Growth and Change最新文献

Industrial poverty alleviation is one of the most important aspects of targeted poverty alleviation. Identifying the mechanism influencing the spatial differentiation of the benefits of industrial poverty alleviation plays an essential role in optimising an industrial layout for poverty alleviation, consolidating poverty alleviation achievements, and revitalising rural industries. This study examined the spatial distribution characteristics and influencing factors of the benefits of industrial poverty alleviation at the village level using the household data collected from Jiangjin District, Chongqing, China. The results show that the benefits of industrial poverty alleviation presented obvious spatial differentiation in the villages with the overall performance being high in the north and low in the south and decreasing from the south of the county to the north and south. Spatially, there was a significant positively correlated agglomeration effect. High-value agglomeration areas were concentrated in the north with the characteristics of ‘one centre and two subcentres’. However, low-value and outlier agglomeration effects were not obvious, presenting sporadic distribution. Seven major factors affect industrial poverty alleviation in Jiangjin District, including average altitude and land transfer rate. The interaction between any two of the seven factors has a more significant impact than that of a single factor.

The paper analyzes the relationship between agglomeration economies (urbanization, specialization, and diversity) and firm-level performance during a period of deep economic downturn (2011–2018). We use data from the National Survey of Economic Activities for eight Tunisian manufacturing industries to explore which agglomeration externalities matter most for firm performance after the revolution. The analysis considers, in addition, the role played by selected firm-specific characteristics. The empirical results, based on a multilevel analysis approach, sanction the importance of firm-specific determinants of productivity and exporting. They also indicate that only specialization externalities have a positive and significant effect on firms' performance. The replicate results during a period of economic stability (1998–2004) show, however, that specialization and urbanization economies are both relevant predictors of firms' productivity and that more productive firms, in particular the smaller ones, are better able to benefit from agglomeration. This finding has not been confirmed for the post-revolutionary period.

Return migration has been considered advantageous to the productivity of labor and the economic development of origin regions and countries. However, how and why return migrants make their investment decisions and how such processes contribute to poverty alleviation remains unclear. This study evaluated how migration experience influences rural families' choices for productive investments and the underlying mechanism of village poverty alleviation. The result indicates that, when all are given the same monetary budgets, return migrants are more inclined to invest in single agricultural-related subjects rather than multiple subjects. A concentrated investment implies the investor's intention of expanding the production scale, which can further lead to a more organized, professional agricultural production that can be considered beneficial for community poverty alleviation. Moreover, different approaches of human capital accumulation led to varied capacity growth, among which migration experience effectively enhances the non-cognitive ability of return migrants. Based on these findings, we suggest that more returnee-preferential policies, supporting production and organization services should be established to promote agricultural entrepreneurship among the returning groups in poor rural areas.

Kain's spatial mismatch hypothesis (SMH) (1968) highlights the segregation of Black population in the inner city as well as the decentralization of jobs, both of which played a role in the poor labor market outcomes for Black residents in the inner city. Demographic and economic changes in U.S. metropolitan areas since the late 20th century have transformed the urban spatial structure. This paper aims to revisit the SMH and investigate whether the spatial pattern of mismatch has changed as a result of geographic shifts in the Black population. This paper specifically examines how the suburbanization of the Black population has affected the geographic patterns of mismatch and whether the mismatch is disappearing in the major U.S. metropolitan areas. Using spatial measures of mismatch, this paper presents intra-metropolitan spatial mismatch patterns that capture the clustering of jobs and the Black population based on their relative distributions, showing that the overall level of spatial mismatch declined in major U.S. metropolitan areas between 2000 and 2015. However, geographical evidence reveals that the spatial mismatch has shifted to the outer suburbs, replicating city-suburb spatial inequality, implying that although mismatch may have declined in the inner city due to Black suburbanization, spatial mismatch continue to persist in U.S. metropolitan areas in Black suburbs. The findings also demonstrate that although spatial mismatch generally declined in the inner city, it increased in cities with high inner city polarization, particularly New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Seattle.

Many new university campuses have been built in suburban areas where transit and service facilities are negligible. However, few studies explore the educational and transportation equity issues related to campus location. Based on a 2017 survey comprising 1673 students on 37 campuses in Shanghai, this study applied multilevel models to examine the association between the built environment around campuses and university students' travel behaviors. In particular, we focused on the travel that students undertake for self-improvement activities (e.g., internships and education-related activities) because this type of travel plays an important role in improving students' abilities and promoting their career development. We found that students on suburban campuses, which are characterized by being farther away from the city center, being single land use, and having fewer transit services, engage in fewer and longer trips to self-improvement destinations. However, students studying on urban campuses, which are characterized by mixed land use and greater accessibility to the city center and subway service, engage in more frequent and shorter trips to self-improvement destinations. Therefore, students on suburban campuses are at a disadvantage regarding educational opportunities and access to transportation to engage in self-improvement activities off campus.

This study identifies determinants of the variation in depression resulting from COVID-19, specifies in detail the changes to daily life, and then compares the determinants' magnitude. The determinants were combined into three groups: first, the unpredictability of the disease and side effects by its response measures (specifically, restrictions on the freedom of movement and strain on social relationships); second, (mis)information through social media, public authorities, and mass media; and third, income reductions and other sociodemographic factors. Daily life changes were divided into four categories: travel/mobility, time at home (alone and with family), domestic activities (remote work, online shopping, food deliveries, reading, and online networking), and conflicts (with family and neighbors). We measured the total 29 predictors using data from the 2020 Seoul Survey, which is based on face-to-face interviews with a probability sample of adult residents. We made our estimations using partial least squares regression, which can analyze all original variables regardless of collinearity. The regression model found that major stressors include declines in out-of-home offline networking and the rise of domestic activities—and subsequent conflicts with family—restrictions on mobility (specifically, those of leisure travel), and income reductions. In contrast, changes to working and shopping (to remote work and online shopping) rather than leisure increased uses of private transportation modes. Moreover, we found influences of all forms of communications and media to be insignificant. We shall also provide a discussion on policy and academic implications of the findings.

This research adds to the literature on locational determinants of business survival by focusing on an establishment's proximity to fixed assets. Using longitudinal, establishment-level data from rural counties in the Midwestern United States, we developed a hazard model to estimate the likelihood of rural businesses surviving the Great Recession and the recovery that followed (2007–2017). Two critical survival factors are of principal interest: proximity to a pre-automobile era downtown business district and proximity to a limited-access highway ramp. The results suggest that highway proximity enhances survival for manufacturing, transportation, and wholesaling establishments, as does own-industry agglomeration. For food, retail, and accommodation businesses, proximity to cultural anchor institutions enhances the probability of survival but competitive effects, including downtown proximity, reduce the likelihood of survival. On its own, proximity to a downtown was not associated with higher odds of business survival.

This paper investigates how human capital agglomeration interplays with institutional factors to affect migration destination choice in China. Over the last decades, China has experienced massive internal migration, substantial human capital investment, and the relaxation of its hukou system, thus providing us with a valuable opportunity to examine the role of human capital externality in migration choice. Based on rich data on province-to-province migration flows for different education and hukou groups, we find that migrants in China, especially highly educated and urban-to-urban migrants, have a strong preference to move to provinces with a high agglomeration of human capital. Further examination reveals that low-skilled migrants in China are less likely to benefit from human capital agglomeration because of their lower ability to overcome hukou restrictions. Our findings raise the concern that labor migration under the skill-biased hukou system would enlarge China's regional disparities in human capital and economic development.

Legal land transfer rights are the core of farmers' land property rights. This paper examines the urban-rural income distribution effect of legal land transfer rights, revealing the reasons and mechanisms for legal land transfer rights to reduce the urban-rural income disparity. Theoretical analysis shows that granting farmers legal land transfer rights and enhancing the protection of land transfer rights can help promote rural labor migration, thereby reducing the urban-rural income disparity. This study uses panel data of prefecture-level and above cities in China from 1999 to 2008 to examine the implementation of China's Rural Land Contracting Law in 2003 as a quasi-natural experiment to construct a difference-in-differences (DID) model for the empirical test. The findings reveal that legal land transfer rights can effectively promote rural labor migration and reduce the urban-rural income disparity due to labor migration. This paper's analysis provides a perspective for understanding the integrated development of urban and rural areas in developing countries. It indicates that guaranteeing farmers' land transfer rights is important for reducing urban-rural income disparity, leading to urban-rural integrated development.