The topography of metropolitan employment: Identifying centers of employment in a polycentric urban area

While it is well recognized that US metropolitan areas are polycentric, there is little consensus as to the appropriate method for identifying concentrations of employment within them. Existing methods suffer from strong assumptions about parametric form, misspecification, or reliance on local knowledge to calibrate model parameters. This paper introduces a new nonparametric method for identifying subcenters. Results indicate that this, more flexible, nonparametric approach yields greater accuracy with regard to both urban and suburban centers compared with other approaches. This approach should provide better data for the numerous topics that depend on the spatial accounting of employment within metropolitan areas.     

中国制造业区域聚集及国际比较

本文利用Ellison and Glaeser(1997)衡量行业区域聚集和共同聚集的指标体系,考察中国制造业的区域聚集程度在1998至2003年间的发展趋势,并进行了国际比较。我们发现中国的行业区域聚集程度仍处在一个上升阶段。我们还注意到,无论就行业区域聚集程度还是行业区域共同聚集程度而言,中国目前仍低于西方发达国家近期的水平。     

Transport development and the evolution of economic geography

In this paper, based on the recent advances in the new economic geography (e.g., Fujita et al. [12]), we analyze impacts of transport costs on the spatial patterns of economic agglomeration. We first identify prototypes from the existing models, and explain the mechanism of how transport costs influence the balance between economic forces of agglomeration and dispersion. We then investigate the transformation of the agglomeration/dispersion patterns given gradually decreasing transport costs for different goods.Received: Received: July 2004 / Accepted: January 2005, Accepted: Received: July 2004 / Accepted: January 2005, JEL Classification: R12Tomoya Mori: Correspondence toThe authors are grateful to David Bernstein, Tatsuo Hatta, Komei Sasaki, Tony E. Smith, and two anonymous referees for their valuable comments. This research is partly supported by The Grant in Aid for Research 08403001 of Ministry of Education, Science and Culture in Japan, the Murata Science Foundation, and WESCO Civil Engineering Technology Foundation.     

集聚效应对跨国公司在华区位选择的影响

本文以跨国公司区位选择微观理论为基础,利用条件Logit模型,对2007年《财富》世界500强中,1995年到2007年期间,457家美国子公司和537家欧洲子公司在华个体区位选择决定因素进行了实证分析。分析结果表明,集聚效应是样本公司区位选择的重要决定因素,在华投资的欧美制造业公司普遍采用"集聚"这一战略,其子公司大量集聚在东部地区,盲目吸收外资来缩小东—西部经济发展不平衡的政策并不合适,尤其是中部地区。因此,在文章末,本文对中国政府应该如何减小区域经济发展不平衡和合理引用外资提出了建议。     

安徽在长三角城市群中定位与空间发展战略的思考

安徽作为长三角的纵深腹地,在地理上与苏浙沪发达地区无缝对接,在资源开发、产业发展、市场开拓等方面具有广泛的合作空间,在长三角城市群经济社会发展中将发挥着重要作用.安徽省委、省政府审时度势,进一步明确了安徽加快发展的主攻方向,作出了推进东向发展,加速回归长三角的重大决策.论文在长三角城市群发展趋势分析的基础上,提出安徽省分层次、分时序融入长三角的模式,探讨了"东向发展"的安徽省域城镇发展总体战略,并对其在长三角城市群中的定位和空间发展战略做了一些思考.     

Agglomeration in an innovative and differentiated industry with heterogeneous knowledge spillovers

This paper introduces an agent-based simulation model to study the technological development, the economic performance of firms and the evolution of agglomerations in a differentiated industry. The analysis is based on the interaction and behavior of firms, which might share knowledge but at the same time are competitors on the goods markets. Firms do not only compete with quantities they can also introduce process and product innovations. The level of knowledge of a firm describes the capabilities to perform innovations. Knowledge can be accumulated by investing in R&D and by knowledge spillover, which depend on geographical and technological proximity. Simulation runs show that there is an incentive to agglomerate in young industries and that geographical proximity enhances innovation, especially the number of product innovations.      

区域一体化有利于减排吗？

将环境污染视作非期望产出,在一个拓展的增长收敛框架下讨论了区域一体化的环境效应及其理论机制。基于2003-2014年长三角城市群和珠三角城市群的数据,构建了一个测度区域一体化的新方法,运用工具变量法和双重差分法估计了跨省城市一体化和省内城市一体化对污染排放强度收敛的影响。实证结果显示:区域一体化显著促进了城市间污染排放强度的收敛并有利于减排,且近年来这种减排效应愈明显。污染排放强度呈现出条件收敛特征,经济增长收敛是污染排放收敛的重要原因。中国应利用好区域一体化促进地区协调发展和减排的双重政策红利,进一步促进区域一体化和同城化,大力发展城市群经济,构建城市间共生互利的发展格局,实现共同减排。     

高技术制造业与高技术服务业协同集聚的经济增长效应

基于中国省级面板数据，利用空间面板模型和面板门槛模型，探究高技术制造业与高技术服务业协同集聚的经济增长效应。结果表明：区域间产业集聚特征差异显著，高协同集聚主要集中在东部沿海地区，低协同集聚主要集中在西部地区。经济增长水平、高技术制造业与高技术服务业协同集聚水平均具有显著空间正相关性，二者协同集聚有助于促进区域经济增长。协同集聚的经济增长效应存在双重门槛，当高技术制造业集聚度和高技术服务业集聚度均介于第一、二门槛之间时，产业协同集聚的经济增长效应最强。仅少部分省域两产业集聚度介于第一二门槛之间，能够有效发挥协同集聚对经济增长的推动作用。     

Relationship between city size and firm productivity – A new interpretation using the Chinese experience

This paper contributes to the literature on the relationship between city size and firm productivity by focusing on agglomeration, selection (market competition), and sorting (presence of firms with diverse productivity) effects using Chinese firm-level data for 1998–2013. Contrary to the existing literature, our parametric regression estimates from nearly two million firms show that when the selection effect is controlled, productivity advantage in big cities is reversed. This outcome is explained through a quantile regression showing the existence of left-sided sorting (inefficient firms sort themselves to larger cities) in big cities which is not captured in existing empirical literature. We further find that (1) left-sided sorting is stronger in exporters than non-exporters; (2) is also generated mainly in enterprises with high asset-liability ratios; and (3) selection has a positive effect on firm productivity, suggesting that market competition is key in an explanation of the rapid growth of big cities in China.     

Agglomeration economies and university program creation in the knowledge economy

Existing academic literature on the relationship between agglomeration economies and university activities is both under-theorized and relatively sparse in terms of empirical examination. This paper addresses each of these voids by contributing and analyzing a market model of pro-revenue education program creation such as graduate-level executive business education (e.g. EMBA) that reveals some intriguing characteristics. For instance, it shows that demand for these pro-revenue programs is inelastic and therefore uniquely determines their availability. More specifically, we show that through agglomeration economies these types of education programs are more likely to emanate from universities located in metropolitan areas and from less academically prestigious universities. Regression analysis of a cross-section of national public universities lends support to important facets of our formal model by suggesting that agglomeration economies continue to increase the probability of offering EMBA programs through a city size of approximately 2.12 million and that the probability that a given business school will offer an EMBA is negatively related to the academic prestige of the institution to which it is affiliated.