Estimating the economic effects of US state and local fiscal policy: A synthetic control method matching-regression approach

In this paper, we advance the empirical literature on US state and local fiscal policymaking by using the synthetic control method (SCM) to create pairwise matches for states in subsequent regression analysis of the relationships between state and local fiscal policies and several state economic outcomes. Additional contributions include the use of principal component analysis to construct broader narratives of state economic performance and to reduce the dimensionality of the characteristics used in SCM matching, while the regressions also include variables to control for post-matching economic shocks. Compared to conventional regression analysis, the SCM matching-regression approach better addresses potential endogeneity, reduces interpolation bias, and creates fiscal policy measures that better reflect policy differences. The SCM-matched regressions produce more statistically significant relationships between state and local fiscal variables and economic outcomes than do the conventional unmatched regressions, suggesting improved identification of state and local fiscal policy effects on economic outcomes. Robust relationships found include negative economic effects of the own-source revenue burden and property taxes. Consistent with the existing literature, the estimated fiscal policy effects are quantitatively small and unlikely to drive differences in state economic performance.     

Road to shared prosperity: The elaboration and influence of a transboundary policy narrative for regional economic integration

In the Mekong Region, the Asian Development Bank and partners have promoted economic corridors as a way to achieve regional economic integration and growth. This study evaluates how a transboundary policy narrative of shared prosperity around the East–West Economic Corridor programme emerged, and then how it was elaborated and used, taking a set of border policies of the government of Thailand as cases. For two decades the shared prosperity narrative has been used by a coalition of elite actors to support a programme of investments in road infrastructure, as well as to push for agreements on trade, border logistics, investment and tourism. The shared prosperity narrative has helped maintain support for the programme despite its failures to meet projections and expectations. Although criticised by civil society and experts from time to time, no coherent shared counter‐narrative emerged. Policy elites in Thailand have used the transboundary narrative to justify investments in special economic zones, and transport infrastructure near the border and inside neighbouring countries. Thailand has also reproduced the narrative in support of efforts to bolster tourism cooperation, and negotiate cross‐border trade and logistics agreements. Roads and bridges have been built, underlining how discursive practices have material consequences and reinforce the narrative.     

Institutional frameworks and economic activity: A comparative analysis of regional economies in Thailand,Malaysia and the Philippines

Abstract: It is increasingly recognised that both formal and informal institutions could be important variables in explaining the diversity of capitalist systems. However, less is known about the relative importance of regional institutions for regional economic activity and regional development, especially in developing countries. This article analyses the relative importance of regional institutions to regional capitalist systems in Southeast Asia, using the comparative institutional approach of ‘business systems’. Two comparisons are made that enable an analysis of the relative importance of regional institutions: one between two regional economies in the same country (Cebu and Negros Oriental in the Philippines) and one between two bordering regional economies in different countries (Satun in Thailand and Perlis in Malaysia). We investigate four sets of economic institutions: the extent of alliance coordination of supply and demand, the extent of collaboration between competitors, the extent of alliance coordination of sectors and access to finance. The results suggest that regional economic institutions are stronger in agricultural areas with relatively weak national economic institutions and that the presence of strong and enabling regional economic institutions is one of the factors that lead to taking advantage of favourable agricultural conditions, to economic growth and, ultimately, to catching up.     

Firm employment growth in China: The role of marketization and regional economic factors

Very heterogeneous patterns of firm employment growth characterize the Chinese provinces, suggesting the existence of a relationship between these and regional factors. This empirical work explores this topic by providing novel evidence of the role played by regional institutional and regional factors in firm employment growth in China during the decade 1998–2007, an important period in the Chinese transition towards a market economy. The results show that controlling for the internal determinants of firm performance, the firms located in provinces converging faster towards a market economy, exhibiting relatively better patterns (in terms of agglomeration, endowment of human capital, innovation and environmental protection) tend to expand their employment relatively more. These findings confirm the existence of a macro–micro-connection as to what firm heterogeneity is concerned, as they reveal a differential growth channel along the regional dimension. In particular, local progress in government–market relationships appears as the most relevant dimension of marketization process. Given the regionally decentralized institutional system in China and considering its process of transformation, these findings inform local authorities concerned with the promotion of regional employment.     

The Interaction of Economic Reforms,Socio‐economic Structure and Agriculture in Mexico

National policydecisions in developing countries contribute to the increasing integration of agriculture into national and world economies. The spatial consequences of national policies, however, vary across regions and agricultural systems. Employing and adapting a methodology first proposed by King (1970), this study explores the relationship between national policy, agriculture, and population characteristics at the regional level in Mexico during the presidency of Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988–94). Statistical analyses corroborate the hypothesis that the impact of policy reforms on the agricultural sector in Mexico is mediated by the characteristics of the population. Results suggest that government credit for agriculture and federal funding of rural development during the Salinas de Gortari administration were mediated by factors associatedwith the level of urbanization. The provision of commercial credit at the regional level, however, does not appear to depend on population characteristics. Disparities in the impact of national policies are attributed to a historical urban bias, the differential ability of more highly urbanized states to attract government funding, manage and implement programs, and the existence of highly profitable, commercial agriculture in more developed states.     

Changing patterns of migration and regional economic growth in the U.S.: a demographic perspective

During the 1970s and early 1980s, the South and West census regions accounted for over 90% of incremental national population, which was easily the highest percentage accounted for by these regions in the nation's history. This paper stresses the importance of powerful demographic forces that contributed to the regional shift, but it does not ignore important economic factors. A major theme of the paper is that because the baby boom has now largely matured out of the most mobile age classes, population and employment growth differentials that strongly favored the South and West will moderate in the future.     

Agglomeration and firm performance in times of economic turmoil: Evidence from Tunisian firm-level data

The paper analyzes the relationship between agglomeration economies (urbanization, specialization, and diversity) and firm-level performance during a period of deep economic downturn (2011–2018). We use data from the National Survey of Economic Activities for eight Tunisian manufacturing industries to explore which agglomeration externalities matter most for firm performance after the revolution. The analysis considers, in addition, the role played by selected firm-specific characteristics. The empirical results, based on a multilevel analysis approach, sanction the importance of firm-specific determinants of productivity and exporting. They also indicate that only specialization externalities have a positive and significant effect on firms' performance. The replicate results during a period of economic stability (1998–2004) show, however, that specialization and urbanization economies are both relevant predictors of firms' productivity and that more productive firms, in particular the smaller ones, are better able to benefit from agglomeration. This finding has not been confirmed for the post-revolutionary period.     

Prediction of winter wheat cultivar performance in Germany: At national,regional and location scale

Winter wheat cultivar recommendation is usually based on the cultivar performance observed in post-registration trials. In Germany, official recommendations are based on state cultivar trials, which are conducted individually by the federal states, usually over a period of three years. In each predefined winter wheat cultivation region a subset of registered cultivars is tested. The recommendation in a particular region is mainly based on the yields from trials on several locations in this region. Practically, the farmer's interest is a prediction of the yielding ability of cultivars on his own farm in the following growing season. This prediction can be made based on data from different scales, and with one year or multiple-year data. Here, we evaluated the prediction ability with the data from national, regional and location scales per se, and tried to find the optimal information source (scale and number of years) to predict the relative yield of a specific cultivar for a specific location. For this purpose, data from the country wide value testing trials from 1991 to 2001 carried out by the Federal Office of Plant Varieties (Bundessortenamt) were used. Winter wheat cultivation regions were adopted according to the German convention which gives the chance of further dividing the data into regional subgroups. The results of the analyses indicate that for a given location, the two years regional data have the highest predictive power for superior cultivars. Two years’ data from that specific location give the highest predictive power for intermediate and inferior cultivars. In general, the predictive power of single year data is much lower than of two years data. The results confirm the merit of the definition of different cultivation regions. By proper definition of regions, the multiple year data collected within the region have high predictive power for the cultivar performance for the locations within that region.     

Impact of Chinese market segmentation on regional collaborative governance of environmental pollution: A new approach to complex system theory

The market segmentation among local governments under decentralization of China not only directly triggered the “fragmentation” of regional development, but also hindered collaborative actions in environmental governance. This study adopts a new method to calculate regional environmental collaborative governance using a synergy degree model of a complex system, and then it empirically analyzes the impact of Chinese market segmentation. We find that the regional environmental collaborative governance in China shows a growing trend during the period of investigation, but the level is still low. Market segmentation has significantly inhibited the regional collaborative governance of environmental pollution among local governments of China. The effect of market segmentation on the order of personnel input and capital input is significantly negative, while the effect on the order of policy input and organizational input is not significant. In the areas where the air pollution and water pollution are serious, the effect of market segmentation is also significantly negative. The conclusions are helpful to understanding the institutional factors that hinder regional environmental collaborative governance in China more comprehensively, and provide insights for improving the performance of environmental governance.     

Business networks,social capital and the economic performance of creative and cultural industries: The case of Indonesia

This study examines the ways in which networking characteristics and practices influence the economic performance of creative and cultural industries. The notion of social capital is used to conceptualise the complex nature of networks, including both professional and social relationships that occur on multiple levels. This qualitative study is set in the context of Indonesia, in which two cases are examined: creative apparel entrepreneurs in Bandung and batik producers in Surakarta. The results show that regional environments provide opportunities for creative industries to find specialist suppliers, to gather market information and, importantly, to find and cross‐fertilise new ideas. Although regions provide these opportunities, the firms’ internal social capital is crucial in being able to internalise and transform the knowledge from the environment into innovative values embodied in their products.     

The patterns and driving forces of uneven regional growth in ASEAN countries: A tale of two Thailands' path toward regional coordinated development

Uneven development has long been a critical issue in geography and urban studies, leading to economically inefficient urbanization, environmentally unbalanced regions, and socially unequal livelihoods. As one result, primate cities and urban primacy form within a hierarchical urban system, to which urban and regional planning must positively respond. It is worth noting that Thailand has experienced a number of important urbanization issues related to developing countries, such as semicolonialism and internal colonialism. This study aims to investigate regional uneven development based on primacy theory and the rank‐size rule, which are common in most Asian and developing countries. We examined the urbanization processes in Thailand, from 2000 to 2015, by looking at factors of population, GDP, land use, transportation networks, and nighttime light, which provide very recent regional development patterns. The second set of analyses explained the degree of primacy among different provinces and their ranking hierarchies. By presenting the persistent disparities of contemporary urbanization in Thailand and exploring its driving forces, this study offers insights into planning and policy and underscores the importance of regional coordinated development for achieving sustainable urbanization in Southeast Asian countries.     

Effectiveness of selection at CIMMYT's main maize breeding sites in Mexico for performance at sites in Africa and vice versa

The exchange of elite breeding materials across regions is an important way in which multinational maize breeding programmes access new genetic variation, improve efficiency and reduce costs. Our objectives were to examine whether CIMMYT's breeding programmes for tropical and subtropical environments in Mexico and Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) can effectively share materials. Sets of selected and unselected lines were evaluated for per se and testcross performance in multiple environments in Mexico and ESA for grain yield, days to anthesis and plant height. Genotypic correlations between performance in Mexico and ESA as testcross and line per se were high (≥ 0.72) for all experiments, and indirect selection efficiency ranged from 67 to over 100% for all traits. Lines selected in ESA or Latin America performed equally well in each region, indicating selection was for broad rather than regional adaptation. Thus, breeding programmes of CIMMYT in both Mexico and ESA can benefit tremendously by exchanging breeding materials and test results, and elite selections from each region should be fast‐tracked for evaluation in the other.     

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.     

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.     

Predicting average regional yield and production of wheat in the Argentine Pampas by an artificial neural network approach

A regional analysis of the effects of soil and climate factors on wheat yield was performed in the Argentine Pampas in order to obtain models suitable for yield estimation and regional grain production prediction. Soil data from soil surveys and climate data from meteorological records were employed. Grain production information from statistics at county level was integrated at a geomorphological level. The Pampas was divided into 10 geographical units and data from 10 growing season were used (1995–2004). Surface regression and artificial neural networks (ANN) methodologies were tested for analyzing the data. Wheat yield was correlated to soil available water holding capacity (SAWHC) in the upper 100 cm of the profiles (r² = 0.39) and soil organic carbon (SOC) content (r² = 0.26). The climate factor with stronger effect on yield was the rainfall/crop potential evapotranspiration ratio (R/CPET) during the fallow and vegetative crop growing cycle periods summed (r² = 0.31). The phototermal quotient (PQ) during the pre-anthesis period had also a significant effect on yield (r² = 0.05). A surface regression response model was developed that account for 64% of spatial and interannual yield variance, but this model could not perform a better yield prediction than the blind guess technique. An ANN was fitted to the data that accounted for 76% of yield variability. Comparing predicted versus observed yield a lower RMSE (P = 0.05) was obtained using the ANN than using the regression or the blind guess methods. Regional production estimations performed by the ANN showed a good agreement with observed data with a RMSE equivalent to 7% of the whole surveyed area production. As variables used for the ANN development may be available around 40–60 days before wheat harvest, the methodology may be used for wheat production forecasting in the Pampas.     

Location matters: A spatial econometric analysis of regional resilience in the European Union

The aim of this study is to empirically examine regional resilience by assessing economic growth patterns in two distinct groups of regions across the European Union in the aftermath of the 2008 economic and financial crisis. In an effort to consider the regions as interconnected economic areas and account for spillover effects, the model incorporates complex spatial effects that consider both spatial heterogeneity and spatial dependence. The analysis follows a step‐wise approach. First, spatial heterogeneity is assessed by employing Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis, which identifies two distinct spatial regimes, a core and a periphery, based on their initial level of economic development. A Spatial Durbin Model is then employed to estimate the determinants of regional resilience and growth in both regimes, including potential spillover effects. Results indicate that while both spatial regimes experience processes of economic convergence, recent determinants of growth, as well as spillover dynamics, differ across the two. In the core regime, better institutions, higher shares of investment, and an economy specialized in higher value‐added sectors significantly spur domestic growth, with investment also inducing positive spillover effects to neighbouring regions. In the peripheral regime, low shares of lower‐secondary educational attainment and high shares of tertiary educational attainment have a significant positive effect on domestic growth, with higher shares of tertiary educational attainment also inducing positive spillover effects. Moreover, technological readiness is also identified as an important factor in the peripheral regime with positive spillover effects. Upon the bedrock of these findings, initial policy proposals are offered.     

Detecting village‐level regional development differences: A GIS and HLM method

To respond to the problems that the previous research mainly targeted the poverty at larger scale and ignored individual effect or contextual effect during exploring poverty contributing factors, we attempt to use spatial cluster analysis and multilevel linear regression model to target the poverty at village level from the perspective of spatial poverty, so as to identify where the poor villages are, and why they are so poor, thereby targeting poverty interventions. Specially, we adopt four types of spatial cluster indices to detect the spatial aggregation distribution of villages, and design HLM model to examine the poverty contributing factors from both village level and county level. The case study from Wuling contiguous destitute area show that: (1) The overall distribution shows a spatial pattern of large scattered but small concentration, scatters‐polar core‐axis‐clump coexisted. (2) Poverty contributing factors at village level from high to low are: per cultivated area, safe drinking water access ratio, terrain type, suffered frequency of natural disasters, road access ratio, and distance from the nearest town’s bazaar. The contribution degree of county‐level factors to the villages’ poverty from high to low are: second gross enrollment ratio, per capita GDP. (3) 45.1% of the difference among the villages’ poverty degrees comes from the development differences among poverty‐stricken villages themselves, and 54.9% from that among counties they belong to. Contributing factors at village level account for 61.4% of the variation of village‐level independent variables, and factors at county level contributed to 65.3% of the variation of county‐level independent variables.     

Problems of tertiary education and regional academic journals: A view from Southeast Asia

While this article accepts the idea of regional Journal cooperation within the context of establishing an ASEAN Integrated Journal Publishing Network as a positive and pertinent step, it explores three major hurdles that regional universities need to contend with. These include firstly, the dominance of English as the major academic language which puts vernacular languages and communication at a distinct disadvantage and resurrects a neo‐colonial academic mindset; secondly, tertiary education is generally weak in the region and in most cases universities are focused on teaching and service to government rather than academic research. Thirdly, universities in Southeast Asia, both in terms of academic salaries and the research infrastructure (libraries, laboratories) is financially handicapped and poorly supported. Regional academic journals cater to their 'home' informed audiences and respond less to international standards which makes universal or regional benchmarking difficult.     

Multiplying possibilities: A postdevelopment approach to hygiene and sanitation in Northwest China

Postdevelopment thinkers and writers have critiqued development discourse for its role in perpetuating inequality. In water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) literature and interventions, the discourse used perpetuates inequality through classing anything other than private toilets as ‘without sanitation’. This implies that the people who use forms of hygiene and sanitation relying on collective toilets and alternative strategies are somehow unhygienic. Yet residents of Xining (Qinghai Province, China) rely on hygiene assemblages that do not always include private toilets, but nonetheless still work to guard health for families with young children. In this paper, I develop a postdevelopment approach to hygiene and sanitation starting with the place‐based hygiene realities already working to guard health in some way, then working to multiply possibilities for future discursive and material hygiene realities.     

Habitation environment suitability and population density patterns in China: A regionalization approach

The stunning disparity in population density between the southeast and northwest in China is highlighted by the “Hu Line,” a famous population demarcation line proposed by Huanyong Hu in 1935. This research seeks to uncover the underlying physical environment factors that shape such a contrast. Specifically, we propose a habitation environment suitability index (HESI) model to integrate topographic factors, climatic suitability, and hydrological condition into one comprehensive index, and then use a GIS‐automated regionalization method termed REDCAP (Regionalization with Dynamically Constrained Agglomerative Clustering and Partitioning) to derive two demarcation lines based on the HESI and population density values, respectively. The two lines that divide China into two regions are largely consistent with each other. The result indicates that the population distribution disparity between the southeast and northwest is largely attributable to the difference in physical environments, and the barrier defined by the Hu Line is here to stay. In addition, the research also explores the (in)consistency between population density and HESI distribution patterns in various regions.