Papers in Regional Science最新文献

This paper contributes to the literature on economic relatedness and diversification in Brazil. It uses firm-level, occupational data to estimate the relationship between regions’ diversification, the degree of relatedness, and economic complexity indexes. Given that the current literature often focuses on a single variable, a new relatedness measure is introduced. It includes three new relatedness dimensions. The co-occupation captures the degree of similarity of firms’ occupations; co-location, considers the geographical proximity of different sectors; and co-company, evaluates if firms operate in more than one sector. Analyzing the evolution of 558 microregions from 2006 to 2016, the study finds that new industries are more likely to enter when technologically related to existing ones, while industries lacking relatedness are prone to exit. The results highlight diversification as a significant path-dependent process. They also underscore the challenges of attracting and retaining new industries, especially those technologically distant or more complex, emphasizing the importance of relatedness in regional economic cohesion.

Geographic expansion negatively impacts bank outcomes during recessions. While increases in average bank-to-branch distance for a given bank have a small positive impact on bank performance, increases in average bank-to-branch distance across all banks negatively impact performance as a result of aggregate spillovers. These findings support the existence of economically substantive geographic information asymmetries in banking, emphasizing the need for an explicit consideration of the spatial implications of banking (de-)regulation.

The provision of new subsidized housing projects presents an effective solution for alleviating the significant housing deficit in developing countries. However, limited knowledge exists regarding how these housing projects impact the quality of the surrounding environment, particularly when situated near informal settlements. By using highly detailed data from Medellin, Colombia, and employing an instrumental variables strategy, we estimate the external effects of social housing programs on the neighboring communities. Our results demonstrate that these projects contribute to a reduction in informal housing, poverty levels, and crime within the surrounding neighborhood. This external effect is significant and often overlooked when assessing the overall returns of social housing programs.

This paper investigates the gender gap in commuting by differentiating between the place of residence and work in urban and rural regions. Using administrative geo-referenced data for Germany and applying decomposition techniques, we provide evidence for a triple gap in commuting to the disadvantage of women. Apart from the overall gap, the regional disaggregation uncovers a further gap among workers commuting between rather than within regions, with the highest gap among commuters between rural regions. Occupational segregation and establishment size are the most relevant factors for explaining the gender commuting gaps.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the regional determinants of biogas production units’ creation in French metropolitan NUTS-3 regions from 2012 to 2020. The theoretical framework combines two approaches stemming from evolutionary economic geography and social/local governance literature, exploring the regional factors that can foster the setup of biogas plants in France. Results suggest that 1) the setup of biogas plants is positively influenced by a technological advantage in biotech and waste management in regions, as well as in agri-food; 2) socio-economic and geographic factors contribute to their development; and 3) different factors related to the rural and urban characteristics of regions have differential impacts on their setup.

“Natural” disasters" have negative consequences for the affected areas, including significant economic impacts. Using a sample of European NUTS-3 regions over the period 2003–17, this paper examines the impact of disasters on regional economic growth and the influence of the quality of regional governance on post-disaster economic recovery. We match disaster data from the EM-DAT database, EUROSTAT, US Geological Surveys and Global Archive of Large Floods. We find that the occurrence of a “natural” disaster leads to an annual decline in regional growth of about 0.28 percentage points. Furthermore, we find that both the impact on the economy and the duration of recovery are influenced by the quality of regional institutions.