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.     

State Unemployment Differentials: Equilibrium Factors vs. Differential Employment Growth

: Differentials in U.S. state unemployment rates were persistent in the early 1990s. In addition, states with higher employment growth did not necessarily have the lowest unemployment rates. Thus, this paper examines the differentials in U.S. state unemployment rates from 1992 to 1994, decomposing them into the parts that were due to differences in recent employment growth, and those that were due to longer-term equilibrium factors. Also, using the shift-share model, employment growth differences are decomposed into an industry mix component and a competitiveness component. The decomposition of the 1992 to 1994 unemployment rate differentials is based on an econometric equation estimated using panel data from 1972 to 1991. Explanatory equilibrium factors included in the model are amenities, demographic characteristics, education, industry composition, labor mobility, and wage rates.     

《尚书》与中国传统农业地理学

摘 要：《尚书》与中国传统农业地理学关系密切,文章通过梳理其中与农业地理学相关的内容,从宜农作物的选择促成了土地对于人口的承载、农事活动的频繁反映出先民对于土地的开发、农业经济的发展带动了社会政治文明的进步三方面内容阐述了《尚书》之于中国传统农业地理学的继承之功与发轫之功。     

Multinational Firms’ Location and the New Economic Geography

Multinational Firms ’ Location and the New Economic Geography
Edited by Jean‐Louis Mucchielli and Thierry Mayer, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. 1704. xii + 238 pp. $100.00 (Cloth). ISBN 1‐84376‐654‐X.
Reviewed by Nicholas A. Phelps
School of Geography, University of Southampton     

Economic Gain and Loss from Public Infrastructure Investment

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to analyze the effects of transportation investment on the Korean economy using the dynamic Computable General Equilibrium model. The result of the counterfactual analysis shows that infrastructure investment policy has the advantage of economic growth, but the disadvantage of price inflation. The elasticities of infrastructure investment with respect to GDP, export, private utility, and inflation depend on institutional restrictions on the domestic inflow of foreign capital and financing alternatives for infrastructure projects. The growth effect of transportation investment would be maximized if regulations on inflow of foreign capital to the private sector were lifted. On the other hand, the effect of transportation investment on inflation would be minimized if transportation investment expenditure were completely financed by tax revenues.     

Geography and the Future of Stock Exchanges: Between Real and Virtual Space

ABSTRACT This paper aims to contribute to the debate on the future of stock exchanges and financial centres by focusing on two questions. First, whether, how, why, and which stock exchange activities are prone to concentration in financial centres? Second, are they prone to concentration in national or international financial centres? Through a detail‐rich analysis of stock exchange activities, including trading system, as well as relationships with members, issuers, and investors, the paper suggests a framework for the geography of stock exchange activities based on two dimensions—proneness to concentration in a financial centre and proneness to international consolidation. With this framework, predictions are made about the future geography of stock exchange activities led by the argument that while significant geographical reconfigurations are likely to unfold, driven primarily by the development of international networks of stock market institutions, stock exchanges, and financial centres will remain crucially important for each other.     

Transport Costs,the New Economic Geography,and Rural Development

This paper explores land use conflicts between non-farm neighbors and farmers to illustrate the usefulness of the concepts of interdependence, rules, and property rights when doing rural development. Recognizing interdependence and its implications helps economic analysis focus on and understand the types of rules and institutions having the most influence on economic behavior, and thus identify policy alternatives. The resolution of land uses conflicts, for example, unavoidably changes the bundle of rights associated with land, and influences who can impose costs of whom; it makes a difference if a large farm has the right to produce odors, flies, or noise that reduces their neighbors' abilities to enjoy the neighbors' own land, or if instead, neighbors have the right to use their property without experiencing farm-produced odors, flies or noise the farm may be unable to use its own land for agriculture without being inconvenienced.     

Telecommunications Infrastructure in the Southeastern United States: Urban and Rural Variation

The capabilities of central office (CO) telephone switches in four southeastern states (Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Tennessee) provide detail on spatial variation in telecommunications technologies. A proposed six‐level hierarchy of switch capability was used. Switches with digital capability are concentrated disproportionately in metropolitan areas, largely in response to larger numbers of business establishments. The overall picture in the Southeast is one of tremendous variation—variation across states and variation within the four states being studied. Rural (nonmetro) counties generally, but not always, have both fewer switches overall and fewer switches with digital capability. North Carolina and Tennessee, the two most urban of the four states, also have seen the greatest entry by new telecommunications competitors. These two states have the largest percentages of advanced (digital) switches in both metro and rural counties. At the county level, the number of switches is primarily a function of a county's population but, even more significantly in three states, of the number of business establishments in the county. On the whole, it is residents of metropolitan—not rural—areas who are most likely to be served by newer forms of digital telecommunications.     

贵州野生茶树资源的地理分布与生态型

以贵州地形和气候特点为基础,研究了我省野生茶树资源的植被类型、自然分布规律及其形态特征以及适生条件与种性关系。其分布海拔在1000-1900m,≥10℃年积温在4000-5000℃,极端低温不低于-10℃。从形态性状上和生化分析得到,野生茶树在特定的自然生态环境下长期生长,形成了许多固定的特征及其潜在的社会价值与经济意义,建议加强对其进行研究和开发。     

Evolution of the Geography of Innovation: Evidence from Patent Data

This paper examines the evolution of patent activities across U.S. states from 1963 to 1997. Several patterns are uncovered. First, there is invention catch‐up by some lagging states. Second, the evidence is consistent with knowledge diffusion. Third, leading states unable to reinvent themselves lose their leads. Fourth, catch‐up can be across a diverse field of activities or focused on select activities. State patent growth is positively correlated to industry R&D and a variable capturing labor skill and infrastructure quality. These provide rationale for state policy makers to increase support to programs that enhance labor skill (e.g., education) and infrastructure quality.     

Investment in Infrastructure as Determinant of Metropolitan Productivity

Utilizing newly assembled data on per capita metropolitan investments from the Census of Governments - Finance Statistics, this paper assesses the effects of local (i.e., non-state and non-federal) government investments in public capital on metropolitan factor productivity. Differences in productivity across metropolitan areas are modeled as a Hicks-neutral production function shifter, and the analysis covers 261 metropolitan areas of the United States for the period 1977 to 1992. These findings indicate that there is no significant relationship between levels of public capital investments and the levels of metropolitan productivity for the periods 1977, 1982, 1987, and 1992; however, a positive and significant relationship is found between the growth rate of local government investments in public capital and the growth rate of metropolitan productivity for the fifteen-year period.     

The Role of Information Density in Infrastructure Investment

The twentieth century witnessed an extraordinary flow of institutional investment into urban infrastructure. Notwithstanding this, the demand for infrastructure projects exceeds supply of skills and capital. With this disconnect as a backdrop we develop a model of information flow to examine how financial assets are transacted over time and space. Specifically, we build on conceptualisations of “information content” from Clark and O'Connor ( 1997 ) to propose a way of theorising “information density”. We apply this specifically to infrastructure investment and find four ways in which infrastructure investment is highly dense. This relates to asset‐level definitions in infrastructure, opacity with respect to how products are securitised, high variance in investment performance, and high relational and investment expertise. We draw on a large qualitative sample of 53 in‐depth interviews, which we validate with quantitative data, to support our findings.     

Study on Managerial Mode of Urban Infrastructure Projects

In this paper, the current situation of the management of urban infrastructure construction projects invested by government and the weakness of its managerial mode are briefly analyzed. The authors point out that it is a practical choice to improve the management by innovating in the managerial mode and establishing specialized organizations. Employing basic methods of science of organization and management, referring to the experience of developed countries, a new mode named "Works Bureau" is suggested. Two operational models based on financial and non-financial requirement of government projects are demonstrated in detail.