Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Economic geography'

While economic geography is concerned chiefly with proximity, models in urban economics eliminate proximity as a relative metric in order to preserve tractability. I introduce a new method of solving spatial models that allows for the consideration of proximity in an economic geography setting while retaining much of the tractability of the urban framework. The first chapter in this thesis introduces the solution method for continuous space geography models and shows how it reduces the complexity of the equilibrium conditions and allows such a model to generate more predictions than was previously possible. In this chapter, I build a model of firm location decisions in a spatial setting in order to provide a new explanation for the relationship between productivity and density: sorting of heterogeneous firms for market access. This geographic model of sorting breaks observa- tional equivalence between firm sorting and agglomeration forces: under specific conditions, positive shocks to density can negatively affect average productivity through changes in the local composition of firms, inconsistent with models of agglomeration forces without sorting. Using restricted access establishment-level Census data, I document strong intra-city relationships between location and firm characteristics predicted by the model. I test for evidence of composition effects, instrumenting for the supply of new non-residential real estate construction using the geographic distribution of multi-city real estate developers, and find evidence of firm sorting. The second chapter in this thesis finds persistent differences in self-reported subjective well-being across U.S. metropolitan areas and uses historical data to show that cities that are now declining were also unhappy in their more prosperous past. The third chapter in this thesis considers the spatial location decisions of multi-unit firms and highlights two previously understudied potential agglomeration and dispersion forces: intra-firm distance costs and market cannibalization.
Political Economy and Government

The recent Nobel Prize assigned to Paul Krugman "for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity" witnesses the important role that the scienti�c community gives to the insights of the so-called New Economic Geography (NEG) literature. This field of economic analysis has always been particularly appealing to policy makers, given the direct link between its results and regional policy rules. For the same reason it is useful to deepen the analysis of its most important outputs by testing the theoretical robustness of some of its more relevant statements. This thesis tries to o¤er a contribution in this direction by focusing on a particular sub-field of NEG literature, the so-called New Economic Geography and Growth (NEGG) literature, having in Baldwin and Martin (2004) and Baldwin et. al (2004) the most important theoretical syntheses. These two surveys collect and present in an uni�ed framework the works by Baldwin, Martin and Ottaviano (2001), where capital is immobile and spillovers are localized, Martin and Ottaviano (1999) where spillovers are global and capital is mobile. Other related papers are Baldwin (1999) which introduces forward looking expectations in the so-called Footloose capital model developed by Martin and Rogers (1995); Baldwin and Forslid (1999) which introduces endogenous growth by means of a q-theory approach; Baldwin and Forslid (2000) where spillovers are localized, capital is immobile and migration is allowed. Some more recent developments in the NEGG literature can be distinguished in two main strands. One takes into consideration factor price differences in order to discuss the possibility of a monotonic relation between agglomeration and integration (Bellone and Maupertuis (2003) and Andres (2007)). The other one assumes firms heterogeneity in productivity (first introduced by Eaton and Kortum (2002) and Melitz (2003)) in order to analyse the relationship between growth and the spatial selection e¤ect leading the most productive firms to move to larger markets (see Baldwin and Okubo (2006) and Baldwin and Robert-Nicoud (2008). These recent developments are related to our work in introducing some relevant departures from the standard model. Indeed this thesis develops and extends the theoretical framework of New Economic Geography theory along several routes. In the third chapter of the thesis we develop a New Economic Geography and Growth model which, by using a CES utility function in the second-stage optimization problem, allows for expenditure shares in industrial goods to be endogenously determined. The implications of our generalization are quite rel-evant. In particular, we obtain the following novel results: 1) catastrophic agglomeration may always take place, whatever the degree of market integration, provided that the traditional and the industrial goods are su¢ ciently good substitutes; 2) the regional rate of growth is affected by the interregional allocation of economic activities even in the absence of localized spillovers, so that geography always matters for growth and 3) the regional rate of growth is af- fected by the degree of market openness: in particular, depending on whether the traditional and the industrial goods are good or poor substitutes, economic integration may be respectively growth-enhancing or growth-detrimental. In the fourth chapter of the thesis we build a New Economic Geography and Growth model based on Baldwin, Martin and Ottaviano (2001) with an additional sector producing Non-tradable goods (services). By assuming intersectoral and localized knowledge spillovers from the innovation sector to the service sector, we show that firms'allocation affects regional real growth. More precisely we assume that the unit labour requirements (and thereby the prices) in the service production are a negative function of the output of innovation, i.e. the stock of knowledge capital. Due to this new specification, real growth rates in the two regions always diverge when the firms allocation pattern differs from the symmetric one. This result is a novelty in the standard theoretical NEGG literature where regional gap in real growth rate is always zero. Moreover, this result has strong policy implications because it suggests that concentrating in- dustries in only one region may also bring a dynamic loss for the periphery. By analyzing the trade-o¤ between the dynamic gains of agglomeration (due to localized intertemporal spillovers) and the dynamic loss of agglomeration (due to localized intersectoral spillovers), we also discuss different notions of optimal level of agglomeration. The thesis will proceed as follows: in the chapters one and two we describe the state of the art in New Economic Geography and its further developments such as the New Economic Geography and Growth, the possibility of a monotonic relation between agglomeration and integration, and finally the firms heterogeneity in New Economic Geography models. Instead in chapters three and four we present our original contribution to the theory, i.e. the analysis of endogenous expenditure shares and intersectoral knowledge spillovers on the agglomeration patterns and economic growth.

Esta tesis estudia cómo las barreras y distorsiones en el mercado de trabajo y el mercado inmobiliario afectan la productividad de una economía. El capítulo 1 de la tesis, “El Aumento de la Regulación en Mercados Inmobiliarios en EE.UU.: Causas Locales e Implicaciones Nacionales,” investiga los efectos de la subida de regulaciones en los mercados inmobiliarios en las últimas décadas en EE.UU. Para ello construyo un modelo de equilibrio con múltiples localizaciones, trabajadores heterogéneos y regulación endógena. La regulación se decide por votación: los inquilinos desean menor regulación y los propietarios de las viviendas desean más regulación. En aquellos lugares donde la productividad tiene un crecimiento exógeno más rápido, la población y los precios de la vivienda también crecen más rápidamente. En estas localizaciones, los propietarios votan por una regulación más estricta, que aumenta aún más los precios y resulta en una mayor dispersión de los mismos. Los trabajadores calificados, siendo menos sensibles al precio de la vivienda, se concentran en lugares productivos, lo cual resulta en una mayor dispersión salarial. Es decir, las diferencias de precios inmobiliarios y salarios son amplificadas por la regulación. Para cuantificar este efecto, calibro el modelo para la economía estadounidense y encuentro que, el ascenso en la regulación explica un 23% del aumento de la dispersión salarial y un 85% del aumento en la dispersión de los precios inmobiliarios entre las áreas metropolitanas desde 1980 a 2007. Si la regulación no hubiese aumentado, más trabajadores vivirían en zonas productivas y PIB sería 2% mayor. También muestro cómo las políticas que debilitan los incentivos de los gobiernos locales para restringir la oferta pueden reducir la dispersión de precios y salarios, y aumentar la productividad. El capítulo 2, “Oportunidad Para Moverse: Efectos Macroeconómicos de Subsidios de Reubicación,” introduce subsidios de reubicación como un complemento a las prestaciones de desempleo y estudia sus efectos en el desempleo, la productividad y el bienestar. Para ello, construyo un modelo de búsqueda de empleo con trabajadores heterogéneos y múltiples ubicaciones, en el que migración se ve impedida por gastos, fricciones de búsqueda, y restricciones de préstamos. Posteriormente, calibro el modelo para la economía estadounidense e introduzco un subsidio que reembolsa parte de los gastos de mudanza a los desempleados. Durante la Gran Recesión, un subsidio de reubicación que cubre la mitad de los gastos habría bajado la tasa de desempleo en 0,36 puntos porcentuales (un 4,8%) y habría aumentado la productividad en un 1%. Estos subsidios no hubiesen tenido ningún costo para el gobierno ya que el gasto adicional en los subsidios habría sido compensado por la reducción en el gasto en prestaciones por desempleo. El capítulo 3, “Los Gerentes y Diferencias en Productividad,” (con Nezih Guner y Gustavo Ventura) investiga los factores que determinan las diferencias de productividad entre países. Para un grupo de países ricos documentamos que, (i) durante el ciclo de vida, los ingresos de gerentes de las empresas crecen más rápidamente que los ingresos de los trabajadores; y que (ii) el crecimiento de ingresos de los gerentes en relación con los trabajadores se correlaciona positivamente con la productividad. Esta evidencia es interpretada a través de un modelo de “span-of-control” donde los gerentes invierten en sus habilidades. Parametrizamos este modelo usando las observaciones de EE.UU. y luego cuantificamos la importancia relativa de las diferencias de productividad exógenas y las distorsiones en el tamaño de las empresas. Los resultados indican que tales distorsiones son fundamentales para generar las diferencias observadas en el crecimiento de los ingresos de los gerentes entre los países ya que la variación en las distorsiones explica el 42% de la variación en productividad entre países.
In this thesis I study how barriers and distortions inherent in labor and housing markets affect aggregate productivity of a national economy. In Chapter 1 of this thesis, “The Rise of Housing Supply Regulation in the U.S.: Local Causes and Aggregate Implications”, I investigate effects of the rise of regulatory restrictions on the supply of housing in recent decades in the United States. I build an equilibrium model with multiple locations, heterogeneous workers and endogenous regulation. Regulation is decided by voting: renters want less regulation and owners want more. In locations with faster exogenous productivity growth, labor supply and house prices also grow more rapidly. Homeowners in these places vote for stricter regulation, which raises prices further and leads to greater price dispersion. High-skilled workers, being less sensitive to housing costs, sort into productive places, which leads to larger wage dispersion. That is, wage and house price differences are amplified by regulation choices. To quantify this amplification effect, I calibrate the model to the U.S. economy and find that the rise in regulation accounts for 23% of the increase in wage dispersion and 85% of the increase in house price dispersion across metro areas from 1980 to 2007. I find that if regulation had not increased, more workers would live in productive areas and output would be 2% higher. I also show that policy interventions that weaken incentives of local governments to restrict supply could reduce wage and house price dispersion, and boost productivity. In Chapter 2, “Opportunity to Move: Macroeconomic Effects of Relocation Subsidies”, I introduce relocation subsidies as a supplement to unemployment benefits, and study their effects on unemployment, productivity and welfare. I build a job search model with heterogeneous workers and multiple locations, in which migration is impeded by moving costs, cross-location search frictions, and borrowing constraints. I calibrate the model to the U.S. economy, and then introduce a subsidy that reimburses a part of the moving expenses to the unemployed. During the Great Recession, a relocation subsidy that pays half of the moving expenses would lower unemployment rate by 0.36 percentage points (or 4.8%) and increase productivity by 1%. Importantly, the subsidies cost nothing to the taxpayer: the additional spending on the subsidies is offset by the reduction in spending on unemployment benefits. In Chapter 3, “Managers and Productivity Differences”, (with Nezih Guner and Gustavo Ventura) we investigate the determinants of productivity differences across countries. We document that for a group of high-income countries (i) mean earnings of managers tend to grow faster than for non managers over the life cycle; (ii) the life-cycle earnings growth of managers relative to non managers is positively correlated with output per worker. We interpret this evidence using an equilibrium life-cycle, span-of-control model where managers invest in their skills. We parameterize this model with observations from the U.S. We then quantify the relative importance of exogenous productivity differences and the firm size-dependent distortions. Our findings indicate that such distortions are critical to generate the observed differences in the growth of relative managerial earnings across countries. We find that cross-country variation in distortions accounts for about 42% of the cross-country productivity differences.

This thesis tests the predictions of theoretical models of trade and economic geography using micro-data from India. As part of a large, poor and rapidly developing country, Indian households receive a disproportionate share of attention from development economists. However, there remain large gaps in the understanding of its other microentities – firms. In Chapter 1, I use detailed panel-level data on 8,253 manufacturing firms from 1990 to 2008 and demonstrate how firms that export differ from their counterparts who cater to the domestic market. After identifying the extent to which the act of exporting drives these differences, I provide evidence that Indian exporters performed better than nonexporters at the outset, and that exporting positively impacts further productivity increases. In Chapters 2, 3 and 4, I focus on how economic activity in India organises itself along economic geography factors. Chapter 2 studies firms in the Indian informal sector, who have largely escaped close scrutiny before. Using data from national sample surveys on over 4 million manufacturing and services enterprises, I find that firms choose to locate in particular districts across the country. I show that existing agglomeration within these locations, such as that of intermediate buyers and suppliers, is driving the location decisions of new firms. In Chapter 3, using previously inaccessible data on inward FDI, I find that foreign investors also show evidence of clustering and that existing agglomeration and the business environment jointly drive this behaviour. In Chapter 4, I collect data from the Indian Patent Office and my analysis concludes that regional innovation is largely a function of public research and development and economic clustering. In summary, this thesis uses new data and robust methodological approaches to provide important economic insights into the workings of firms in India and the factors affecting their productivity and their location decisions.

Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Economics, 2018.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 167-175).
This thesis consists of three chapters that analyze how the networks of firms, people, and locations shape socio-economic activities. The first chapter analyzes the role of supplier to buyer matching in the firm-to-firm trade as a source of geographic concentration of economic activities. Using a panel of firm-to-firm trade data covering over a million Japanese firms, I first provide evidence that the new supplier matching rate upon unexpected supplier bankruptcies increases in locations and industries when there are more alternative suppliers selling in the buyer's location, while this rate remains stable in the presence of other buyers looking for a match. I then estimate a new structural trade model that incorporates dynamic firm-to-firm matching across space in a standard Melitz model and concludes that this agglomeration mechanism drives a large part of spatial inequality of firm density and real wages in Japan. The second chapter (co-authored with Gabriel Kreindler) investigates how people's mobility patterns are associated with urban spatial economic activities. We use cell phone transaction data to extract commuting flows at a fine spatially and temporarily scale, and use a model to empirically associate commuting flows with spatial economic activity distributions in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. We validate our predicted measures of economic activities with a government survey and show several applications to provide a proof of concept of our approach. The third chapter develops an econometric framework to estimate structural parameters underlying a network formation model. I show that the set of equilibria is a complete lattice under certain conditions, and extend this characterization to an econometric framework based on the moment inequality model. I then apply this method to a student friendship network formation in the U.S.
by Yuhei Miyauchi.
Ph. D.

This thesis provides an investigation of the effects of trade, technology and natural resource shocks on local economies and local labor markets. In the first chapter, I explore theoretically the impact of recent improvements in communication technology on the configuration of economic geography at multiple levels of spatial disaggregation. I show that a simple model of the organization of global supply chains can rationalize several salient stylized facts concerning the recent evolution of the spatial economy. In the second chapter, I empirically investigate the impact of changes in US trade policy triggered by China’s WTO accession on Chinese local economies. I find that improvements in US market access had an important impact on local economic outcomes and on the spatial configuration of economic activity within China. In the third chapter I investigate the impact of large oilfield discoveries on local labor markets, with a particular focus on the effects on the economic prospects of women. I find that while large mineral endowments do not slow the process of women joining the labor force, they do lead to a higher gender wage gap.
En esta tesis se lleva a cabo la investigación de los efectos de comercio internacional, tecnología y recursos naturales sobre las economías y los mercados laborales locales. En el primer capítulo, examino teóricamente el impacto de las recientes mejoras en las tecnologías de la telecomunicación sobre la configuración económico-geográfica en varios niveles de desagregación. Muestro que un modelo sencillo de la organización global de las cadenas de suministros puede racionalizar varios hechos estilizados relacionados con la evolución reciente de la economía espacial. En el segundo capítulo, investigo empíricamente el impacto de los cambios en la política de comercio exterior de los EEUU, desencadenados por la adhesión de China a la OMC, sobre las economías locales en China. Encuentro que el mejor acceso al mercado estadounidense tuvo un impacto importante sobre las economías locales y sobre la configuración geográfica de la actividad económica en China. En el tercer capítulo, examino el impacto de descubrimientos de grandes yacimientos petrolíferos sobre las economías locales, centrándome particularmente en las perspectivas económicas de las mujeres. Encuentro que aunque grandes yacimiento minerales no retrasan el proceso de adhesión femenina al mercado de trabajo, sí llevan a mayores diferenciales salariales entre los hombres y mujeres.

By the end of the twentieth century, the generous German public pay-as-you-go pension system had been struggling with a serious deficit due to the country’s ageing population. In 2001, the German government enacted the “Riester” pension reform, named after Mr. Walter Riester, the Labour Minister brokering it, which reduced the level of publicly provided pensions, and strengthened the funded occupational and private pillars in order to replace the loss in retirement income. This thesis investigates the role and structure of occupational pensions during the Riester-reform and in its aftermath, using an economic geography perspective. In doing so, it discusses the role of trade unions and employer associations (social partners) in moulding the structure of the occupational system, and investigates the geography of occupational pensions both at employer and at employee level. Empirically, the thesis is based on an in-depth interview with Mr. Walter Riester, and a unique, proprietary data-set of a German occupational pension provider, containing information on 332 thousand employees and over 12 thousand employers. The results show that the internal division of social partners played a critical role in leaving occupational pensions voluntary, but they have been successful in setting standards on the occupational pension market by means of collective bargaining. Employers and employees show systematic spatiotemporal patterns in their pension-related decisions, confirming the importance of local relationships and local contexts in implementing social partners’ measures and in the transformation of the welfare state. It is finally pointed out that the Riester-reform was a part of a gradual transition, which has been reducing employers’ autonomy in order to reinforce the social role of occupational pensions. To achieve that and to catalyse the reform process, employers’ and employees’ risk exposure has been mitigated in the hope that old-age poverty can be avoided.

There is a growing awareness of, and commitment to, Responsible Investment (RI) in the institutional investment markets internationally. RI is defined as the consideration of environmental, social and/or governance (ESG) issues in long-term oriented investment decision-making. As the role of ESG in determining investment risk and opportunity becomes more evident, and as ESG data becomes more available, RI is increasingly seen as an area of potential investment innovation. This thesis applies institutional, evolutionary and relational economic geography theories to examine this trend, exploring the mainstreaming of RI through novel empirical and conceptual research. This thesis examines the investment learning processes and information channels available in Western liberal market economies of the UK, US and Australia. It adopts economic geography knowledge and innovation frames towards answering the question: 'Now that ESG information is more widely available in the investment markets, why has this not catalysed a greater shift towards RI integration in mainstream investment decisions?'. Learning, language and leadership factors within the institutional investment industry are all argued to help answer this question. This research uses a mixed method approach, with analysis based on a survey of 154 investment professions, 97 semi-structured interviews and a case of RI innovation. This thesis develops a conceptual framework of the communication channels and information sources used in investors' innovation-decision-process, drawing attention to the importance of both social and asocial learning processes in generating and sharing knowledge about climate issues within investment markets. Following this, the thesis examines the role of 'local buzz' and 'global pipelines' in facilitating access to, and uptake of, ESG information. Levels of buzz and pipelines are found to vary in different financial centres, and are facilitated by formal and informal networking linked to RI groups. Importantly, then, this thesis finds that both spatial and relational proximity influence investors' access to ESG information and RI knowledge. The second half of this thesis examines whether and how RI information, knowledge and practice can be integrated into existing individual and organisational decision-making frameworks. It highlights the need to better translate RI information into investment-relevant language, and provides an example of how environmentally-driven stranded assets can be reframed as a version of sunk costs, contributing novel spatial-temporal theorisations of this concept. Through an illustration of RI decision-making by the investment consultant Mercer and the University of Sydney endowment fund, this thesis highlights that the capacity to integrate RI through the investment chain does exist. However, willingness to do so is found to be hindered by institutional and organisational path dependent norms, reduced only in some firms by seeing RI as an innovative area of competitive advantage from growing client demand. This thesis therefore finds that RI is being adopted in increasingly more mainstream investment firms, but this is not always fully integrated throughout the firm, and that uptake is geographically varied based on exposure to networks of information and knowledge sharing, and institutional, organisational and individual norms. Ultimately, this thesis therefore contributes towards understandings of the processes underpinning the mainstreaming of RI, but also contributes to broader economic geographies of investment, knowledge sharing and innovation.

The evolutionary economic geography of climate change is concerned with the processes by which the landscapes of greenhouse gas emissions and vulnerability to climate change are transformed from within over time. Unlike neoclassical economics, evolutionary economic geography is interested in how economic change is driven by innovation and shaped by structural, historical, and contextual factors at different scales. This thesis articulates an evolutionary economic geography perspective on three debates: (1) What factors influence human systems’ capacity to adapt to climate change, and how can these factors be assessed? (2) What forces drive and inhibit economic change towards low-carbon economies, and how should governments induce and manage such shifts? (3) What role should climate finance play in promoting developing countries’ shifts to low-emitting and climate-resilient economies, and how should it be managed? The thesis includes five academic papers. The first reviews the literature on vulnerability and adaptation. It argues that the adaptive capacity of human systems is constrained by structural and historical factors, and that the rich data necessary to identify these factors can only be obtained through qualitative research methods. The next two papers offer case studies from the Global Islands’ Vulnerability Research Adaptation and Policy Development project, which assess the adaptive capacity of Soufriere, Saint Lucia and Whitehouse, Jamaica, respectively. The fourth paper examines the mechanics of three low-carbon shifts in Brazil: the diffusion of no-till agriculture, the decrease in the deforestation rate in the Amazon, and the growth of the ethanol biofuel industry. It found that the driving forces behind each of the shifts were far more varied and complex than the price-based market dynamics analysed in neoclassical economics. The final paper argues that climate finance will need to perform a variety of functions beyond attracting low-carbon private investment. It concludes that the institutional architecture governing climate finance should enable direct access to national governments to incentivise them to implement sustainable innovation policy regimes.

Cette thèse porte sur le rôle joué par les coûts du commerce dans la détermination des flux commerciaux. Les deux derniers chapitres examinent le rôle des coûts commerciaux non conventionnels tandis que les deux premiers évaluent l'impact des coûts plus communément associés aux échanges à l'intérieur d'un pays ainsi qu'entre différents pays. Le Chapitre 1 est le résultat d'un effort conjoint avec Jules Hugot. Dans ce chapitre nous estimons l'élasticité du commerce à la distance et son évolution depuis 1870 en utilisant quatre épisodes importants de l'histoire du commerce international: les ouvertures des canaux de Suez et de Panama et les postérieures fermetures et réouvertures du premier. Dans le chapitre 2, j'étudie l'effet d'une réduction des coûts de transport internes à un pays. Pour pallier à l'endogénéité du placement des infrastructures, j'exploite l'expérience naturelle fournie par l'ouverture des routes maritimes reliant les côtes est et ouest du Canada à travers le Canal de Panama. Le chapitre 3 documente l'impact négatif des visas de voyage sur les flux commerciaux bilatéraux. Afin d'estimer leur effet causal, j'exploite une expérience naturelle fournie par les modifications introduites à l'Annexe I des Accords de Schengen. Je montre que l'introduction ultérieure de visas pour entrer dans l'espace Schengen a considérablement réduit les flux commerciaux. Dans le chapitre 4, j'examine empiriquement l'impact des différences politiques sur les flux commerciaux. En suivant la représentation du spectre politique d'Eysenck, je montre que la distance séparant les pays sur les différentes dimensions de cet spectre politique a un impact négatif robuste sur les échanges bilatéraux
This dissertation focuses on the role played by trade cost in the shaping of trade flows. While the last two chapters examine the role of unconventional trade costs, the first two assess the impact of more traditional domestic and international trade costs. Chapter 1 is a joint effort with Jules Hugot. In this chapter we estimate the elasticity of trade to distance and its evolution since 1870. For this purpose we take advantage of four important episodes in the history of international trade: the openings of the Suez and Panama canals and the later closure and reopening of the first. In Chapter 2 I study the effect of a reduction of domestic transport costs. To address the endogeneity of infrastructure placement, I exploit the natural experiment provided by the opening of intercoastal shipping routes connecting the west and east coasts of Canada through the Panama Canal. Chapter 3 documents the negative impact of travel visas on bilateral trade flows. In order to estimate their causal effect I exploit a natural experiment provided by changes in Annex I of the Schengen agreements. I show that the subsequent introduction of visas to enter the Schengen Space considerably reduced bilateral trade flows. In chapter 4 I examine empirically the impact of politics on trade flows. Following Eysenck's depiction of the political spectrum, I show that distance separating countries on the different dimensions of the political spectrum has a robust negative impact on bilateral exchanges

Questa Tesi vuole arricchire la letteratura della Geografia Economica indagando il caso di agenti eterogenei che operano con razionalità limitata in strutture spaziali complesse. Nel primo capitolo, propongo un modello macroeconomico Agent-based flessibile, dotato di famiglie e imprese che interagiscono su un determinato network spaziale. L'euristica delle decisioni degli agenti incorpora e riproduce le caratteristiche solitamente utilizzate nei modelli di Economia Geografica tradizionale, come trasferimenti e migrazione, commercio, e costi di trasporto. Ciò consente di verificare l'emergere e la stabilità delle configurazioni agglomerate da parte degli agenti economici. La flessibilità della struttura spaziale, che consiste in un network di posizioni fornite nella calibrazione iniziale del modello, consente di verificare i risultati sopra un'ampia varietà di strutture spaziali, potenzialmente realistiche. Nel secondo capitolo, estendo il modello precedente per l'analisi delle politiche pubbliche locali. In questo lavoro metto alla prova diverse misure di intervento locale in diversi scenari ispirati dalla teoria che si sono dimostrati difficili da affrontare in strutture dinamiche con più regioni e con agenti dalla razionalità limitata. Questi includono diverse forme di concorrenza fiscale e di spesa pubblica. Nell'estensione proposta, le posizioni vengono trattate come agenti attivi e possono impostare la riscossione delle imposte locali e l'utilizzo delle entrate in base ad euristiche adattative. Inoltre, analizzo le stesse misure su una struttura spaziale asimmetrica e realisticamente calibrata. Mentre i risultati dovrebbero essere ulteriormente affinati prima di essere considerati robusti, le politiche pubbliche investigate sembrano causare una maggiore volatilità della produzione aggregata e del tasso di disoccupazione. Cambiare la struttura spaziale influisce sui risultati.
This dissertation wants to enrich the Economic Geography literature by investigating the case of heterogeneous agents operating under bounded rationality in complex spatial structures. In the first Chapter, I propose a flexible macroeconomic Agent-based model endowed with Households and Firms interacting on a given spatial network. The agents’ decision heuristics embed and reproduce the features usually employed in mainstream Economic Geography models, as relocation, migration, trade and transportation costs. This permits to check the emergence and stability of agglomerated configurations by the economic agents. The flexibility of the spatial structure, which consists in a network of locations provided in the initial calibration of the model, allows to check the results on a wide variety of spatial environments, including realistic ones. In the second Chapter, I extend the previous model for the analysis of Local policy. In this work I test different local policy measures under different theoretically-inspired scenarios which have been proven difficult to be compared in structures with multiple regions, bounded rationality and a dynamic setting. These include different forms of tax competition and of public spending. In the proposed extension Locations are treated as active agents and can set their local tax collection and revenues usage according to adaptive heuristics. Moreover, I test the same measures on an asymmetric and realistically calibrated spatial structure. While the results should be further refined before being taken as robust, the investigated policies seem to cause enhanced volatility of aggregate production and of unemployment rate. Changing the spatial structure affects the results.

Aquesta tesi doctoral esta composta per tres capítols independents. Contribueix a una literatura sobre desenvolupament econòmic, la geografia econòmica, el comerç internacional i el canvi climàtic. Al capítol 1, “El poder dels mercats: impacte de les invasions de llagostes del desert sobre la salut infantil”, proporciono proves reduïdes de la importància (accés a) mercats en la transmissió de xocs agrícoles impulsats pel canvi climàtic a l’acumulació de capital humà a economies agrícoles de baixos ingressos. En general, argumenta per la importància d’abordar les reaccions del mercat local a aquest tipus de xoc agrícola a l’hora de dissenyar polítiques públiques. També transmet evidències clares de la vulnerabilitat de les economies agrícoles i de baixos ingressos als xocs a curt termini induïts pel canvi climàtic. Per tant, motiva els capítols posteriors, en què estudio les reaccions econòmiques a llarg termini i les conseqüències del canvi climàtic. Al capítol 2, “Canvi climàtic i migració: el cas d’Àfrica”, estudio els possibles costos econòmics i les respostes migratòries al canvi climàtic en el context de l’Àfrica subsahariana (SSA) durant les properes dècades. Per a això, desenvolupo un marc espacial quantitatiu que recull el paper de les xarxes comercials i la idoneïtat agrícola en la distribució de la població i el PIB (tenint en compte els ajustos endògens de la selecció i el comerç de cultius). El combino amb dades geoespacials detallades de SSA per simular l’impacte del canvi climàtic mitjançant previsions de productivitat agrícola el 2080 de la FAO. Els resultats suggereixen que el canvi climàtic podria conduir a grans fluxos migratoris dins i entre els països de la SSA, amb pèrdues econòmiques substancials. A més, la capacitat d’ajustar la barreja de producció entre diferents sectors (cultius i / o no agrícoles) o l’elevat accés als mercats mitiga parcialment els impactes del canvi climàtic en termes de sortides de població. Finalment, un experiment relacionat amb l’adopció de tecnologia a l’agricultura mostra que l’adopció tecnologia en aquest sector podria revertir considerablement els impactes negatius del canvi climàtic. El capítol 3, “Especialització sectorial local en un món d’escalfament” estudia l’evolució de la distribució geogràfica de l’economia i el clima mundials en un entorn on tots dos elements són endògens entre si. En particular, incorporo un enllaç entre l’activitat econòmica, les emissions de carboni i l’escalfament global en un model d’equilibri espacial general dinàmic on la innovació espacial impulsa la dinàmica de l’evolució de la productivitat i el creixement. Simulant l’evolució de l’economia mundial durant els propers segles, trobo una concentració d’activitat agrícola molt més gran a les latituds del nord (per exemple, Sibèria) si es compara amb un escenari sense escalfament global. En termes agregats, el canvi climàtic condueix a diferents patrons d’evolució de la productivitat sectorial, el creixement econòmic i l’especialització en sectors agrícoles i urbans, en línia amb alguns dels resultats del capítol 2. Un experiment relacionat amb els costos comercials mostra que friccions més altes en el comerç distribueix la producció i els factors propers a la demanda, reduint l’avantatge comparatiu en regions més perifèriques del món. En general, la meva tesi doctoral proporciona evidències clares de les diferències espacials en les reaccions (i les conseqüències) del canvi climàtic a tot el món. També argumenta fermament per la importància del comerç com a mecanisme econòmic clau darrere de la transmissió d’aquest tipus de xoc als resultats econòmics. En els temps actuals de globalització ràpida, integració de mercats i expansió de xarxes comercials, la meva tesi mostra que apropar els mercats més aïllats a les xarxes comercials globals pot tenir un paper clau en la mitigació de les conseqüències futures del canvi climàtic.
En el capítulo 1, “El poder de los mercados: impacto de las invasiones de langostas del desierto sobre la salud infantil”, proporciono pruebas reducidas de la importancia (acceso a) mercados en la transmisión de choques agrícolas impulsados por el cambio climático a la acumulación de capital humano a economías agrícolas de bajos ingresos. En general, argumenta por la importancia de abordar las reacciones del mercado local en este tipo de choque agrícola a la hora de diseñar políticas públicas. También transmite evidencias claras de la vulnerabilidad de las economías agrícolas y de bajos ingresos a los choques a corto plazo inducidos por el cambio climático. Por lo tanto, motiva a los capítulos posteriores, en que estudio las reacciones económicas a largo plazo y las consecuencias del cambio climático. En el capítulo 2, “Cambio climático y migración: el caso de África”, estudio los posibles costes económicos y las respuestas migratorias al cambio climático en el contexto del África subsahariana (SSA) durante las próximas décadas. Para ello, desarrollo un marco espacial cuantitativo que recoge el papel de las redes comerciales y la idoneidad agrícola en la distribución de la población y el PIB (teniendo en cuenta los ajustes endógenos de la selección y el comercio de cultivos). Lo combino con datos geoespaciales detalladas para simular el impacto del cambio climático mediante previsiones de productividad agrícola en el 2080 de la FAO. Los resultados sugieren que el cambio climático podría conducir a grandes flujos migratorios dentro y entre los países de la SSA, con pérdidas económicas sustanciales. Además, la capacidad de ajustar la mezcla de producción entre diferentes sectores (cultivos y / o no agrícolas) o el elevado acceso a los mercados mitiga parcialmente los impactos del cambio climático en términos de salidas de población. Finalmente, un experimento relacionado con la adopción de tecnología a la agricultura muestra que la adopción tecnología en este sector podría revertir considerablemente los impactos negativos del cambio climático. El capítulo 3, “Especialización sectorial local en un mundo de calentamiento” estudia la evolución de la distribución geográfica de la economía y el clima mundiales en un entorno donde ambos elementos son endógenos entre sí. En particular, incorporo un enlace entre la actividad económica, las emisiones de carbono y el calentamiento global en un modelo de equilibrio espacial general dinámico donde la innovación espacial impulsa la dinámica de la evolución de la productividad y el crecimiento. Simulando la evolución de la economía mundial durante los próximos siglos, encuentro una concentración de actividad agrícola mucho mayor en las latitudes del norte (por ejemplo, Siberia) si se compara con un escenario sin calentamiento global. En términos agregados, el cambio climático conduce a diferentes patrones de evolución de la productividad sectorial, el crecimiento económico y la especialización en sectores agrícolas y urbanos, en línea con algunos de los resultados del capítulo 2. Un experimento relacionado con los costes comerciales muestra que fricciones más altas en el comercio distribuye la producción y los factores cercanos a la demanda, reduciendo la ventaja comparativa en regiones más periféricas del mundo. En general, mi tesis doctoral proporciona evidencias claras de las diferencias espaciales en las reacciones (y las consecuencias) del cambio climático en todo el mundo. También argumenta firmemente por la importancia del comercio como mecanismo económico clave detrás de la transmisión de este tipo de choque a los resultados económicos. En los tiempos actuales de globalización rápida, integración de mercados y expansión de redes comerciales, mi tesis muestra que acercar los mercados más aislados en las redes comerciales globales puede tener un papel clave en la mitigación de las consecuencias futuras del cambio climático.
This doctoral thesis answer questions related to the spatial impacts of climate change on economic outcomes. Composed by three independent chapters, it contributes to a literature at the intersection of economic development, economic geography, international trade, and climate change. In Chapter 1, “The Power of Markets: Impact of Desert Locust Invasions on Child Health”, I provide reduced-form evidence of the importance of (access to) markets on the transmission of climate change-led agricultural shocks to human capital accumulation in low-income agricultural economies. Overall, it argues for the importance of addressing local market reactions to this type of agricultural shock when designing public policy. It also conveys clear evidence of the vulnerability of agricultural, low-income economies, to short-term shocks induced by climate change. Hence, it motivates the subsequent chapters, in which I study the long-run economic reactions to and consequences of climate change. In particular, in Chapter 2, “Climate Change and Migration: the case of Africa”, I study the potential economic costs and migration responses to climate change in the context of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) during the next decades. For that, I develop a quantitative spatial framework that captures the role of trade networks and agricultural suitability on the distribution of population and GDP accounting for endogenous adjustments of crop choice and trade. I combine it with detailed geospatial data from SSA to simulate the impact of climate change using forecasts of agricultural productivity in 2080 from FAO. My results suggest that climate change could lead to major migration flows within and across SSA countries, with substantial economic losses associated with it. Moreover, the capacity of adjusting the production mix across different sectors (crops and/or non-agricultural) or high access to markets partially mitigates the impacts of climate change in terms of population outflows. Finally, a policy experiment related to technology adoption in agriculture shows that the adoption of modern inputs in that sector could reverse considerably the negative impacts of climate change. My thesis is concluded with Chapter 3, “Local Sectoral Specialization in a Warming World”, where I study the evolution of the geographical distribution of the world’s economy and climate in a setup where both elements are endogenous to one another. In particular, I embed a mapping between the evolution of economic activity, carbon emissions, and global warming into a dynamic spatial general equilibrium model where spatial innovation drives the dynamics of the evolution of productivities and growth. By simulating the evolution of the world economy for the next centuries, I find a much higher concentration of agricultural activity in northern latitudes (e.g. Siberia and Northern China) if compared to a scenario without global warming. Moreover, in aggregate terms, climate change leads to different patterns of the evolution of sectoral--productivities, economic growth, and specialization into agriculture and urban sectors, in line with some of the results from Chapter 2. A policy experiment related to trade costs shows that higher frictions to trade reallocate production and factors close to the demand, by reducing the comparative advantage in more peripheral regions of the globe. Overall, my doctoral thesis provides clear evidence of the spatial differences in the reactions to (and consequences of) climate change throughout the globe. It also argues firmly for the importance of trade as a key economic mechanism behind the transmission of this sort of shock to economic outcomes. In the present times of fast globalization, integration of markets, and expansion of trade networks, my thesis shows that bringing the most isolated markets closer to the global trade networks can have a key role in mitigating the future consequences of climate change.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Economics, 2009.
Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Feb. 8, 2010). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-05, Section: A, page: 1733. Adviser: Hugh E.M. Kelley.

This dissertation has two main themes: first, the economic impact of tourism on cities and, secondly, the determinants of European long-run development, with a focus on the pre-Industrial era. The common thread is the attempt to develop economic geography models that incorporate spatial frictions and are liable to be given empirical content. Chapter 1, written in conjunction with G. Alfredo Minerva, provides an empirical analysis of the relationship between tourism and economic activity across Italian municipalities, and lays down the basic elements of an urban theory of tourism in an a-spatial setting. Chapter 2 extends these ideas to a quantitative urban framework to study the economic impact and the welfare consequences of tourism into the city of Venice. The model is given empirical content thanks to a large collection of data at the Census tract level for the Municipality of Venice, and then used to perform counterfactual policty analysis. In chapter 3, with Matteo Santacesaria, we consider a setting where agents are continuously distributed over a two-dimensional heterogeneous geography, and are allowed to do business at a finite set of markets. We study the equilibrium partition of the economic space into a collection of mutually-exclusive market areas, and provide condition for this equilibrium partition to exist and to be unique. Finally, chapter 4 "The rise of (urban) Europe: a Quantitative-Spatial analysis", co-authored with Matteo Cervellati and Alex Lehner, sets up a quantitative economic geography model to understand the roots of the Industrial Revolution, in an attempt to match the evolution of the European urban network, and the corresponding city-size distribution, over the period A.D. 1000-1850. It highlights the importance of agricultural trade across cities for the emergence of large manufacturing hubs.

Modern economies are organised as webs of interconnected agents. Among others, companies represent the principal actors. In the recent decades, the emergence of supply networks, that is the organisation of technical processes in production stages involving specialised suppliers located in different countries, brings about an increasing complexity in the worldwide economic system. Moreover, empirical studies from firm-level data provide evidence of heterogeneous distribution in companies performance also within industries, regions and countries. However, when discussing policy-making in Europe this aspect is still neglected by many, and the impact of regional or industrial policies is evaluated at the macro level. Recently, geo-coded information on where firms run their activities is becoming available to the researchers, offering a good opportunity to improve the empirical design of specific research questions. In this thesis, we investigate these aspects in detail, showing the utility of adapting and implementing analytical tools from Network Science and Machine Learning along with ad hoc econometric techniques. Moreover, we contribute to the literature on international economics, industrial organisation and economic geography. With the first work, we propose an empirical tool, the Input Rank, adapted from the notorious PageRank, which is originally designed for social networks and search engines, and we test its empirical validity for choices of vertical integration. Then, we ambitiously test the effect of the EU Cohesion Policy on an own-built dataset with firm-level total factor productivities of European manufacturing companies. Finally, thanks to the implementation of the DBSCAN, a challenging density-based spatial clustering algorithm, we exploit firms’ location information to identify industrial clusters and examine the likelihood of firms’ survival according to their location in industrial clusters or more isolated areas.

This paper presents an empirical analysis about the position new economic geography plays in economics. In a theoretical review we discuss recent developments in economics, like new trade theory, endogenous growth theory, and new economic geography and analyze their implications for spatial structure. The paper presents the basic components of these theories and points out their commonalties. This shows that all these theories are based on assumptions that lead to spatial structure, i.e. differences in the spatial allocation of economic activities. In the empirical investigation we use the Social Science Citation Index to analyze citations of seminal contributions in various types of journals and the rate with which geographical content appears in economic journals. As we show, spatial topics still play only a marginal role in economics. Economists it seems are still reluctant to accept the spatial implications of their own theoretical models.
Series: SRE - Discussion Papers

This dissertation explores the impact of international trade on the geographic location of manufacturing activities and on regional productivity growth patterns within countries. This study develops models of trade with monopolistic competition in the context of a two-region country. It also provides empirical estimates of the e ect of tari policy on the distribution of industrial activities and on productivity growth di erentials across Colombia's regions. The rst essay investigates the consequences of trade liberalization for the distribution of manufacturing activities between large and small cities. It presents an extension of the Melitz (2003) model of trade with monopolistic competition and heterogeneous rms where producers' location and export market participation decisions depend on their productivity. As a country's exposure to trade shifts, rms and output are reallocated between large and small urban areas. Data from Colombia's manufacturing sector lend support to theoretical predictions concerning tari reduction's impact on the repartition of industrial activities between metro- and nonmetropolitan areas in this country. The second essay extends the New Economic Geography, Footloose-Capital model to examine the e ect of commercial policy on the distribution of industrial activities between regions within a country. This study aims at distinguishing theoretical cases with regard to the nature of the trade policy change or to the source of asymmetry between regions. It shows that trade liberalization can have adverse consequences for the manufacturing sector of a small or isolated region under bilateral liberalization, but a positive impact under unilateral trade liberalization. The third essay adapts the Melitz and Ottaviano (2008) model of trade with monopolistic competition, heterogeneous rms, and variable mark-ups to analyze the relationship between trade openness, regional market size, and regional aggregate industry performance. It demonstrates that the impact of trade liberalization on aggregate industry productivity growth varies across regions as a function of regional market size and proximity to foreign markets. A larger region experiences a greater increase in aggregate productivity through intra-industry reallocation of market shares. Similarly, a region with better access to international markets enjoys a higher productivity growth from tari reduction. Empirical evidence is obtained from the Colombian manufacturing sector.

This thesis contributes to the body of research known as the new economic geography. According to this paradigm, increasing returns to scale at the firm level, monopolistic competition, and transportation costs interact in shaping the spatial distribution of economic activity. The introductory chapter lays out the motivation of this thesis and puts it into the perspective of the existing literature. Chapter 1 introduces a typical model of new economic geography: the nature of the agglomeration and dispersion forces it displays is recurrent in this body of research; the model also displays multiple equilibria. The welfare properties of these equilibria are also analysed. Chapter 2 completely characterizes the set of equilibria of a wide range of models that are the quintessence of the new economic geography paradigm. The model of chapter 2 is shown to share the qualitative features of these models. Chapter 3 integrates a simple version of the model chapter 2 within a political economy framework. The welfare analysis of chapter 2 provides the motivation for this theoretical exercise. Chapter 4 seeks to provide an answer to the important but thus far neglected question of what is the mechanism that actually determines the magnitude policies that seek to affect the equilibrium spatial allocation of industries. The geography model is integrated in a fully specified political economy process of policy selection. Chapter 4 extends the model of chapter 2 to deal with the issue of the 'fragmentation' of the production process when new economic geography forces are at play. Finally, the analysis of chapter 5 contributes to the growing literature on the labour market imperfections as a driving force for agglomeration. In particular it shows how the hold-up problem can be softened or worsened by the cluster of industries using workers with similar skills.

Cette thèse étudie la manière dont l’hétérogénéité dans la production de biens publics locaux peut influencer la géographie de l’activité économique, en s’appuyant sur l’étude de deux mécanismes générant une telle hétérogénéité.Dans les deux premiers chapitres, le bien public local étudié est la connaissance technologique. Cette approche trouve sa source dans une vaste littérature montrant que les flux de connaissance sont sujets à un important biais spatial. Le premier chapitre étudie les dynamiques de formation des liens entre innovateurs, et leurs conséquences sur l’effet agrégé de la distance sur les flux de connaissance. L’analyse montre que les innovateurs trouvent des nouvelles sources de connaissance graduellement, via les contacts de leurs propres contacts. En introduisant cet élément dans un modèle de formation de réseau, on obtient des prédictions sur la taille des innovateurs et sur la relation entre taille et distance des citations qui sont vérifiées dans les données. Le second chapitre prend ces réseaux locaux d’innovateurs comme fixés, et examine leur influence sur les décisions de relocalisations d’établissements de R&D par les firmes. Je montre que les firmes innovantes sont plus mobiles que la moyenne, et que des réseaux d’innovation plus denses attirent les firmes tandis qu’une mauvaise position dans le réseau rend les firmes plus susceptibles de se relocaliser. J’étudie ensuite théoriquement le problème d’une firme pouvant relocaliser ses laboratoires mais possédant des informations limitées sur les autres localisations. Le troisième chapitre s’intéresse à un problème différent dans lequel le bien public local est produit par le service public de manière spatialement hétérogène, à cause de salaires fixés de manière centralisée. Il montre que les fonctionnaires génèrent des externalités positives sur le secteur privé, ce qui implique que des niveaux hétérogènes de biens publics locaux déforment la géographie de l’activité privée
This thesis studies how heterogeneity in the quality of local public goods may influence the geography of economic activity, through the study of two mechanisms generating such heterogeneity. In the first two chapters, the local public good I study is technological knowledge. The analysis is rooted in a vast body of literature showing that knowledge flows exhibit a strong spatial bias. The first chapter studies the dynamics of link formation between innovators, and their link with the aggregate effect of distance on knowledge flows. The analysis shows that innovators learn about new knowledge gradually, using the contacts of their own contacts. Inserting this fact in a network formation model yields predictions about the size of innovators and a relation between size and the distance of citations, which are met in the data. The second chapter takes these local innovation networks as given, and investigates how they influence firms’ location choices through their decisions to relocate R&D labs. I show that innovative firms are more mobile than the average firm, and that denser innovation networks attract them while a poor position in their local network makes them more likely to leave. I then study theoretically the problem faced by firms able to relocate their R&D labs with limited information about the other locations.The third chapter studies a different problem in which a local public good provided by the public sector is spatially heterogeneous, due to wages set centrally. It shows that public sector workers exert positive spillovers on private sector workers, implying that heterogeneous levels of public good provision distort the geography of private sector activity

In 2008, nearly half of Africa’s civil wars were ‘low-capability’, that is, conflicts without the tanks, artillery and jet-aircraft we associate with modern warfare. Although depictions of teenagers with AK-47s stealing aid supplies, looting diamonds and brutalising civilians are popular, we know little about the logic of combat in places such as Sierra Leone, Liberia and Somalia. This thesis advances our knowledge by articulating a theory of military strategy in low-capability civil wars. I argue that low-capability civil wars are defensive wars. Due to the inability of governments and insurgents to conduct offensive operations, the costs of capturing territory are far greater than holding it. Based on this theory, I predict that economic geography structures where battles are fought and when foreign states intervene in low-capability civil wars. Results from a quantitative analysis of African civil wars from 1960-2008 and a case study of the Liberian civil war show that the incidence and concentration of fighting around ‘point resources’, especially capital cities, is higher in low-capability civil wars when compared to the more familiar ‘conventional’ and ‘guerrilla’ civil wars. Foreign states also time their deployments with decisive battles over economically valuable areas in low-capability warfare, a pattern not observed in conventional or guerrilla warfare.

The dissertation suggests that geographical, institutional, religious and cultural links may be determinants of growth. We address a number of issues in this thesis. The starting point is naturally a study on growth, while the main focus is on the analysis of inequalities between countries with respect to their environment, and also on inequalities within countries.

The very first step of the study, presented in Chapter one, is to build such non-physical relations between countries. In this chapter, we present both the choices and methods used to model the institutional and cultural weights matrices. Chapter 1 also presents a comparative study between the different matrices built. The final aim of this chapter is to identify the differences between the geographical, institutional and cultural environment.

The following chapter incorporates these innovative new types of matrices in a study on growth. An externality growth model is therefore developed that takes proximities between entities into account, whether geographical, institutional or cultural. The purpose of the chapter is threefold. First, it compares the results obtained from spatial econometrics methods with classical regression, where observations of growth are considered as independent. Second, it examines whether the development of an externality model improves the quality of the estimation. Third, it investigates whether the institutional and cultural types of proximity make sense compared to the geographical one.

Chapter 3 narrows the analysis of countries’ dependency with regard to their neighborhood, whether geographical, institutional or religious, and a quintile regression approach allows us to check whether the countries' wealth level matters. Do the poorest countries react in the same way as richer ones regarding the wealth of their geographical, institutional and religious neighbors? The gross impact of neighboring wealth on a country’s wealth is then estimated, and some relative effects of the three matrices combined are also shown, as well as the robustness of the estimates.

Finally, Chapter 4 analyzes the dependence of poverty regarding neighborhood. The relative wealth and poverty of the neighborhood are examined as factors that can influence a country’s poverty level. The poverty index used is the proportion of people living on less than one or two dollars a day. The study only considers the developing countries as data for the developed countries on the proportion of this variable is near zero. Once again, the final aim is to check whether a country’s poverty is exacerbated by its geographical, institutional and religious neighborhood poverty or if it takes advantage of neighborhood wealth to manage its own poverty issues.

Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This paper uses data for 255 NUTS-2 European regions over the period 1995-2003 to test the relative explanatory performance of two important rival theories seeking to explain variations in the level of economic development across regions, namely the neoclassical model originating from the work of Solow (1956) and the so-called Wage Equation, which is one of a set of simultaneous equations consistent with the short-run equilibrium of new economic geography (NEG) theory, as described by Fujita, Krugman and Venables (1999). The rivals are non-nested, so that testing is accomplished both by fitting the reduced form models individually and by simply combining the two rivals to create a composite model in an attempt to identify the dominant theory. We use different estimators for the resulting panel data model to account variously for interregional heterogeneity, endogeneity, and temporal and spatial dependence, including maximum likelihood with and without fixed effects, two stage least squares and feasible generalised spatial two stage least squares plus GMM; also most of these models embody a spatial autoregressive error process. These show that the estimated NEG model parameters correspond to theoretical expectation, whereas the parameter estimates derived from the neoclassical model reduced form are sometimes insignificant or take on counterintuitive signs. This casts doubt on the appropriateness of neoclassical theory as a basis for explaining cross-regional variation in economic development in Europe, whereas NEG theory seems to hold in the face of competition from its rival. (authors' abstract)

The World Bank estimated that 1.4 billion people in the world were living in poverty in 2008. In the last several decades, many countries have succeeded in not only reducing the number and percent of people living in poverty, but also increasing overall economic strength. Yet, while some countries have succeeded, many others have not. This unequal growth has led to newer development theories that include the importance of geography and the physical environment. A leading researchers in this field, Jeffrey Sachs, argues that geography and physical ecology, along with some economic indicators are responsible for this difference in success. This research tests the theory that was suggested by Sachs. Spatial statistics techniques were used to analyze these theories with new methods and shed new light on the variables. Results showed that certain variables (coastal population, proximity to a major market) were not as significant in development, when regional differences were accounted for. However, other variables, particularly malaria and consumption, were very significant. In addition, testing variables regionally provided much better results than previously-used global models. Lastly, the results were used to analyze outliers. The outliers helped to discuss other important variables and pave the way for future research.

This dissertation consists of four self-contained essays on the economic geography of oppressive violent deviant behaviours, a definition identifying violent violations of social norms driven by oppressive urges against minorities. The common thread running through the essays is the quantitative exploration of how the local socioeconomic characteristics influence the occurrence and the scale of violence directed towards disempowered groups. The first chapter investigates the relationship between hate events and the socioeconomic/cultural characteristics of Italian Local Labour Market Areas, through a unique database with georeferenced hate manifestations. The estimation of a hurdle model identifies the local conditions acting as risk factors for hate occurrence and for hate frequency. The geography of refugees’ hosting structures appears as a predictor of both the occurrence and the frequency of hate, whereas foreign resident population does not display any significant influence. At the same time, trust works as a protective factor reducing the occurrence of hatred at the local level. Moreover, once the hurdle of experiencing at least one hate manifestation is crossed, fewer conditions are needed to fuel further hate in the same place. The second chapter analyses the influence of real-world socioeconomic features on online hate in Italy, exploiting a novel dataset on geotagged hate tweets. Results show a strong empirical association between the local economic dimension and cyberhate. Economic insecurity is robust risk factors for online hate, as well as economic inequality. The latter influences online hate along two channels: the local outlook of income inequality and the relative importance assigned to individualistic values by the established family type in the area. In the third chapter I investigate whether school bullying is affected by a cultural shock from migration. The analysis exploits the natural shock from migration which occurred in the UK after the 2004 European Union enlargement to empirically estimate how a sudden and sizeable migration inflow influences school bullying. The findings -robust to endogeneity of immigrants’ location choice- highlight that the cultural shock from migration determines an increase in school violence. The paper also suggests that existing language barriers act as a moderator for the migration shock by increasing its effect. The final chapter explores whether women’ propensity to report sexual crimes to the police is influenced by the local availability of specialized services for victims of sexual offences. Applying the synthetic control method to the UK, the empirical investigation shows that the local availability of dedicated services, as refuges and professional help, increases women’s willingness to seek justice. The positive effect of the local provision of specialized services holds even after the occurrence a of countrywide and prominent media campaign about sexual offences. This last finding further supports the importance of the availability of nearby services, since it suggests that nation-scale initiatives do not work as substitutes.

This thesis seeks to provide a better understanding of the informal economy within informal settlements, particularly the importance of agglomeration economies or economic activity hubs (EAHs), within the context of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The research seeks to understand the spatial and economic networks of EAHs as their agglomeration processes, socio-cultural dimensions, and other factors or characteristics to determine potential drivers and operations of these economies. This research also examines the potential of GIS and spatial analysis as a tool in researching the informal economy in developing cities. This investigation was conducted through a case study of EAHs in two informal settlements in Dar es Salaam, Keko and Manzese, using a mixed-methods approach. In many developing cities, urbanisation and growth coincide with a large informal economy, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. However, despite research suggesting that the informal economy provides an important source of economic opportunity and development, many policies and planning practices still maintain a largely negative perception, resulting in marginalisation of the working poor. Most existing research on the IE has focused on street traders; however there is little research regarding economic activity occurring within low-income settlements. As the contexts in these spaces is very different, there is a gap in existing research regarding the role of clustering economies within the settlements as well as the wider urban economy. The research reveals that EAHs play an important role in not only informal settlements, but also the wider urban economy and operate with a high degree of specialisation and complex agglomeration processes. These economies are largely misunderstood or simply overlooked by the regulatory environment. A better understanding of the informal economy and the potential of EAHs may enable policy makers and urban planners to use the concept of informality to alleviate the incidence of working poverty in developing cities.

Le fait que les activités d'innovation soient très concentrées dans l'espace, et en particulier dans les villes, a motivé un effort de recherche important pour comprendre les dynamiques spatiales de l'innovation. Si les flux de connaissances sont largement reconnus comme un facteur déterminant de la géographie de l’innovation, les mécanismes par lesquels ils se diffusent dans l'espace demeurent méconnus. En particulier, la littérature souligne l'importance de la mobilité des travailleurs qualifiés et des réseaux de collaboration scientifique. Cette thèse examine le rôle de la mobilité qualifiée dans la diffusion des connaissances, ainsi que la distribution spatiale des activités d’innovation qui en résulte. Pour répondre à cette question, cette thèse procède en trois étapes. Le premier chapitre fournit un cadre conceptuel articulant trois courants de littérature dont la nouvelle économie géographique, les modèles de croissance endogène, ainsi que les contributions empiriques sur la géographie de l’innovation. Une des conclusions principales de ce chapitre est que les modèles alliant économie géographique et croissance endogène fournissent un cadre théorique pertinent, puisqu’ils reconnaissent le rôle de la mobilité qualifiée et des externalités de connaissances dans la répartition des activités d’innovation. Cependant, leurs conclusions demeurent incomplètes pour au moins deux raisons.Premièrement, les dynamiques de migration sont très simplistes, et l’introduction de travailleurs avec des caractéristiques et des préférences de localisation hétérogènes altère le mécanisme cumulatif à la base de l’agglomération. Le second chapitre analyse les trajectoires de mobilité des inventeurs entre les villes Européennes, ainsi que leur dimension spatiale. En utilisant ces résultats, un modèle de gravité avec filtres spatiaux est utilisé pour estimer formellement comment le marché du travail, les réseaux de collaborations ainsi que les aménités, influencent les flux de mobilité des inventeurs.Deuxièmement, ces modèles ne considèrent pas la mobilité qualifiées comme un mécanisme de diffusion des connaissances. La littérature empirique a établi que les individus qualifiés influencent les flux de connaissances par leur mobilité professionnelle, ainsi que par les réseaux de collaboration et la capacité d’absorption qui en résulte. Le troisième chapitre estime un modèle spatial de Durbin pour étudier ces trois mécanismes dans un cadre unifié. L'hypothèse sous-jacente est que la mobilité et les réseaux donnent accès aux connaissances externes, mais la proportion de ces connaissances utilisée pour l'innovation dépend de la capacité d'absorption.Ces résultats ont de nombreuses implications pour la géographie de l'innovation. Alors que la mobilité de long terme devrait constituer une force d'agglomération importante, le développement des mobilités de court terme ou circulaires constituent une force de dispersion. L'importance relative de ces deux effets demeure incertaine, car les choix de localisation sont hétérogènes, de sorte que les trajectoires de mobilité varient considérablement. Ces éléments pourraient fournir une explication partielle aux écarts de croissance entre les zones urbaines, et dans une perspective plus dynamique, si cette différence tend à s’accroître ou à se résorber au cours du temps
The fact that innovative activity is remarkably concentrated in space, and in particular in cities, has motivated an important research effort to understand the spatial dimension of innovation, and the underlying mechanisms at work. While the literature has established the importance knowledge flows for location of innovation, the mechanisms through which they diffuse in space remain largely understudied. In particular, studies have insisted on the importance of skilled workers' mobility and the networked nature of knowledge production for innovation. Building on these considerations, this thesis investigates the role of skilled mobility in the diffusion of knowledge, and the resulting distribution of innovative activity. To answer this question, the thesis proceeds in three steps. The first chapter sets the conceptual framework and surveys the related literature. One of the main conclusion of this review is that some new economic geography and growth models provide a useful theoretical framework, because they recognize the importance of skilled mobility and knowledge externalities for the distribution of innovation. However, they fail to provide a reasonable answer to our research question for at least two reasons. First, the migration dynamics are very simplistic, and introducing heterogeneity in workers' characteristics and location preferences alters the cumulative mechanism of agglomeration. The second chapter provides a descriptive analysis on the patterns of inventors' mobility across urban areas, and their spatial dimension. Using these results, a spatial filtering gravity model is used to analyse formally how employment opportunities, professional networks and urban amenities, influence inventors' mobility flows. Second, these models do not consider workers' role in the diffusion of knowledge. The literature has established that skilled individuals influence the diffusion of knowledge by moving across organisation, creating network relationships and building absorptive capacities. The third chapter implements a spatial Durbin model to study these three mechanisms in an integrated framework. It is assumed that that mobility and networks provide access to knowledge, but the proportion of accessible knowledge used for innovation depends on absorptive capacity. These results have implications for the geography of innovation. While long-term mobility acts as a strong agglomeration force, the development of short-term, circular patterns of mobility should give rise to dispersion. The relative importance of these two effects is uncertain, because workers have different propensities and motivation to move, so that mobility patterns differ considerably. This should help explaining the persistence of long-run growth differentials among urban areas, and in a more dynamic setting, whether these gaps tend to widen or fall over time

This dissertation investigates the question: why do some regions industrialize and others do not? The research focuses on industrialization in Germany in the second half of the 19th century when the country adopted British steam technology and built a dense railroad network. The central thesis is that the adoption of steam powered machinery created incentives for manufacturers to concentrate production in central areas and around coal fields. The railroad boom lowered trade costs and thereby made it feasible to serve distant markets from these central locations. As a result, the Ruhr Area gained industrial employment in large numbers while regions in Bavaria and East Elbia lost their traditional manufacturing centers. Specifically, the first chapter finds that increases in the use of steam power led to a rise in the spatial concentration of manufacturing industries and higher co-location with coal mining. The second chapter compares the effects of access to coal and access to consumer markets on regional industrial employment to separately identify the impact of coal fields and the population centers that formed around them. The results show that access to coal was more important than access to consumer markets for the location of metal production and textiles. The third chapter shows that improvements in market access had a negative impact on manufacturing growth in regions with below median per capita manufacturing employment, but for regions above this mark the impact was positive. This means that the transportation improvements did not support the dispersion of industry but instead contributed to the geographic concentration of industrialization. Together the chapters show that the adoption of steam powered technology in manufacturing and transportation raised the spatial concentration of manufacturing and help to explain why industrial development was not more widespread in Germany.

L'objectiu d'aquesta tesi és comprendre com i per què les destinacions turístiques es transformen amb el temps, tot posant especial atenció a l’estudi de les dinàmiques del lloc en el seu conjunt en comptes de simplificar l’anàlisi a l'evolució de l'activitat turística, una de les discussions predominants entorn dels models evolutius tradicionals. Amb aquesta finalitat, es desenvolupa un model analític inspirat en avenços contemporanis en el camp de la geografia econòmica, més concretament, en l’àmbit de la geografia econòmica evolutiva (EEG) i la geografia econòmica relacional (REG). Des d’aquest enfocament, l'evolució de les destinacions es concep com un procés complex i en continu canvi que està influenciat per les característiques específiques i la interacció de múltiples forces en termes d'agència (human agency), contextualitat (contextuality) i dependència de la trajectòria (path dependence). Tot centrant l'anàlisi empíric en els catalitzadors específics que van tenir incidència en la definició de la trajectòria evolutiva de la Costa Daurada centre des de la dècada de 1980, la investigació s’orienta, en primer lloc, a estudiar els efectes de la interacció dels actors i els fluxos de coneixement en el comportament evolutiu de les destinacions (human agency). En segon lloc, la capacitat d'adaptació de les destinacions davant les dinàmiques de canvi local i global (contextuality). En tercer lloc, els efectes positius i negatius a llarg termini que es deriven de les decisions i esdeveniments ocorreguts en el passat (path dependence).
El objetivo de esta tesis es comprender cómo y por qué los destinos turísticos se transforman con el tiempo, poniendo especial atención al estudio de las dinámicas del lugar en su conjunto en vez de simplificar el análisis a la evolución de la actividad turística, una de las discusiones predominantes en torno a los modelos evolutivos tradicionales. Con este fin, se desarrolla un modelo analítico inspirado en avances contemporáneos en el campo de la geografía económica, más concretamente, en el ámbito de la geografía económica evolutiva (EEG) y la geografía económica relacional (REG). Desde este enfoque, la evolución de los destinos se concibe como un proceso complejo y en continuo cambio que está influenciado por las características específicas y la interacción de múltiples fuerzas en términos de agencia (human agency), contextualidad (contextuality) y dependencia de la trayectoria (path dependence). Centrando el análisis empírico en los catalizadores específicos que tuvieron incidencia en la definición de la trayectoria evolutiva de la Costa Dorada centro desde la década de 1980, la investigación se orienta, en primer lugar, a estudiar los efectos de la interacción los actores y los flujos de conocimiento en el comportamiento evolutivo de los destinos (human agency). En segundo lugar, la capacidad de adaptación de los destinos ante las dinámicas de cambio local y global (contextuality). En tercer lugar, los efectos positivos y negativos a largo plazo que se derivan de las decisiones y acontecimientos ocurridos en el pasado (path dependence).
The aim of this thesis is to understand how and why destinations change over time, putting attention to the dynamics of place instead of the evolution of tourism activity, one of the prevalent discussions around traditional evolutionary models. To achieve this, it develops an analytical model drawing inspiration on contemporary advances in economic geography – i.e. evolutionary economic geography (EEG) and relational economic geography (REG). From such an approach destination evolution is conceived as a complex ongoing process shaped by the specific characteristics and interplay of multiple forces in terms of human agency, contextuality and path dependence. By focusing on the analysis of specific catalysts that shaped the evolutionary trajectory of central Costa Daurada (Catalonia) since the 1980s, the exploratory research conducted studies, first, the effects of stakeholders’ interaction and knowledge flows on the evolutionary performance of destinations (human agency). Second, the adaptive capacity of destinations in front of dynamics of local and global change (contextuality). And third, the enabling and constraining long-term effects of decisions and events occurred in the past (path dependence). The methodological design of the empirical research comprises a combination of qualitative – interviews and documentary analysis – and quantitative – social network analysis – techniques.