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.     

Growth and Location of Economic Activity: The Spatial Dynamics of Industries in Canada 1971–2001

ABSTRACT A growing literature has accumulated that points to the stability of industrial location patterns. Can this be reconciled with spatial dynamics? This article starts with the premise that demonstrable regularities exist in the manner in which individual industries locate (and relocate) over space. For Canada, spatial distributions of employment are examined for seventy‐one industries over a thirty‐year period (1971–2001). Industry data is organized by “synthetic regions” based on urban size and distance criteria. “Typical” location patterns are identified for industry groupings. Industrial spatial concentrations are then compared over time using correlation analysis, showing a high degree of stability. Stable industrial location patterns are not, the article finds, incompatible with differential regional growth. Five spatial processes are identified, driving change. The chief driving force is the propensity of dynamic industries to start up in large metro areas, setting off a process of diffusion (for services) and crowding out (for manufacturing), offset by the centralizing impact of greater consumer mobility and falling transport costs. These changes do not, however, significantly alter the relative spatial distribution of most industries over time.     

Regional Variations of Firm Births,Deaths and Growth Patterns in the UK, 1980–1991

One of the debates around new firm formation across sub‐national territories focuses on whether regional differences in industrial structure are more important influences than regional differences in individual industry performance. The present research, using Value Added Tax (VAT) registration data, attempts to make a contribution to this debate in the United Kingdom (UK) context using a shift‐share covariance model. Firm de‐registrations and, as a consequence, net changes in firm stocks are also analyzed with similar questions in mind. The findings show that although the effects of industrial mix are significant across most regions, in several key regional contexts the industrial competitive effect dominates. The issue of the role of regional industrial concentration forms a second major theme of this paper. This basically involves a questioning as to whether concentration is a positive or negative force for new firm formation. The results of this research indicate that industrial concentration, measured through localization, is more important for firm deaths than for firm births (although significant for both), but not particularly relevant to the understanding of the net outcome of entry and exit processes. In the UK, regions with higher levels of industry concentration seem to be associated overall with relatively lower levels of both firm births and deaths.     

Regional Convergence in Mexico, 1970–2005: A Panel Data Approach

This paper empirically analyzes regional disparity in terms of convergence of per capita income across Mexican states for the period 1970–2005. In particular, this study extends the conventional cross‐sectional conditional β‐convergence analysis of the existing literatures on Mexico to panel data analysis, and focuses on whether the convergence performance varies between the pre‐ and post‐economic liberalization periods. When unobservable state‐specific effects are controlled by the panel data technique, the estimated coefficients show significant conditional β‐convergence, even after economic liberalization, but with a lower speed than before economic liberalization.     

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.     

Innovation and Regional Growth in Mexico: 2000–2010

This paper looks at the factors driving regional growth in Mexico, paying special attention to the potentially growth‐enhancing role of innovation and innovation policy. The analysis combines innovation variables with indicators linked to the formation of adequate social conditions for innovation (the social filter), and spillovers for 31 Mexican states and the Mexico City capital district (the Distrito Federal) during the period 2000–2010. The results indicate that regional economic growth across Mexican states stems from direct investment in research and development (R&D) in areas with favorable social filters and which can benefit not only from knowledge spillovers, but also from being surrounded by rich neighbors with good social conditions. The results stress that, although Mexican innovation policy has been relatively well targeted in order to generate greater economic growth, its relatively modest size may have undermined the attainment of its main objectives.     

The Growing Economic Specialization of Cities: Disentangling Industrial and Functional Dimensions in the Canadian Urban System, 1971–2006

Decreasing spatial transaction and trade costs have given rise to growing economic specialization of cities. While most studies focus on industries as the primary manifestation of urban specialization, a growing body of literature examines occupational functions, i.e., activities and tasks performed within a given industry or firm. This paper explores how the two dimensions (industries and functions) interact across the urban system and their relative importance over time. Is there a trend toward increasing functional specialization in the Canadian urban system? How much of this phenomenon is attributable to spatial shifts in regional industrial structures as opposed to spatial divisions within industries? The paper uses a unique data set drawn from Statistics Canada Census microdata files between 1971 and 2006. Based on the employed population, the data are spatially organized and cross‐tabulated over industries and occupational groups. A decomposition methodology is used to compare the relative weights of industry and regional (functional) effects in accounting for the changing spatial division of functions across Canadian urban areas. Clear patterns of increasing functional specialization are found within the Canadian urban system. Regional effects are generally greater than industry effects, suggesting that spatial divisions of functions (spatial shifts within industries) are progressing more rapidly than regional shifts in industrial structure.     

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.     

Resource Flows and the Decomposition of Regional Inequality in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Metropolitan Region, 1990–2004

This paper introduces a new way of decomposing regional inequality. It divides the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei metropolitan region into three sets of districts in terms of the urban–rural resource flows: urban, peri‐urban, and peripheral areas. Unlike the administrative divisions, these three sets of districts show how resource flows and agglomerates at the regional level. The paper decomposes regional inequality according to the three sets of districts. The paper's findings show that regional inequality decreased between 1990 and 1994, after which it remained steady. The study, for the first time, brings peri‐urban areas into a regional decomposition analysis, and contributes to the understanding of urban–rural resource flows and inequality changes at the regional level.     

Regional Impacts of Foreign Trade in China, 1984–1989

An issue of heated debate in China is whether the current economic reforms would lead to greater regional inequalities. In this paper one aspect of the reforms, the open-door policy, is put into focus. Specifically, the analysis investigates how the effect of foreign trade on economic development differs across regions, and whether these regional variations have changed from 1984 to 1989. Based upon the expansion method, models that resolve both the spatial and temporal variations of a relationship are constructed and estimated. The results indicate that foreign trade benefits core provinces and major industrial regions more than other parts of China, but that these differences have diminished in 1989. These findings may be interpreted as evidence of some diffusion of growth from more developed to less developed regions. On the other hand, regional linkages and the mechanisms of diffusion are not well understood and they deserve more attention and research.     

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.     

The Shifting Destinations of Metropolitan Migrants in the U.S., 2005–2011

Recent estimates that central cities are growing faster than their suburbs in the U.S. have captured the attention of both academics and the popular media. Many commentators have used these numbers to claim that internal migration trends in the U.S. have reached a turning point, in which migrants increasingly prefer urban residences to suburban locales. However, these assertions often rely on problematic definitions of city and suburb, and pay too little attention to demographic variations among migrants. This paper examines whether recent internal migrants in the U.S. are choosing closer‐in destinations, drawing from microdata samples from the American Community Survey since 2005. During this period, there is an overall trend of migrants to the largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. choosing to migrate closer to the metropolitan core. However, this trend varies significantly among major demographic groups; whereas younger, single, educated, and white‐collar migrants show evidence of a return to the core, migrants who are blue‐collar, less‐educated, older, and with families remain more suburban. In turn, this analysis suggests that overall trends of “back to the city” migration are producing considerable divergence in the metropolitan destinations of different demographic groups.     

Regional Development and Land Use Change in the Rocky Mountain West, 1982‐1997

ABSTRACT Economic and demographic restructuring, along with the increasing desirability of environmental amenities, have driven growth in the eight‐state region of the Rocky Mountain West to extraordinary levels in recent decades. While social scientists have developed a solid conceptual understanding of the processes driving growth and change in the region, the broad nature of the land use outcomes associated with in‐migration has not received nearly as much scholarly attention. This article initiates an in‐depth empirical investigation on the magnitude, nature, and spatial variation of land use change in the Rocky Mountain West over the 1982‐1997 time period. Data from the USDA's National Resources Inventory reveals that the conversion of landscapes from rural to urban types of land uses varies significantly from place to place, not only in terms of total land developed, but also with respect to how population pressures and a number of other local characteristics of counties manifest themselves in the spatial pattern of growth.