Journal of Regional Science最新文献

This study empirically assesses the treatment effects of a place-based policy in Japan and proposes treatment assignment rules that are socially desirable and practically feasible for the program. To account for the heterogeneity of treatment effects, we estimate the conditional average treatment effect for each region using a marginal treatment effect framework and construct treatment rules based on regional characteristics such as demography, degree of suburbanization, and local production network. We find that the program has positive effects on retail floor space, retail sales per inhabitable area, and retail employment per inhabitable area. However, the treatment effects are significantly heterogeneous and the total welfare gains could have been larger under the proposed treatment rules, which target the cities facing a “modest” decline of city centers. We also demonstrate that the regional characteristics for which the treatment rule achieves the largest welfare gains are different in each outcome. This emphasizes the difficulty of pursuing multiple objectives with a single rule. Although the program was effective for its main target industry, we did not observe any significant effects on general economic outcomes such as land price and income tax revenue.

This paper examines how structural changes in local industry composition have contributed to the reduction of gender gaps in employment hours across Mexican metropolitan zones (MZs) between 1990 and 2010. Using census microdata, I document that smaller MZs—initially specialized in goods-producing sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing—experienced disproportionately larger increases in female-to-male employment hours compared to larger urban areas. These changes coincided with a shift toward service-based employment, which is more intensive in female labor. To identify the causal effect of industry shifts on gender employment gaps, I exploit exogenous variation in regional exposure to trade shocks induced by tariff reductions under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and estimate a smooth-varying coefficient (SVC) model to capture how these effects differ along the population size distribution of MZs. The results show that trade-induced declines in the goods sector's employment share significantly increase female relative employment hours, with effects concentrated in smaller cities. These findings underscore the importance of regional industrial specialization and labor demand shifts in shaping gender dynamics in local labor markets.

We study the impact of the 2015 mass arrival of refugees in Germany on housing rents. Using data on county-level refugee populations and offers of flats for rent from Germany's leading online property broker ImmobilienScout24, we find strong and robust evidence in DiD and IV regressions that refugee immigration adversely affected rental price growth. Additional explorations into native (German) mobility responses, related housing market metrics, and regional effect heterogeneity by prevalence of anti-refugee crimes, crimes against natives involving refugee suspects, neighborhood (1 km grid) characteristics, and local exposure to different types of refugee housing suggest that perceptions of refugee immigration as a (source of) disamenity are major drivers of our findings.

This paper analyses population trends across Europe at a fine spatial resolution from 2011 to 2021, focusing on midsize settlements (cities and towns with 5000–250,000 inhabitants) and their surrounding areas. While large cities dominate Europe's demographic dynamics, midsize settlements exhibit stark heterogeneity in population growth, driven by factors such as settlement size, urban hierarchy position, accessibility, and service provision. We find that proximity to cities is the strongest predictor of population growth for both midsize settlements and their respective hinterlands. Service availability also matters, but only within settlements' boundaries. Finally, population growth in midsize settlements' commuting regions is positively associated with both proximity to secondary settlements offering regional-level functions (e.g., hospitals, universities) and with growth of the central-largest settlement.

The aim of this study is to determine whether the quality of Italian institutions is a significant factor in economic inequality and whether the result contributes to an explanation of the North-South divide in Italy. To test our hypothesis, we use a quantile regression on regional data for Italy from 2004 to 2019. The results suggest that higher institutional quality plays a crucial role in reducing income inequality. This is particularly true in situations where income inequality is very high. Our empirical results were confirmed by a series of robustness checks, which also have important policy implications.

We employ sequence analysis to explore the heterogenous labor market paths of entrepreneurial Iraqi immigrants in Sweden, a group of forced migrants whom we follow from their year of immigration (2006–2009) to 2019. Using both individual and geographic characteristics, our main objective is to analyze how neighborhood characteristics are associated with individuals’ likelihood of following self-sufficient labor market paths, leading to an income large enough to support themselves. The results show that residing among self-employed co-ethnics is positively related to the engagement in own self-employment, while we find a negative relationship between neighborhood poverty and the likelihood of pursuing a labor market path leading to self-sufficiency. A novel finding is that having self-employed Iraqi neighbors is primarily associated with necessity entrepreneurs, who experience relatively long periods of non-self-sufficiency and limited participation in the regular labor market. As expected, the results show that highly educated and skilled individuals are more likely to follow self-sufficient labor market paths. Our findings thus encourage efforts to mitigate socioeconomic disadvantages, support necessity entrepreneurs, and enhance education levels in disadvantaged groups.