Journal of Economic Geography - Advance Access

Immigrant banking and financial exclusion in Greater Boston

Joassart-Marcelli, P., Stephens, P. — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:04:10 PST

Immigrants' lack of financial integration has been explained by individual characteristics including education, income, legal status and English ability, with little attention given to the geographic dimensions of banking. This article builds on the literature on financial exclusion and ecology to investigate the spatial relationships between Immigrant settlement patterns in Greater Boston in 2000 and accessibility to various types of financial institutions. The analysis reveals important differences among the 10 largest immigrant groups, with poorer and more isolated immigrants disproportionately exposed to check-cashers and pawn-brokers. Immigration interacts with race and class to create a complex intra-urban financial ecology of exclusion.

Networks of learning within the English wine industry

Turner, S. — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:10:56 PDT

The literature on industrial districts suggests that spatial proximity supports interfirm learning and is therefore a source of competitive advantage. Although ‘territorial’ accounts have highlighted the informal means through which firms access knowledge, localised perspectives have received criticism from a number of quarters. This article adopts a ‘relational’ perspective centred on the firm and explores the role of both formal and informal networks of learning using empirical evidence from the English wine industry of southern England. The findings suggest that the development of formal interfirm arrangements and non-local knowledge links by leading firms is displacing the extant communitarian logic of learning within the industry. Implications for the literature on industrial districts are discussed.

A simple theory of industry location and residence choice

Borck, R., Pfluger, M., Wrede, M. — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:15:06 PDT

Trade and factor mobility allow for a separation of the location of production from the location of residences. We provide a simple general equilibrium model which endogenously determines these two choices. Our specific focus is on how residences and the locations of production are affected by the secular decline in trade and mobility costs that we witness. The main prediction of our analysis is that economic integration in the sense of a joint reduction of distance-related frictions eventually leads to an increased spatial concentration of production and a decreased concentration of residences. Intuitively, if distance-related costs fall, households' residence choices will be affected more strongly by the motive to avoid rising land rent, whilst the increasing strength of agglomeration economies induces a stronger concentration of production. We focus on and formalize the theory in terms of long-distance commuting.

The globalization of retailing (2 Volumes): N. M. Coe and N. Wrigley (eds)

Anwar, N. H. — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:54:31 PDT

Does decentralization matter for regional disparities? A cross-country analysis

Rodriguez-Pose, A., Ezcurra, R. — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 22:08:15 PDT

This article looks at the relationship between fiscal and political decentralization and the evolution of regional inequalities in a panel of 26 countries—19 developed and 7 developing—for the period between 1990 and 2006. Using an instrumental variables method, it finds that whereas for the whole sample decentralization is completely dissociated from the evolution of regional disparities, the results are highly contingent on the level of development, the existing level of territorial inequalities, and the fiscal redistributive capacity of the countries in the sample. Decentralization in high income countries has, if anything, been linked with a reduction of regional inequality. In low and medium income countries, fiscal decentralization has been associated with a significant rise in regional disparities, which the positive effects of political decentralization have been unable to compensate. Policy preferences by subnational governments for expenditure in economic affairs, education, and social protection have contributed to this trend.

Moderating urban sprawl: is there a balance between shared open space and housing parcel size?

Cho, S.-H., Lambert, D. M., Roberts, R. K., Kim, S. G. — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 22:31:31 PDT

This article addresses the tradeoff between the values households’ place on shared open space and parcel size, and the implications for housing development policy. Marginal implicit prices of shared open space and single-family housing parcel size are estimated using geographically weighted regression corrected for spatial autocorrelation. The marginal rate of substitution (MRS) of shared open space for lot size is calculated for individual households. Defining target areas based on site-specific MRSs could provide policy makers with more accurate information for designing or updating location-specific land use policies in efforts to moderate urban sprawl.

Specialization and risk sharing in European regions

Basile, R., Girardi, A. — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 22:31:18 PDT

Economic theory emphasizes that risk sharing makes it possible to exploit benefits from comparative advantages and economies of scale. Unlike previous studies we test (and reject) the assumption of parameter homogeneity across geographical units in measuring risk sharing. The estimated regional-specific index of risk sharing is then used as a covariate in a model of industrial specialization for the EU15 regions. By estimating a number of nonparametric additive spatial autocovariance models, allowing for nonlinearities and spatial dependence, we show that industrial specialization is positively affected by risk-sharing measures even controlling for other relevant regressors.

Mobility and housing satisfaction: an empirical analysis for 12 EU countries

Diaz-Serrano, L., Stoyanova, A. P. — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 22:31:03 PDT

Using panel data for 12 EU countries, we analyze the relationship between self-reported housing satisfaction and residential mobility. Our results indicate the existence of a positive link between the two variables and that housing satisfaction exerts a mediating effect between residential characteristics and dwellers' mobility propensities. Some interesting cross-country differences regarding the effect of other variables on mobility are also observed.

The plant size-place effect: agglomeration and monopsony in labour markets

Manning, A. — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 22:30:49 PDT

This article shows, using data from both the USA and the UK, that average plant size is larger in denser markets. However, many popular theories of agglomeration—spillovers, cost advantages and improved match quality—predict that establishments should be smaller in cities. The article proposes a theory based on monopsony in labour markets—firms in all labour markets have some market power but that they have less market power in cities—that can explain the stylized fact. It also presents evidence that the labour supply curve to individual firms is more elastic in larger markets, consistent with the monopsony hypothesis.

Migration, relationship capital and international travel: theory and evidence

McCann, P., Poot, J., Sanderson, L. — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:07:16 PDT

In this article we consider how international migration is related to the frequency and duration of trips to the home country. For many migrants, international migration triggers a series of trips to visit the home country that allow for a replenishment of the depleted relationship capital with family and friends back home, but these trips incur travel costs and foregone earnings. Given plausible assumptions about the depreciation and replenishment of home country relationship capital, a steady-state level of average maintained relationship capital implies that the optimized travel frequency is inversely related to the distance and the transportation costs, and positively related to the psychological costs of separation. The total time spent at home is increasing in the trip frequency, but with an elasticity that is decreasing in cultural proximity. Empirical evidence in support of these theoretical predictions is found in a unique longitudinal sample of international travel of 13,674 New Zealand citizens and 6882 UK citizens who migrated to Australia between 1 August 1999 and 31 July 2000.

Social justice and neoliberalism: global perspectives * Adrian Smith, Alison Stenning and Katie Willis (eds)

Springer, S. — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:11:07 PDT

Land use regulation with durable capital

Quigley, J. M., Swoboda, A. M. — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 05:05:40 PDT

This article compares the level and distribution of the welfare changes from restricting land available for residential development in a city. We compare the economic costs when residential capital is durable with the costs when capital is perfectly malleable and those when population is also freely mobile. Our simulation, based on the stylized specification of an urban location model, suggests that in a more realistic setting with durable capital, the costs of regulation are substantially higher than they are when capital is assumed to be malleable or when households are assumed to be fully mobile. Importantly, the extent of wealth redistribution attributable to these regulations is much larger when these more realistic factors are recognized. When capital is durable, the results also imply that far more new development takes place on previously undeveloped land at the urban boundary, sometimes resulting in an increase in total land under development.

Economic Geography: The Integration of Regions and Nations * Pierre-Philippe Combes, Thierry Mayer and Jacques-Francois Thisse

Ottaviano, G. I. P. — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 23:03:44 PDT

Global unions global business: global union federations and international business * Richard Croucher and Elizabeth Cotton

Ferus-Comelo, A. — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 05:49:39 PDT

How important is access to jobs? Old question--improved answer

Aslund, O., Osth, J., Zenou, Y. — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 06:05:12 PDT

We study the impact of job proximity on individual employment and earnings. The analysis exploits a Swedish refugee dispersal policy to obtain exogenous variation in individual locations. Using very detailed data on the exact location of all residences and workplaces in Sweden, we find that having been placed in a location with poor job access in 1990–1991 adversely affected employment in 1999. Doubling the number of jobs in the initial location in 1990–1991 is associated with 2.9 percentage points higher employment probability in 1999. Considering that the 1999 employment rate was 43% among the refugees, this is a considerable effect. The analysis suggests that residential sorting leads to underestimation of the impact of job access.

'Being in the market': the UK house-price bubble and the intended structure of individual pension investment portfolios

Clark, G. L., Duran-Fernandez, R., Strauss, K. — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 08:36:15 PDT

It is widely observed that being in the market gives financial traders access to knowledge and information not available to remote traders. A truism of the geography of finance, it is also a perspective that can shed light on the interaction between market location, global financial movements and personal welfare. In this article, we develop an explanation of the premium attached to being in the market, drawing upon previous contributions on the relevance of tacit knowledge and the insights provided by behavioural finance with respect to time–space myopia. To illustrate our model of four types of behaviour, mixing together various combinations of time and space conceptions of market performance, we analyse the intended retirement investment portfolios of nearly 2400 participants in a defined contribution pension plan sponsored by a London-based investment bank. Having demonstrated the empirical significance of the UK house-price bubble, respondents’ retirement investment portfolios are analysed focusing upon the relative significance of property in relation to a range of other investment instruments. It is shown that, amongst similarly located respondents, there was a range of investment strategies dependent, in part, upon respondents’ age, household status, job classification and income. These results allow us to distinguish between different types of behaviour even amongst well-placed respondents, providing evidence of the co-existence of sophisticated, naive and opportunistic investors against the base-case of time–space myopic behaviour. Implications are drawn for conceptualising a rapprochement between the insights of the behavioural revolution for economic geography (and in particular, the geography of finance) relevant for public policy.

The geography of buzz: art, culture and the social milieu in Los Angeles and New York

Currid, E., Williams, S. — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 08:36:01 PDT

Social scientists have long sought to understand the cultural production system. Such research elucidates the importance of the social milieu to cultural industries. We capture aggregate patterns of the social milieu and the geographical form it takes. We use a unique data set, Getty Images and geo-coded over 6000 events and 300,000 photographic images taken in Los Angeles and New York City, and conducted GIS and spatial statistics to analyze macro-geographical patterns. The five important findings include: (i) social milieus have nonrandom spatial clustering; (ii) these clustering tendencies may reinforce themselves; (iii) event enclaves demonstrate homogeneous spatial patterns across all cultural industries; (iv) the recursive nature of place branding may partially explain resulting cultural hubs; and (v) the media also clusters. These results have unintended consequences for our understanding of clustering more generally and place branding. The use of Getty data provides a new spatial dimension through which to understand cultural industries and city geographic patterns.

Innovation, spillovers and university-industry collaboration: an extended knowledge production function approach

Ponds, R., Oort, F. v., Frenken, K. — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:07:08 PDT

This article analyses the effect of knowledge spillovers from academic research on regional innovation. Spillovers are localized to the extent that the underlying mechanisms are geographically bounded. However, university–industry collaboration—as one of the carriers of knowledge spillovers—is not limited to the regional scale. Consequently, we expect spillovers to take place over longer distances. The effect of university–industry collaboration networks on knowledge spillovers are modelled using an extended knowledge production function framework applied to regions in the Netherlands. We find that the impact of academic research on regional innovation is not only mediated by geographical proximity but also by networks stemming from university–industry collaboration.

How streetcars shaped suburbanization: a Granger causality analysis of land use and transit in the Twin Cities

Xie, F., Levinson, D. — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:24:55 PDT

This article presents a Granger causality analysis of the coupled development of population and streetcars in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St Paul Historic residence and network data were assembled for 1900–1930, and linear cross-sectional time-series models were estimated at both a tract and block level using these data. It is found that, in contrast with transportation systems that were expanded in response to increased demand, the rapid expansion of the streetcar system during the electric era has been driven by other forces and to a large extent led land development in the Twin Cities. The main forces that have driven this process include technological superiority, monopoly, close connections with real estate business and people's reliance on the streetcar for mobility. Proximity to the streetcar is found to be a crucial factor that determines the distribution and development of residences: it is observed that residential density declines with the distance from streetcar lines, and significantly drops beyond a walkable distance; it is also observed that gaining a closer access to streetcar lines within 800 m (about a half mile) predicts the increase in residential density to a significant extent.

There goes the metro: how and why bohemians, artists and gays affect regional housing values

Florida, R., Mellander, C. — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 10:10:42 PDT

It is often conjectured that artistic, bohemian and gay populations increase housing values in the neighborhoods and communities in which they reside. But these groups are small, and the evidence of their effect on housing prices is anecdotal and limited. We argue that artists, bohemians and gays affect housing values through two kinds of mechanisms: an aesthetic-amenity premium; and a tolerance or open culture premium. To examine this, we introduce a combined measure of bohemian and gay populations—the Bohemian-Gay Index. We conduct statistical analyses to test the performance of this measure against other variables expected to affect housing values—income, wages, technology and human capital. The findings indicate that the Bohemian-Gay Index has a substantial direct relation with housing values across all permutations of the model and across all region sizes. It remains positive and significant alongside variables for regional income, wages, technology and human capital. The Bohemian-Gay Index also has a substantial direct correlation with other key variables, particularly income, indicating an additional indirect effect on housing values.

Coping with the changing rules of the game in the global textiles and apparel industries: evidence from Turkey and Morocco

Tokatli, N., Kizilgun, O. — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 09:57:03 PDT

In 2004, USA signed a bilateral free trade agreement with Morocco that was potentially devastating for the Turkish firm Mithat, an established clothing supplier of a number of major US buyers including Gap/Banana Republic/Old Navy. By means of this case study, we observe the manner in which manufacturing suppliers make their own calculations in response to their buyers’ sourcing calculus—a daunting task, especially when it is necessary to take into account politically motivated bilateral free trade agreements between countries which are neither natural partners nor in geographical proximity with each other.

Chicago made: factory networks in the industrial metropolis: Robert Lewis

Winder, G. M. — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 09:56:52 PDT

Green economics: an introduction to theory, policy and practice: Molly Scott Cato

Dorling, D. — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:20:12 PDT

Using design for upgrading in the fashion industry

Aspers, P. — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:56:20 PDT

The purpose of the article is to analyze upgrading by looking at the design of fashion garments. To that end, I use the theoretical concept of contextual knowledge to understand the problems faced by firms, and their staff, that want to upgrade through design. Contextual knowledge combines a general knowledge of fashion with the lifeworld that actors use for interpretation of fashion. Lifeworld is a notion which refers to what is taken for granted. Producers and consumers in the global fashion industry live in different lifeworlds. The text discusses upgrading strategies of garment manufacturers, drawing on unique empirical material. It provides a theoretical tool for analyzing culturally primed production in a global setting.

Grounding globalization: labour in the age of insecurity: Webster, E., Lambert, R. and Bezuidenhout, A.

Lier, D. — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:02:05 PDT

Are Worker Rights Human Rights?: Richard McIntyre Ann Arbor

Ruwanpura, K. N — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:01:50 PDT

Internal migration and the earnings of married couples in the United States

Blackburn, M. L. — Wed, 13 May 2009 09:40:22 PDT

Economic models of migration recognize that potential changes in income are an important factor in the decision to change geographic location within a country's borders. For married couples, gains need not occur for both spouses, and ‘tied movers’ may on average see their relative earnings fall as a result of internal migration. Previous research suggesting that wives appear on average to be tied movers primarily dates back to the 1970s. Examining data from the 1990s, I find a result similar to this earlier research, with wives losing on average about 20% of their pre-migration earnings. Much of this decline is associated with a decline in work hours for wives. The effect seems to be short-lived, not clearly persisting into the second year following migration.

The effect of neighbourhood housing tenure mix on labour market outcomes: a longitudinal investigation of neighbourhood effects

van Ham, M., Manley, D. — Fri, 08 May 2009 07:19:43 PDT

This article investigates the effect of different levels of neighbourhood housing tenure mix and deprivation on transitions from unemployment to employment and the probability of staying in employment for those with a job. We used multiple regression models and unique individual level data from the Scottish Longitudinal Study. We found that high correlations between the percentage of social renting in a neighbourhood and labour market outcomes disappeared when controlling for neighbourhood deprivation, individual level education and tenure. The results show that living in a deprived neighbourhood is negatively correlated with labour market performance, but predominantly for homeowners and not for social renters. We suggest that selection effects and not causation are behind the neighbourhood effects found.

Have developed countries escaped the curse of distance?

Boulhol, H., de Serres, A. — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 23:30:16 PDT

This article applies for the first time the framework developed by Redding and Venables (2004, Journal of International Economics, 62: 53–82) on a panel dataset restricted to advanced countries over 1970–2004, and shows that the cost of remoteness remains significant. Second, the article highlights that the elasticity of aggregate income to distance to markets in the Redding–Venables model is severely biased upwards in cross-section samples that mix both developing and developed countries, most likely due to the inability to adequately control for heterogeneity in technology levels across countries. Also, the effect of distance is robust to whether the trade equation is specified as linear in logarithm or nonlinear in level.

International trade and wage inequality in Canada

Breau, S., Rigby, D. L. — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 10:10:54 PDT

We investigate the impact of international trade on wages and on wage inequality across industries and regions in Canada. An employer–employee dataset is developed combining individual worker characteristics from the 20% sample of the 2001 Census of Population and synthetic establishments from the 1999 Annual Survey of Manufactures. Results from wage regression models show that import competition from low-income countries has a significant impact on wage inequality in Canada, pushing down the wages of less-educated workers relative to those of highly educated workers. The negative effect of import competition on the wages of less-skilled workers is shown to be more pronounced in Québec and in the Prairie provinces, as well as in labor-intensive and product-differentiated industries.

Knowledge spillovers, black holes and the equilibrium location of vertically linked industries

Barde, S. — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 05:27:39 PDT

Using a generalized version of the Venables (1996, International Economic Review, 37: 341–359) model, this article explores the relative locations of two vertically linked sectors with knowledge spillovers. Analytical investigation shows that the dynamic properties of the Venables model are significantly affected by the presence of spillovers. In particular, the own-cost reduction effects at low transport costs can be so strong that runaway agglomeration dynamics appear in a manner consistent with the black hole concept found in the literature. However, due to the decay of information over space, these black hole dynamics are endogenous to the model and disappear when transport costs are high enough. Importantly, the location predictions obtained in simulations of the model are consistent with the empirical finding that industrials sector that benefit from spillovers are typically more agglomerated than sector that do not benefit from such spillovers.

Do developing countries need 'good' institutions and policies and deep financial markets to benefit from capital account liberalization?

van Hulten, A., Webber, M. — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 11:22:10 PDT

This article critically evaluates the argument that, if developing countries had better institutions and policies and deeper financial markets, they would receive a boost to growth from capital account liberalization. The existing empirical record is ambiguous and leaves unanswered many of the important questions facing policy-makers. To test some predictions driving the case for capital account liberalization in developing countries, this article investigates the relationship between net capital inflows and medium-term economic growth within a sample of rich, institutionally advanced economies between 1984 and 2004. No evidence of a strong or statistically robust relationship between net capital inflows and future economic growth is found. On the contrary, the evidence suggests that net capital inflows are more strongly associated with past economic growth than with future economic growth. This result implies that capital account liberalization is not likely to boost growth, even among countries with the most appropriate institutions and policies.

Community, economic creativity and organization * Ash Amin and Joanne Roberts (Eds)

Coe, N. M. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 05:47:42 PDT

International retailing * Nicholas Alexander and Anne Marie Doherty

Palmer, M. — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 02:14:52 PST