In an open economy setting, it is also shown that such relative dominance may affect the trading partner and generate the comovement of city evolution in each country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Manufacturing activities are at the heart of contemporary capitalist economies, with observable geographical patterns of production. Debates about the interconnections between transportation technology advancements and land use acknowledge that airports can influence the spatial distribution of firms, including those involved in manufacturing. However, the manufacturing-related literature describes the land-use mix of airports and their surroundings without an in-depth spatial economic analysis of the firms positioned near airports. This study aimed to conduct a spatial economic analysis of manufacturing firms positioned in the environs of Cape Town International Airport, South Africa. Primary data were collected through survey interviews conducted with the representatives of 23 manufacturing firms situated in the environs of the airport. The study discovered the potential existence of a spatial cluster of manufacturing firms. This cluster is characterized by dense inter- and intraindustry linkages within the study area. It is recommended that planning authorities and other stakeholders augment the clustering of manufacturing firms in the vicinity of Cape Town International Airport, which comprises firms with direct and indirect linkages with the airport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to empirically analyze the difference in the closure rate of the commercial district according to the industry structure of the commercial district. Theoretically, the larger the number of stores in a commercial district, the greater the positive externality caused by the agglomeration economies in consumption, namely, the external economies of scale. However, the agglomeration economies could occur from comparison shopping or one-stop shopping, depending on the business structure of the commercial district. According to the empirical results of the regression analysis of all 1164 commercial districts in Korea, the more specialized a commercial district is by stores in a specific industry, the lower the closure rate of that commercial district. This means that the agglomeration economies in consumption are driven by comparison shopping rather than by one-stop shopping and implies that it is necessary to introduce incentives that allow stores in the same industry to cluster together in terms of policy. Meanwhile, if the closure is limited to a specific industry, it will cause an endogeneity problem since it affects the industry structure of the commercial district. Considering this, as a result of additional estimation by 2SLS and GMM using instrumental variables, the error in estimation due to the endogeneity problem was not large, confirming that COVID-19 corresponds to an overall external shock that is not limited to a specific industry. In addition, this paper presents diagnostic indicators for commercial districts to measure the impact of COVID-19. Through this, it will be possible to alleviate conflicts between social classes over compensation or subsidies for sanctions for quarantine. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first time to use all commercial districts in Korea for a research in evaluating the impact of COVID-19, and empirical results on agglomeration economies focusing on the consumption side are limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades the importance of space exploration and its associated economy and industry have grown significantly. Beyond its scientific, technological, and engineering advantages space exploration has created significant direct and indirect socioeconomic benefits. Apart from economic growth, employment, and providing a fiscal contribution, these benefits include cultural, educational, environmental, and social benefits that can be termed community capitals. There are important distributional aspects to these benefits manifested in the way that the space sector is becoming a propulsive industry within the activity complex form of agglomeration economy. In regard to this potential impact on urban and regional economic development, it appears that the space industry can make a significant contribution to realising the policy objectives of levelling up in the United Kingdom (UK) and cohesion policy in the European Union (EU). The agency of this development is the evolution of industrial strategies and policies based upon the concept and practice of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) which evolves its space variant, Space 4.0. This article explores these possibilities from UK and EU perspectives to address the question of whether the space sector is becoming a key propulsive driver of regional policy in general and levelling up in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We estimate static and dynamic agglomeration effects on earnings among university graduates using Swedish longitudinal population register data. The prime interest lies with whether and how the dynamic effects of big city work experience vary by observed ability of workers and whether the effects are portable after relocation. Urban wage premium and spatial sorting of university graduates are analysed by using information on school grades, parental education and university rank. We find that the value of accumulated big city work experience increases with observed ability. The dynamic premium of working in bigger cities is not lost when moving to smaller cities, suggesting that it reflects learning effects and human capital accumulation. Our findings indicate systematic spatial sorting on observed indicators of ability as well as on unobserved productive traits. Sorting on unobserved abilities is driven primarily by graduates in the upper part of the observed ability distribution and is apparent also when taking dynamic learning effects into consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well-established that firms leverage both internal and external resources for their innovation activities. Even though the role of agglomeration economies in shaping the external resources available to firms has been particularly well-studied it is still unclear whether it is diversity or specialisation within agglomerations that drives firm innovativeness. We suggest that both do but that their relations with firm innovativeness are moderated by managerial industry experience. Using data from four South-East Asian economies we find that managers with more industry experience are better able to make the most of where they are, leveraging the opportunities afforded by their geographic environment. This finding is most pronounced in rural areas where firms with inexperienced managers almost never innovate, whereas half of the firms with experienced managers do. This suggests that future agglomeration research should be attentive to firm-level idiosyncrasies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Design for Resilience in Architecture & Planning is the property of Journal of Design for Resilience in Architecture & Planning 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 considers agglomeration economies. A new firm is planning to open a plant in a country divided into several regions. Each firm receives a positive externality if the new plant is located in its region. In a decentralized mechanism, the plant would be opened in the region where the new firm maximizes its individual benefit. Due to the externalities, it could be the case that the aggregate utility of all firms is maximized in a different region. Thus, the firms in the optimal region could transfer something to the new firm in order to incentivize it to open the plant in that region. We propose two rules that provide two different schemes for transfers between firms already located in the country and the newcomer. The first is based on cooperative game theory. This rule coincides with the τ -value, the nucleolus, and the per capita nucleolus of the associated cooperative game. The second is defined directly. We provide axiomatic characterizations for both rules. We characterize the core of the cooperative game. We prove that both rules belong to the core. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last three decades, the rise and growth of knowledge-based economies have become central to the economic development of global and local economies. However, the 2008 crisis and the subsequent major economic restructuring process requires that we re-build our understanding of the knowledge economy (KE). Based on the foundations of recent agglomeration economies, the article discusses the relation between the knowledge economies and the spatial reconfiguration of regions and economic restructuring during a period of expansion (2000–2007) and a period of recession (2007–2015) using the case of the Madrid city-region. The article finds that: (1) the KE in metropolitan regions is anchored in a multicore network composed of a large or first-rank city and some medium-sized or second-rank cities; (2) employment in the KE is more resilient to a crisis period than other industries; (3) second-rank cities respond better than first-rank cities to a recession; (4) the city's hierarchy profile (first- or second-rank) influences the KE's sectorial composition; (5) the KE locates in relation to a complex combination of agglomeration economies, functions, amenities, and proximity to the metropolitan core. Finally, results also suggest that localisation economies and the cities' economic functions are important for the KE concentration and specialisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the net effect of agglomeration on entrepreneurship depends on the trade-off between positive and negative effects, urban agglomeration can either promote or discourage entrepreneurial activity in theory. However, there is an unexpected shortage of empirical confirmations on this potential cause-and-effect relationship. Our study strives to fill this empirical gap by providing credible evidence whether agglomeration, measured by the urban density or population, increases the probability of individuals being self-employed. Based on the China Labor-Force Dynamic Survey of 2012, 2014, and 2016, we find that big cities fail to facilitate individuals to start or run their own businesses. Further analyses illustrate that the entrepreneurs in large cities can be easily tempted by a wider range of salaried opportunities and are generally exposed to high fixed costs and intense competition. In contrast, entrepreneurship in large cities is of high reward. These results serve as direct evidence of the co-existence of agglomeration diseconomies and economies. This also suggests the direction of government policy in large cities, which is to alleviate, as much as possible, the negative impact on entrepreneurs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Central Asian Economic Review is the property of Narxoz University 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.)

Herein we augment the traditional devolved environmental interjurisdictionalcompetition model with specific firm mobility in the presence of agglomeration economies. Now the number of firms in a jurisdiction becomes pertinent in the story of decentralized efficiency. Specifically, when agglomeration forces are sufficiently strong, firm movement is subdued. Placed-based environmental policies aimed at swaying a firm's location decision are rendered relatively ineffective. As a result, jurisdictions possess incentives to excessively overprotect environmental quality - a race-to-the-top. Firm taxation effects on devolved efficiency are also examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the productivity advantage of large cities for creative industries (CIs) in China. Using Chinese firm‐level data for CIs from 2012 to 2014, we find that agglomeration economies, rather than firm selection, determine the difference between the productivity distributions of CIs in large and small cities. There are heterogeneous effects of agglomeration economies, with stronger impacts on productive firms and firms in broadcasting and TV & film. We also find that the productivity advantage of large cities for CIs is stronger when the cities have better communication and transportation infrastructure. Our results imply that the efficacy of place‐based policies for developing CIs depends on local infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The large and persistent wage gap between the Bangkok Metropolitan Region and its peripheries remains a major concern for policymakers and civil society. Theoretically, these regional disparities exist due to differences in workforce skills and the local characteristics of the regions. This study empirically investigates the sources of spatial wage disparity in Thailand using data sets from the Labor Force Survey, the Industrial Census, geospatial data, and satellite imagery for the years 2007, 2012, and 2017. The two-stage estimation method was applied, and the soil clay content was used as the instrumental variable for correcting endogeneity and variable bias omission. The results show that workers' education and experience affect the wage differential. Other than individual skills, workers also benefited from the agglomeration externalities of large cities. Specifically, the effect of agglomeration externalities on wages in Thailand was found to be statistically significant. To overcome the paradox of a low urbanization rate and high urban primacy in Thailand, this study suggests the establishment of multiple regional cities that create high agglomeration externalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reasons for changes in ranking within urban systems are a matter of a wide and long debate. Some focus on a continuous and smooth ordering of cities by their size within the urban system, in the tradition of Zipf's law. Others focus on discrete, discontinuous ordering, as cities take on functions at different levels, such as specialized market places or high-level education, in the tradition of Christaller. We enter the debate by empirically evaluating whether the same determinants explain continuous or discrete changes in urban ranks in the evolution of the Italian urban hierarchy over the years 1971 to 2011. We empirically show that small, continuous changes of cities' ranks have different drivers than large, discontinuous leaps. The presence of high-level functions in a city predicts major leaps across discrete ranks. Results are robust to the use of an instrumental variable strategy based on a shift–share argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]