Growth and Change最新文献

Scholars have written descriptively about the relationship between suburbanization and central city decline. However, research has not produced systematic, quantitative estimates of the relationships between the components of suburbanization and vacancy—generally or amid urban decline. Such estimates are required to design effective policies that could protect against the social inequalities associated with such development patterns. This paper applies an economic framework of suburbanization and vacancy to 99 urbanized areas in the United States to estimate the impact on central city residential vacancy from 2013 to 2019. The results support the central hypothesis, that regional over-building contributes to central city vacancy, and that this impact is significantly magnified by the context of decline. Results show regional over-building causes central city vacancy in Shrinking Cities at 9.6 times the effect observed in other Principal Cities. Ameliorating factors vary between Shrinking and Non-Shrinking contexts.

Previous research suggests that having more self-employed or entrepreneurs can contribute to higher levels of economic growth in distressed areas. Additionally, self-employment in certain industries may be more beneficial to growth. Other research has linked industrial diversity to entrepreneurship and regional growth, especially in urban areas. However, the relationship between industrial diversity, self-employment, and growth in lagging or distressed regions is less clear. To examine these linkages in distressed areas, we first identify a group of distressed counties based on historic data. Then, using detailed industry-level self-employment data, we appraise whether having more self-employed from certain industries is associated with regional growth. We also analyze the relationship between industrial diversity and overall growth and the propensity to be self-employed. The results suggest that having more self-employment overall and in some key industries is associated with more employment growth in distressed counties. We also find that the relationship between economic diversity and self-employment varies by industry and region.

With the aggravation of congestion, pollution, and other negative externalities generated by continued urbanization, polycentric strategies have gradually become one of the main urban and regional spatial strategies. It remains unclear, however, whether the polycentric structure is conducive to regional coordinated development. This study examines these issues using China's urban agglomerations (UAs) as a sample. The Prolonged Artificial Nighttime-light Dataset of China (PANDA) was used to measure the polycentric structure. The results of the nonparametric identification of sub-centers show that almost all of China's UAs exhibit multiple (sub)centers, and the number of (sub)centers in most UAs has increased from 1992 to 2020. Empirical analysis shows that a polycentric structure is beneficial for narrowing regional disparities within the UA, and the narrowing effect of the polycentric structure on regional disparities increases as the distance between centers increases. Furthermore, a polycentric spatial structure is more conducive to the economic growth of small cities in UA, thereby promoting the coordinated development of regions within UA.

The rapid development of the Internet had a profound influence on the spatial distribution of economic output activities. On the basis of theoretical analysis, this study takes China's regions as research samples and construct a spatial econometric model to empirically analyze the impact of Internet development on regional productivity. The analysis reveals that the distribution of regional productivity in China had significant spatial correlation; regional productivity had positive spatial externalities; Internet development had significant promotion effects and positive spatial spillover effects to regional productivity, but the effects are heterogeneous in different subregions. The subregion analysis shows that the optimization effect of the Internet on regional productivity exhibits heterogeneity in different subregions. The threshold effect analysis reveals the increasing marginal effect of Internet development on regional productivity, and economic development and human capital supply are important factors restricting this marginal effect. Altogether, this study provides useful references on the positive effects of the Internet on regional productivity in the spatial dimension, and suggests that the policy makers can optimize the spatial distribution of regional productivity by promoting Internet access in various regions and narrowing the digital divide among regions.

Modern cluster theory provides reasons for positive external effects that accrue from the interaction of spatially proximate firms operating in common and related fields of economic activity. In this paper, we examine the impact of R&D-intensive clusters as a key factor of regional competitiveness on productivity growth. In relying on a hybrid approach of cluster identification, we examine effects of cluster specialization and diversity for a panel of German NUTS-3 regions in 2003–2019. After controlling for regional characteristics and unobserved heterogeneity, a robust cluster strength effect (i.e., specialization) on productivity growth is found within the context of conditional convergence across German regions. With regard to the underlying mechanisms, we find that the presence of multiple R&D-intensive clusters in specific technological fields is most strongly linked to higher levels of regional productivity growth. We also find that advantages from cluster specialization are strongest in key industrial sector such as automobile production, machinery, chemical and pharmaceutical products. Overall, our estimates particularly highlight the working of Marshallian externalities in productivity dynamics, while Jacobs-type spillovers tend to be partially realized. These findings indicate that some but not all cluster-based regional development strategies are promising policy tools to foster regional growth processes.

Using survey data of millennials and older adults in Hamilton, Ontario, this exploratory study sought to identify daily travelers based on their attitudes and perceptions toward transportation modes using latent class analysis. Four daily traveler types are identified—“walk and transit-oriented travelers,” “car-oriented commuters,” “multimodal travelers,” and “car-oriented travelers.” The study also examined the association of different sociodemographic characteristics and trip attributes with the four traveler types. Findings suggest that heterogeneity exists within travel-related attitudes among different traveler types. Further, heterogeneous traveler types exist among individuals belonging to the same generation, with the same living arrangements and possession of a driver's license.

Charter schools have become one of the most popular school choice programs in recent years. While being accused of endangering the fiscal health of local school districts, charter school proliferation could also be the result of fiscal stress of local school districts. However, this reverse causation has not been fully studied in the literature. Using data of local school districts in Ohio from 2011 to 2019, I adopt an Instrumental Variable approach to investigate the possible scenario that the rapid growth in charter school enrollment could be caused by fiscal stress of school districts. The results suggest that the inadequate funding from state and local sources had led to a significant increase in charter school enrollment for urban districts, although the charter demand is inelastic to public funding changes. Students could be left with no better options but to choose charter schools over failing traditional public schools.

This study empirically investigates the direct and indirect (spillover) effects of three types of industrial agglomeration with different cognitive distances, namely, industrial specialization, industrial related variety, and industrial unrelated variety, on regional innovation. Accordingly, we applied the concepts of related and unrelated variety and used spatial econometric analysis. Based on panel data of 283 Chinese cities from 2004 to 2016, the empirical results reveal that both industrial specialization and industrial related variety significantly improve regional innovation and produce positive spatial spillover effects on the surrounding regions. However, industrial unrelated variety has a significant negative impact on regional innovation and produces a negative spatial spillover effect on the surrounding regions. Moreover, the direct and indirect effects of the three types of industrial agglomeration on regional innovation between China's coastal and inland cities. The findings have important theoretical and policy implications.

Many studies in economics and regional science claim a positive link between interpersonal trust and innovation by demonstrating a positive effect of trust on patenting. This contrasts many findings from organization level studies on trust and innovation, who report a variety of findings including inverted-U type relations. A possible explanation is that trust exhibits different roles in invention and innovation, as the former relies on knowledge commons while the latter directly embeds commercialization and the market context. This study attempts to reconcile the two set of findings by studying indicators of invention and innovation in relation to trust at the same unit of observation, by using the regional variation in Europe. I study the relationship between interpersonal trust and patent applications (a measure of invention), trademark applications (a composite indicator) and the share of innovative sales in turnover by SMEs (a direct indicator of commercialization), across European regions. I show that trust positively affects trademark applications with an effect that is comparable to that on patent applications. However, trust exhibits an inverted-U type relationship with innovative sales. Results collectively point to a strong role of trust in all three creative activities, including a negative effect at the higher end when the indicator is directly contingent on commercialization and sales. I also estimate the extent of spatial spillovers in the effect of trust on all three creative outcomes.