Annals of Regional Science最新文献

In this paper, we present results of a land-use forecasting model that we calibrated with vast geo-referenced data of a major metropolitan area. Each land parcel includes information concerning regulations indicating permitted land-uses as well as the certain characteristics of existing buildings. Data concerning all real estate transactions include information about the assets and the price of the exchanges. Based on these data we estimated the spatial dynamics of land values in the metropolitan area over time and identified locations experiencing development pressures. This analysis allows us to forecast plausible futures of the urban spatial configuration. Taking the approach one step further, we propose simulations motivated by the natural experiment of COVID 19. We assumed that part of the behavioral changes observed during the pandemic will endure. The resulting simulations provide forecasts of the future spatial structure of the metropolitan area. Comparing the actual and the forecasted scenarios we interpret the spatial dynamics of the city as they would be if a business-as-usual-pre-Covid-19 scenario is realized, and possible trend changes if the impact of the pandemic is long lasting.

This paper examines the role of regional poverty on the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA. It also explores how the effects differ with the concentration of ethnic minorities. We find that poverty is a significant and consistent determinant of higher COVID-19 infections and fatalities. Prevalent poverty areas experienced higher infections due to economic structure that require hypermobility (high mobility and interpersonal interaction)-more physical human to human contact resulting in higher deaths from limited access to health services. These are also regions where minority groups are concentrated. Disproportionate infections and fatalities occurred within the black, Hispanic, and Asian population. Our evidence is robust to state fixed effects that capture local COVID-19 mitigation policies, multi-level hierarchical modeling, spatial autoregressive assessment, and large sets of county-level health, social, and economic factors. This paper contributes to the literature on health and economic disparities and their resulting consequences for infectious diseases.

This paper presents a simultaneous equation, knowledge and perception-based averting behavior model of health risk caused by air pollution, with application to the Jinchuan mining area, China. Three types of averting behavior are distinguished: (a) purchases of purifying equipment, plants, or masks; (b) purchases of preventive or curing medication or food; and (c) adjustment of daily outdoor activities. Two types of perceived health risk are distinguished: (a) risk due to the intensity of exposure and (b) risk caused by the hazardousness of pollutants. The estimations show that an increase in perceived air pollution of two or more days a week leads to a restriction of outdoor activities of approximately 90 min per person per week. Another result is that the average annual household expenditure on air filters, foods, or medicines is 206.25 CNY (US$ 31.73) to prevent the hazardousness of air pollution. The total willingness to pay for air quality improvement is 2.95% of annual net household income. Because air quality improving investments can only be implemented in the medium or long run, daily disclosure of air quality is an adequate short-run policy handle to assist residents to take the right kind and level of risk-reducing actions.

We examine the trajectory of regional income dynamics in Colombia. Using data on all 33 Colombian departments from 2000 to 2016, we employ extensions of (spatial) Markov chains, space-time mobility measures, along with a fully weighted version of the distribution analysis approach. By considering these extensions, our analysis enables us to answer questions such as whether the role of spatial context influences the distributional dynamics of Colombian departments, or the magnitude of the moderating effect of department's population. The inclusion of additional measures such as the asymptotic half-life of convergence provides additional results, informing on how long it would take to reach the hypothetical long-run distribution of per capita income. Results, which are reported for both pre- and post-2008 trends, complement previous literature on regional economic convergence in a relevant South American context, showing stronger convergence patterns when controlling for the population living in each department. The patterns do not particularly intensify when controlling for spatial spillovers, since the role of spatial context was already playing a relevant role from the beginning of the period analyzed. Therefore, although the ergodic distributions show a conditional-convergence pattern, addressing the problems of spatial exclusion fully, persistent polarization among geographical departments and populations, along with the relevant core-periphery gaps, still requires the design and implementation of specific policies.

Regional science has, in its great history since the 1950s, made a decisive contribution to a better scientific understanding of spatial development issues and dynamics and to a more effective implementation of knowledge-based regional policy in many countries of the world, in both developed and developing nations on our planet. This special issue of the annals of regional science, titled "Spotlight on the Region", celebrates the scholarly importance and impact of the late Roger Stough on regional science. The issue is comprised of fourteen self-standing on regional and urban development and highlights the critical importance of regional and urban dimensions in sustainable development. They confirm once more the seminal significance of the contributions of one of the great giants in regional science, Roger Stough.

One of the main challenges facing non-metropolitan regions is the attraction and retention of highly-educated young people. A loss of the brightest can lead to reduced business creation, innovation, growth and community well-being in such regions. We use rich longitudinal microdata from New Zealand to analyse the determinants and geography of the choice of destination of recent university and polytechnic graduates 2 years and 4 years after graduation. Rather than considering a range of location-specific consumption and production amenities, we assume spatial equilibrium and calculate, following Chen and Rosenthal (J Urban Econ 64:519-537, 2008), 'quality of life' and 'quality of business' indicators for urban areas that encompass all amenities that are utility and/or productivity enhancing (or reducing, in the case of disamenities). Specifically, we test whether students locate in places that are regarded as good to live or good to do business; and how this differs by field of study. Our estimates are conditional on students' prior school (home) location and the location of their higher education institution. We find that graduates are attracted to locate in urban places that have high quality production amenities. High quality consumption amenities have heterogeneous effects on the location choice of students. Creative arts and commerce graduates are relatively more likely to locate in places that are attractive to business, consistent with a symbiosis between bohemians and business. Decision makers can leverage their existing local strengths, in terms of production and/or consumption amenities, to act as drawcards for, or to retain, recent graduates in specific fields.

An important channel through which less developed European countries have grown over the past twenty years is through the industrial transformation of their economies from low to higher value-added activities. The aim of the paper is to address the role of industrial transformation on regional imbalances, by analysing the different components of industrial productivity dynamics, namely the industrial composition, competition and reallocation effects. Based on both a shift-share analysis and a simulation analysis, the paper shows that the reallocation towards higher value-added sectors in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries could in fact lead to higher regional inequalities. Our empirical results lead us to claim that short-term normative interventions should go in the direction of supporting "modern and technologically advanced traditional sectors" rather than necessarily pushing CEE countries towards a high value-added industry specialization.

Economic growth has a significant impact on health vulnerability primarily through the process of urbanization. This paper conducts a pioneer study by analyzing the impact of regional economic growth and urbanization on the public health vulnerability in the 51 states and territories of the USA from 2011 to 2018 with a fixed-effect panel data regression model. We construct an epidemiological vulnerability index (EVI) using regional smoking, diabetes, obesity, and hypertension, collect CDC social vulnerability index (SVI) as state-level public health vulnerability status, and use COVID-19 to test the actual effect of health vulnerability. The preliminary results show that higher regional economic growth is related to lower EVI and SVI, while urbanization is positively associated with regional health vulnerability and the severity of COVID-19 from case rate and death rate. Robustness check with unemployment shows the same result. We conclude that economic growth is related to lower public health vulnerability, and urbanization has negative public health benefits. Our finding indicates an urgent need to balance the externalities generated by economic development and urbanization trends on public health vulnerability by promoting reasonable medical resource distribution, health practices and safety, improving social and environmental justice, and other health management measures.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00168-021-01103-9.

This paper examines various aspects of recent employment vulnerability in US metropolitan areas. Based on the three decades preceding COVID-19, an estimate is made of the volatility (sensitivity) in each area's unemployment rate, relative to the national rate, and this reflects the area's overall employment vulnerability to external events. Using the Brechling-Thirlwall time-series approach, the monthly change in each area's unemployment rate is first compared to the monthly change in the nation's unemployment rate. Regression analysis is then used to tie the volatility seen in those metropolitan unemployment rates to various initial conditions: degree of specialization in primary (+), manufacturing (+), and government (-) activities; initial unemployment (+); human-created (-) and natural amenities (+); real wages (-); self-employment (-); and the presence of major colleges or universities (-). An alternative specification reassesses these estimates after including the volatility of unemployment rates across the nation's various states. A short discussion then addresses the issue of vulnerability in specific activities. Selecting four industries that were identified "at risk" during early COVID events, ranked employment specialization indices (LQs) are correlated with ranked volatility estimates of unemployment rates. In the more advanced economies, metropolitan areas typically specialize in, and trade across, different industries, but this specialization can create overall employment vulnerability.

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unexpected-extreme event and has considerably impacted the national and regional economies. This paper emphasizes the importance of industrial structure for a region's resistance to the recessionary shock. Two significant factors that may determine the regional industrial structures in this ongoing recession include the relative composition of essential/non-essential sectors and the intensity of face-to-face interactions. Considering these factors, we focus on two groups of industries: essential industry with low interpersonal interactions and non-essential industry with high interpersonal interactions. The specialization in these industries is associated with the regional economic resistance to the COVID-19 induced recession. Estimation results from the ordinal logistic regression models show that essential industries with low interpersonal interactions, especially the retail and service sectors--for instance, non-store retailers and financial and professional service--are significantly related to regional economic resistance, and their relationship intensifies compared to other sectors during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, states specialized in the non-essential industries with high interpersonal interactions are less likely to resist economically during the lockdown-COVID and until the stabilizing-COVID period. In addition, a state that quickly recovered from the 2001 recession is more likely to resist the pandemic shock during early- and lockdown-COVID periods. Findings in this paper indicate the importance of regional industrial structure to determine the level of vulnerability to unexpected recessionary shocks. Additionally, identifying the vital factors to determine the industrial structure based on the type of shock is found to be crucial.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00168-022-01134-w.