Trends in Service Employment in Pacific Northwest Counties: 1974–1986

The Pacific Northwest has grown more rapidly than the U.S. in recent years, led by the expansion of services employment. However, there have been striking differences in the rates of growth of individual counties in the Northwest. These variations in growth rates are shown to be associated with the type of industrial structure found in groups of counties. Their growth is also shown to be related, in part, to changes in the economic base of individual counties, with services contributing a greater share to county exports in 1986 than in 1974.     

The elusive quest for balanced regional growth from Barlow to Brexit: Lessons from partitioning regional employment growth in Great Britain

The British Government’s economic strategy for post‐Brexit Britain of achieving balanced regional growth by “driving growth across the whole country” echoes the objectives set by the Barlow Report of 1940. The regional policies that followed the Barlow Report were heavily influenced by papers written for the Commission by G D A (later Sir Donald) MacDougall. The first of these papers was included as an appendix to the report itself and introduced the shift‐share methodology to the analysis of regional employment growth, and subsequently shown to be flawed. The second paper considered the urban hierarchy and growth but was never fully developed. Consequently post‐war regional policy focussed on the contribution of industrial structure to employment growth without fully taking into account the urban hierarchy or regional locations of that employment. This article replaces the flawed shift‐share methodology with multifactor partitioning (MFP) and applies it to regional employment growth for the period 1971‐2012, a span of special interest because it largely coincides with British membership of the European Union (EU). The deficiencies in the second paper are addressed by introducing allometry to measure the employment growth of each region relative to that of Great Britain and then regression analysis to relate the allometries to distance from London. The results of the two sets of analyses highlight the need for a multiple‐factor, comprehensive, and integrated approach to regional policy and provide a benchmark against which to gauge the success of Britain's post‐Brexit policy of driving future growth across the whole country.     

农产品加工业发展对就业的影响分析

选取1985年—2005年的统计数据,分析农产品加工业总产值与就业人数的协整关系。农产品加工业的发展对就业有正向的促进作用,但我国的农产品加工业规模还比较小,发展空间还很大。     

基于蒙特卡罗的水产品中甲醛定量风险评估

通过开展水产品中的甲醛定量风险评估工作,量化中国普通居民食用水产品途径的甲醛膳食风险水平。运用基于蒙特卡罗模拟的@risk软件,以风险商表征食用水产品途径的甲醛膳食风险。评估结果表明,中国普通居民通过食用鲜活水产品及干制水产品途径摄入甲醛的风险商平均值和各百分位数风险商均小于1,且通过食用干制水产品途径的甲醛膳食风险商平均值和各百分位数均比食用鲜活水产品途径的甲醛膳食风险商平均值和各百分位数要低1个数量级。因而,中国普通居民仅通过食用水产品途径的甲醛膳食暴露尚不存在健康风险,但是仍需加强对鲜活水产品中甲醛的控制和监测,从而进一步降低中国普通居民食用水产品途径的甲醛膳食风险水平。     

Changing Employment Profiles and Growth: An Economic Base Study of Florida Counties (1982–1987)

Location Quotients are used to estimate economic base multipliers for two-digit Standard Industrial Classification employment data at the county level for the state of Florida. Changes in multipliers are contrasted to changes in county employment profiles and demographic trends for the period 1982 to 1987. Counties are then classified by employment and growth characteristics. A cross-sectional econometric model is constructed to explain regional shifts in total employment. It is demonstrated that although the Florida economy is supported by a low level of employment activity in primary and secondary sectors (relative to the tertiary sector), these sectors tend to be very important in explaining variations in regional economic growth. The empirical findings suggest that the alleged service-oriented economy of Florida is still reliant upon export-oriented activity as the catalyst for employment expansion.     

Jobs,Houses, and Trees: Changing Regional Structure,Local Land‐Use Patterns,and Forest Cover in Southern Indiana

Land‐use and ‐cover change is a topic of increasing concern as interest in forest and agricultural land preservation grows. Urban and residential land use is quickly replacing extractive land use in southern Indiana. The interaction between land quality and urban growth pressures is also causing secondary forest growth and forest clearing to occur jointly in a complex spatial pattern. It is argued that similar processes fuel the abandonment of agricultural land leading to private forest regrowth, changes in topography and land quality, and declining real farm product prices. However, the impact of urban growth and development on forests depends more strongly on changes in both the residential housing and labor markets. Using location quotient analysis of aggregate employment patterns, and the relationship between regional labor market changes, the extent of private forest cover was examined from 1967 to 1998. Then an econometric model of land‐use shares in forty southern Indiana counties was developed based on the net benefits to agriculture, forestland, and urban uses. To test the need to control explicitly for changes in residential demand and regional economic structure, a series of nested models was estimated. Some evidence was found that changing agricultural profitability is leading to private forest regrowth. It was also uncovered that the ratio of urban to forest land uses is better explained by incorporating measures of residential land value and industrial concentration than simply considering population density alone.     

Agglomeration Economies and Employment Growth: New Evidence from the Information Technology Sector in Italy

This paper uses local labour market area (LLMA) data to investigate the dynamics of employment in the information technology (IT) sector in Italy between 2001 and 2005. The aim is to test if agglomeration forces might significantly affect local IT employment growth. The OLS results are broadly consistent with those of earlier studies. In particular, IT employment growth is enhanced by industrial diversity (Jacobs externalities) and by plant size (economies of scale). At the same time, LLMAs with higher IT concentrations are associated with lower employment growth rates. As a robustness check, quantile regression analysis is performed. This additional set of results reveals that the role of agglomeration forces is different across IT growth levels.     

兰州-白银经济区高新技术产业集聚与区域经济增长关系的实证分析

以兰州-白银经济区的高新技术产业为研究对象,依据2000—2011年的时间序列数据,采用区位熵指数对高新技术产业的集聚水平进行测度,并在此基础上,对高新技术产业的集聚与经济增长的关系进行协整及格兰杰因果检验,进而构造VAR模型并得到脉冲响应函数。实证结果表明：兰白经济区的高新技术产业已经形成了集聚且集聚度呈稳定增长的趋势,同时,高新技术产业的集聚与经济增长之间存在长期的均衡关系。最后分析得出兰白经济区的高新技术产业集聚是一种政府主导型的集聚模式,并提出了相应的政策建议。     

Servicing Our Economy: Producer Service Location and Government Procurement 2004–2010 in the Washington DC Metropolitan Area

Harrington and Campbell (1997) previously illuminated the pattern of producer services' suburbanization in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area between 1970 and 1992. Their results showed producer services growing at a faster rate at locations farther from the central city. We revisit the topic utilizing data from 2004 to 2010, assessing not only changes in the distribution of producer services since their work, but also the impact of massive increases in defense spending on producer services' growth throughout the first decade of the twenty‐first century. Multivariate linear regression is used to estimate per capita growth of producer services employment using six independent variables. Our results reveal producer services employment during the time period has grown significantly more quickly in the urban D.C. core than the outer suburbs, contrary to Harrington and Campbell's research. Additionally, we find per capita producer services employment is self‐limiting over the study period: locations with more producer services employment in 2004 experienced significantly less producer services growth over the period. We find federal procurement has no correlation on producer services overall, with limited effects on some subsectors. Analyzing a select group of producer services subsectors revealed that no sectors followed the overall model exactly, suggesting that targeting producer services for growth must be done carefully. None of our models show employment diversity to be a factor in differentiating economic growth at the intra‐metropolitan level.     

Productivity Change in Manufacturing Regions: A Multifactor/Shift-Share Approach

ABSTRACT The traditional shift-share model measures the combined effects of output growth and productivity change on employment. A region with above average employment growth either has a favorable industry mix or enjoys a competitive advantage over other regions. To separate the effects of output and productivity, the shift-share model is extended to decompose the effects of changes in output and productivity on employment. This paper modifies the Rigby-Anderson extension by separating the contribution of labor and capital to productivity growth in the analysis of regional economic performance, and investigates twenty (two-digit SIC) manufacturing sectors in twelve states (six snowbelt, six sunbelt states) to assess whether observed changes in employment were due to changes in output or to productivity.     

Employment Growth by Firm Size During the Recent Crisis in Italy: A Multifactor Partitioning Analysis

The effects on employment growth in firms, grouped by size class, of the economic crisis that began in 2008 are analysed using multifactor partitioning (MFP). Italy's employment growth is decomposed into four explanatory factors: the stage in the business cycle; the effect of firm size; industry composition; and regional distribution; together with the interactions among these four effects. The interpretation of these effects is facilitated by the introduction within the MFP framework of a new decomposition of several key elements. The results show that the adopted approach and the suggested decompositions are useful to study the effect of size on employment change. This effect is found to be negative only for micro units (with less than 10 employees). For the other classes, it is positive. The observed negative changes in these classes are mainly due to the business cycle and an unfavourable industrial composition.     

Growth and Change in U.S. Cities and Suburbs

Differential rates of growth and decentralization are processes that characterized U.S. urban areas over the past three decades. This paper examines the determinants of growth in cities and suburbs during the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s. The modeling approach adopted in the study allows for simultaneity between population and employment, and between cities and suburbs, while also taking into account a range of other explanatory factors. Results indicate that population and employment growth in cities tend to be jointly determined, but that growth of employment in the suburbs tends to drive growth of suburban population. Results also suggest that suburban and city growth are interrelated, but that the nature of these interrelationships varies over time: suburban growth promoted city growth during the 1970s and 1980s, while city and suburban growth were jointly determined during the 1990s. Other factors that consistently explain variation in city growth include demographics, population density, crime rates, and income inequality. Factors consistently explaining suburban growth include regional location and climate.     

Transitions of Poverty Amidst Employment Growth: Two Nonmetro case studies

ABSTRACT The theory behind employment growth as a strategy for lessening the poverty problem is based on a premise that job opportunities are inadequate. But during rapid employment growth in some nonmetropolitan areas of Kentucky and Georgia the effect on poverty has been limited. A large majority of poor households have no potential to leave poverty via employment since age, health, and other limiting factors among household members restrict entry into the work force. Also, for some the condition of being poor resulted not because they had never worked, but because they tended to have worked at marginal, low-wage jobs. Meanwhile, some jobs went unfilled because employers could not find persons who could meet the right requirements. This study shows that in these two areas, expanding employment opportunities did not significantly reduce the poverty problem. As the literature addressing the issue of the effects of employment growth on poverty is inconclusive and sometimes contradictory, clarification of how employment gains are distributed among local residents is essential.     

Do Entrepreneurs Enhance Economic Growth in Lagging Regions?

Because support for entrepreneurship is often a core part of economic development strategies, we investigate whether it is important for growth in lagging, rural U.S. regions by focusing on Appalachia. While entrepreneurship has the advantage of being endogenous and “home grown,” previous research suggests that remote rural regions may lack the agglomeration economies to benefit greatly from entrepreneurship. Using county‐level data, we explore the relationship between entrepreneurship and economic growth, employing self‐employment and small business data as proxies for entrepreneurship. We look at the results for the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) region, using its immediate Appalachian neighbors outside the ARC region as a control group. Moreover, we also account for self‐sorting by proprietors to locate in expanding regions. Despite strong barriers to growth in Appalachia, our empirical results suggest that self‐employment is positively associated with employment and income growth, and that efforts to promote entrepreneurial capacity may be among the few economic development strategies with positive payoffs in remote regions.     

State Employment Growth: The Impact of Taxes and Economic Development Agency Spending

ABSTRACT The results of this study confirm the expected positive relationship between economic development agency spending and employment growth among the states. Furthermore, it is concluded that past studies, by failing to control for state economic development agency spending in estimated regression equations, have underestimated the negative impact of personal taxes on employment growth.     

The Source of Metropolitan Growth: The Role of Commuting

Over the past few years, a large number of studies have focused on whether population or employment is critical to the source of metropolitan growth. However, only few attempts have so far been made to additionally consider the suburbanization stage and pattern of commuting, which may both enable us to explore this “chicken–egg” issue a little further. The purpose of this paper is to compare dwelling‐based (housing) with job‐based (job) employment to evaluate the net commuting. The Taipei metropolitan area, for example, now lies at the initial suburbanization stage with only population decentralization and massive in‐commuting to the central city. The estimation results based on a co‐integration system reveal that the central‐city employment can be regarded as an engine of this metropolitan economy. Besides, we also find that dwelling‐based employment distorts the causality between population and employment, especially from the variance‐decomposition accounts. Therefore, the importance of commuting to investigating the evolution of metropolitan economy should not be overlooked.     

Integrating Economic Base Theory with Regional Adjustment Models: The Nonmetropolitan Rocky Mountain West

ABSTRACT Interest in the use of adjustment models has recently increased as analysts have come to see the value of these models in the study of regional growth processes. Adjustment models are especially useful in clarifying the nature and direction of population-employment interactions. However, other models of regional growth suggest that employment should not be treated as a single homogeneous variable, as is the usual assumption in regional adjustment models. This paper looks at the issue of employment disaggregation, and suggests that adjustment models can be alternatively specified by making use of economic base theory to separate employment into at least two broad sectors. Alternative economic base specifications are tested using data for the nonmetropolitan counties (n=254) of the US. Rocky Mountain West during a recent time period. The results show that an economic base version of the adjustment model provides insights to regional change that are not available from the traditional version of the model.     

THE CORPORATE ROLE OF LARGE METROPOLITAN AREAS IN THE UNITED STATES

This study has three purposes. The first is to determine, for the 30 largest U.S. metropolitan areas in 1980. the relationship among population size, the number of major corporations headquartered in these centers, and the number of subsidiaries located there. The expectation is that there will be positive relationships in all cases. Second, this study, based on variations in the relationships examined above, sets forth a corporate classification of the 30 metropolitan areas and identifies common characteristics and locations among six categories of centers. Finally, using the six-fold classification of centers, metropolitan employment growth between 1980 and 1986 is analyzed, especially job growth in services and in finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE). The six-fold classification proves useful in understanding employment growth in these 30 centers during the 1980s and, with modifications, perhaps beyond.     

Regional Growth Dynamics in the Service Sector: The Determinants of Employment Change in UK Regions, 1971–2005

There is a need to better understand the dynamics relating to the evolving economic structure of regions, in particular factors concerning deindustrialisation and the growth of services. In order to unpick the dynamics relating to contemporary regional evolution, this paper examines regional employment in the UK's services sectors from 1971 to 2005. The analysis utilises the statistical technique of multi‐factor partitioning to examine the evolutionary dynamics of employment change in the UK service sector. Overall, differing growth trajectories in services employment across regions appear to be the result of the different underlying industrial structures observed within the regions themselves. The findings indicate that the industrial structure of a region has a significant influence on employment change in services, with related variety being of greater consequence than specialisation. This suggests that diversity, or urbanisation, effects have a greater influence than specialisation effects on “lighter” industries than “heavier” industries. Spatio‐temporal variations within the development of services are evident in the analysis, and there is evidence of convergence across the regions for all sub‐sectors examined. It concludes that in an increasingly services‐dominated economy, diversity and related variety have some weight in explaining regional development paths.     

Factors and Correlates of Employment Growth in the Canadian Urban System, 1971–1991

The objective of this paper is to examine a number of hypotheses concerning the factors or correlates of employment growth in the Canadian urban system—a set of 152 urban areas having populations of more than ten thousand inhabitants which comprises 77.4 percent of the national population. Do observed patterns of sectoral employment growth obey some sort of underlying logic? More specifically, do the rates of employment growth that are found in individual urban areas vary significantly according to one or more of the following attributes of an urban area: a) the region in which it is located; b) its population size; c) its relative proximity to a major metropolitan area; d) its socioeconomic characteristics? While approaches involving a, e and f yield promising results, it is clear that there are few immutable laws that permit one to predict where employment growth will occur within the urban system. Perhaps the most fundamental characteristic of the analyses conducted involves the instability of the results from one decade to another; one decade’s category of winners is often the other decade’s category of losers.