Regional Unemployment in Transitional China: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis

The purpose of this paper is to explain the pattern of regional unemployment in transitional China. A model is developed to explore how urban unemployment in the provinces is influenced by peasants' wages, formal sector wages, and the size of the formal sector. Evidence from panel data suggests that a significant indicator of high unemployment rates is greater Urban–Rural Income Inequality within the province. The hypothesis is that the urban–rural income gap produces migration, and more rural migrants substitute for urban workers, causing further urban unemployment.Since the economic reforms began in 1978, the non-state owned enterprises have been carrying an increasing weight in the economy, and they have contributed significantly to the rapid economic growth of China. Empirical evidence shows that economic reforms have reduced unemployment. The provinces that are still heavily dependent on the state sector are therefore more likely to experience higher unemployment.     

The Spatial Pattern of Residential Mobility in Guangzhou,China

In urban China, residential mobility behaviors have changed fundamentally in recent decades. While research has been undertaken on the trends and causes of residential relocation for different population groups, less attention has been paid to micro‐level processes of residential change, yet the latter underscore urban dynamics. This study addresses this through a survey conducted in Guangzhou in late 2012, which analyzes the spatial flows of residential shifts within and between three distance zones—inner core, inner suburbs and outer suburbs—to reveal complex mobility trends. In particular, hukou or household registration status, socio‐economic status, the nature and rank of employment, and tenure were found to have varied effects on the probability of inward and outward shifts. More specifically, while outward shifts in recent years mainly involved local hukou holders, families with higher education levels, a higher socio‐economic status or those working for government departments and public institutions were found to be more likely to settle in high‐rise commodity housing in the inner core. The majority of non‐hukou migrants, by contrast, moved within the same street or between adjacent streets within the same suburban area, while age, socio‐economic status and homeownership were found to increase an individual's chance of an inward shift.     

EMPLOYMENT GROWTH AND STRUCTURAL CHANGE IN URBAN CANADA, 1971–1991

This paper presents an analysis of recent patterns of employment growth and structural transformation within urban Canada and, more specifically, seeks to determine which economic activities are becoming spatially more concentrated or more dispersed across the urban system. In addition, the paper seeks to identify the urban area attributes (e.g., size, region, economic diversity) that are most strongly correlated with employment growth. The data employed in the empirical analysis are based upon employment in 159 economic sectors across a set of 152 urban units with populations greater than 10 thousand inhabitants. The results indicate three major trends: tertiarization; spatial polarization; and declining rates of employment growth.     

Economic Integration and Regional Business Cycles: Evidence from the Iberian Regions*

This paper provides evidence of the positive impact of economic integration on EU regions’ business cycles convergence by focusing on two neighbouring countries: Spain and Portugal. We show that while a rise in cross‐country business cycle correlation has also been experienced by other European countries, it has been relatively more pronounced for Iberian regions. Econometric evidence suggests that the existence of an administrative border, the economic size of regions and their industrial structures can explain a substantial proportion of regional cycles.     

Scarce or Abundant? The Economics of Natural Resource Availability

Most natural resources that are used in production are non‐renewable. When they become depleted they are lost for future use. Does it follow that the limited availability of natural resources will at some time in the future constrain economic growth as many environmentalists believe? While classical economists have shared the belief in limits to growth, the distinctive feature of modern neoclassical economics is its optimism about the availability of natural resources. This survey suggests that resource optimism can be summarised in four propositions. First, a rise in the price of a resource leads to a substitution of this resource with another more abundant resource and to a substitution of products that are intensive in this resource. Second, a rise in the price of a resource leads to increased recycling of the resource and to the exploration and extraction of lower quality ores. Third, man‐made capital can substitute for natural resources. Fourth, technical progress increases the efficiency of resource use and makes extraction of lower quality ores economical. In a critical analysis of these four propositions it is shown that while the conjecture that natural resources will never constrain future economic growth is logically conceivable, we do not and indeed cannot know whether it will be possible in practice to overcome any resource constraint. JEL Classification: Q20, Q30, Q40     

The paradox of China's growing under-urbanization

It is commonly believed that China began the socialist era as a very under-urbanized country relative to its level of development and that it has been eliminating this urbanization gap during the post-1978 period as a result of its economic reforms. Our reexamination of the relationship between per capita income and urbanization that underpins the conventional view suggests that China was not under-urbanized before or during the early period of the reform. Actually, China's urbanization gap appeared and grew in the late period of reform despite mass migration from rural to urban areas. This growing urbanization lag is mainly due to the slow pace in eliminating restrictions on rural–urban migration during a period of rapid economic growth. We call attention to this emerging urbanization lag as it entails significant economic costs in employment and retards economic growth.     

Thermal Eco‐cities: Green Building and Urban Thermal Metabolism

Eco‐city projects are becoming increasingly prevalent throughout the globe and are often marketed as ‘new’ urban environments focused on achieving sustainable urban living while promoting environmental–economic transitions towards a low‐carbon technological and industrial base. The article argues for the need to consider the thermal aspects of urban metabolism, while at the same time focusing on the link between individual buildings and eco‐city master plans and wider economic development strategies at a state level. In so doing, the article encourages critical analysis of eco‐city design and planning, while keeping a focus on the role of specific building structures within eco‐cities as examples of the intermeshing of what can be termed a ‘political ecology of scale’ which stretches from specific buildings' climatic characteristics, to the metabolic master plan for eco‐cities, to provincial, regional and state‐level plans for the integration of eco‐cities within wider economic and political development trajectories. The article focuses on Masdar, in Abu Dhabi, an eco‐city under construction at the time of writing.     

Political Economy of Property Tax Reform: Hawaii's Experiment with Split‐Rate Property Taxation

Economic theory suggests that switching from a general property tax to a split‐rate tax increases land use efficiency and stimulates urban core development while preserving the environment and reducing urban sprawl. Under split‐rate property taxation, land is typically taxed at a significantly higher rate than improvements. Beginning in 1965 Hawaii experimented with a statewide split‐rate property tax system to encourage economic growth and effect land reform. The experiment was ended in 1977. Following the transfer of property taxing powers to the counties in 1978, some counties brought back the split‐rate property tax at times. Since 2006, Kauai County has adopted the unusual practice of taxing improvements at a higher rate than land for most property classes. This article chronicles and explains the rationale behind Hawaii's state and county experiments with split‐rate property taxation.     

‘Give Me a Laboratory and I Will Lower Your Carbon Footprint!’ — Urban Laboratories and the Governance of Low‐Carbon Futures

The increasing threat of climate change has created a pressing need for cities to lower their carbon footprints. Urban laboratories are emerging in numerous cities around the world as a strategy for local governments to partner with public and private property owners to reduce carbon emissions, while simultaneously stimulating economic growth. In this article, we use insights from laboratory studies to analyse the notion of urban laboratories as they relate to experimental governance, the carbonization agenda and the transition to low‐carbon economies. We present a case study of the Oxford Road corridor in Manchester in the UK that is emerging as a low‐carbon urban laboratory, with important policy implications for the city's future. The corridor is a bounded space where a public‐private partnership comprised of the City Council, two universities and other large property owners is redeveloping the physical infrastructure and installing monitoring equipment to create a recursive feedback loop intended to facilitate adaptive learning. This low‐carbon urban laboratory represents a classic sustainable development formula for coupling environmental protection with economic growth, using innovation and partnership as principal drivers. However, it also has significant implications in reworking the interplay of knowledge production and local governance, while reinforcing spatial differentiation and uneven participation in urban development.     

URBAN DEVELOPMENT ISSUES IN THE PACIFIC RIM

Using a broad definition of the Pacific Rim (including some countries in Latin America), this paper examines selected aspects of Pacific Rim urban development. Despite the overwhelming economic dominance of the United States and Japan, urbanization in Pacific Rim countries is very diverse. Yet growth in most large cities on the Rim is decelerating, suggesting a possible paradox of rapid economic growth coexisting with slower urban growth. Location on the Rim may be important only for certain types of economic interaction, i.e. those subject to distance decay rather than being transmitted electronically. The internationalization of urbanization in the Pacific Rim is open to benign rather than dependency interpretations, given that economic and social conditions are better in developing countries in this region than in the rest of the world. The large size of many Pacific Rim primate cities suggests the need for a polycentric spatial structure, and the issue is how much intervention and of what kind is needed to ensure that decentralization takes place efficiently. Transportation may be one sector where successful innovations are transferable from one city to another. Environmental quality is a serious but neglected problem in many Pacific Rim cities, but will become more important as incomes rise. It remains unclear whether Metropolitan Development Authorities or some other form of regional government are needed for efficient metropolitan government. The most distinctive feature of Pacific Rim urban development is the commonality of urban problems that arise in rapidly growing economies.     

World economy

Financial market moves in recent months suggest that there is increasing concern about a substantial global growth slowdown or even a recession. But we continue to see this as an over‐reaction to the weakening economic data; while the downside risks to the global outlook have clearly risen, our baseline forecast shows GDP growth of 2.7% in both 2019 and 2020, little changed from three months ago and only a touch weaker than the likely 3% rise in 2018.     

我国大都市区集聚与扩散的空间计量分析——基于空间面板数据

随着"疏散化"趋势的到来,我国大都市地区所呈现的集聚与扩散趋势逐渐明显。以我国128个大都市区为例,对其经济发展在空间上的集散特征进行空间自相关分析。全局莫兰指数表明,2000年至2017年我国大都市区经济发展整体上呈现显著的集聚特征,但是集聚程度呈现下降的趋势。从东中西和东北地区角度看,东部地区和东北地区均具有显著的扩散趋势,但是原因不同;中部大都市区的集聚程度具有下降的趋势;而西部大都市区具有显著集聚上升的趋势。空间计量分析结果表明,城市化率、人口规模和城镇居民人均可支配收入水平均对大都市区的经济增长率具有显著的空间正向关系,且居民人均收入水平对城市经济增长率的影响程度最大,大都市区之间经济发展的空间溢出效应较为显著,经济发展水平较高的大都市区辐射带动作用较强。最后,从顺应大都市区发展趋势、因地制宜制定城市发展规划以及合理分布人口规模和提高居民收入水平三个角度提出对策建议。     

Building,Marketing and Living in an Islamic Gated Community: Novel Configurations of Class and Religion in Istanbul

This article analyses the development and marketing of Islamic gated communities in Basaksehir, Istanbul. It demonstrates how a blueprint of public–private urban development was appropriated by middle‐class Islamists. The gated communities in Basaksehir—which, at the outset, were not explicitly religious—gradually became attractive to religious actors searching for enclosed urban enclaves where Islamic communities would be protected against perceived moral‐urban threats. While urban‐religious enclaves appear to bear similarities to pre‐modern Ottoman Islamic urban enclaves, the rise of contemporary Islamic gated communities should be understood in light of the recent coming to power of the Islamist Turkish government. In cooperation with this government, housing development agencies approached Islamic investors to find capital for their public–private housing projects. One of the results of this form of urban development is that, contrary to pre‐modern Ottoman Islamic urban enclaves, the Islamic gated communities are homogenous in terms of economic class, catering specifically to the Islamic middle classes. Moreover, people who invest in Basaksehir desire an urban‐religious lifestyle that differs from the ‘traditional' religious lifestyle experienced in ‘traditional' Islamic neighbourhoods. The specific urban‐religious configuration generates a new type of Islam that better fits middle‐class values and a middle‐class lifestyle.     

Are differences in firm size transitory or permanent?

An Erratum for this article has been published in Journal of Applied Econometrics 18(2) 2003, 249 Previous empirical work on corporate growth rates using cross‐section or short‐panel econometric techniques suggests that growth rates are random but that some degree of mean reversion exists. This means that size differences between firms are transitory. Another, more natural way to explore the long‐run distribution of firm sizes is to examine data on the growth of particular firms over long periods of time. Using a sample of 147 UK firms observed continually for more than 30 years, our conclusions are that growth rates are highly variable over time and that differences in growth rates between firms do not persist for very long. Further, firms show no tendency to converge to either a common size or to a pattern of stable size differences over time. These results are compared and contrasted with standard approaches that suggest that firms reach and maintain stable positions in a skewed size distribution. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

环境约束条件下中国城市经济效率测度

利用2005-2008年期间28个主要城市的面板数据,实证测度了DEA方法中CCR模型与SBM模型下的城市经济效率,并进行了各城市的区域比较分析。在此基础上,运用面板数据模型研究发现,城市化率、市辖区面积和经济结构对城市经济效率起抑制作用,外商投资则起促进作用。最后,提出了相关的政策建议。     

The Effect of Income Distribution on the Ability of Growth to Reduce Poverty: Evidence from Rural and Urban African Economies

The present study examines the extent to which income distribution affects the ability of economic growth to reduce poverty, based on 1990s data for a sample of rural and urban sectors of African economies. Using the basic‐needs approach, an analysis‐of‐covariance model is derived and estimated, with the headcount, gap, and squared gap poverty ratios serving as the respective dependent variables, and the Gini coefficient and PPP‐adjusted incomes as explanatory variables. The study finds that the responsiveness of poverty to income growth is a decreasing function of inequality, albeit at varying rates for the three poverty measures: lowest for the headcount, followed by the gap and fastest for the squared gap. The ranges for the income elasticity in the sample are estimated at: 0.02–0.68, 0.11–1.05, and 0.10–1.35, respectively, for these poverty measures. Furthermore while, on average, the responsiveness of poverty to income growth appears to be the same between the rural and urban sectors, there are substantial sectoral differences across countries. The results suggest the need for country‐specific emphases on growth relative to inequality.     

DETERMINANTS OF CITY GROWTH AND OUTPUT IN INDIA

To investigate what determines urban population and economic growth, the determinants of urban population growth and economic output in India are examined empirically. City growth and economic output regressions are estimated using several approaches. Since only growing areas are usually designated as towns, the urban population of districts that are larger geographical areas than cities are estimated. It is found that, at the district level, manufacturing has a positive impact on city size, and proximity to large cities causes nearby cities to be larger, reflecting agglomeration effects.     

URBANIZATION, URBAN CONCENTRATION AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

An international comparative study of the relations among the process of urbanization, urban concentration and economic development, and income distribution was performed by using data of developing and developed countries. Cross-section analyses at certain time periods for capturing "long-run" effects as well as time-series analyses for some countries for "short-run" effects were done taking advantage of the "rectangular" array of data. There were several interesting results: the pattern of unemployment rate in most developing countries shows an inverted-U shaped curve with respect to the degree of urbanization; the pattern of urban concentration is in the form of an inverted-U with respect to the economic development level; and the degree of inequality of income distribution seems to react in an inverted-U form to the variances in the extent of urbanization.     

中国城市聚集经济实证分析:以天津市为例

聚集经济在城市经济及区域经济研究中占核心地位,它直接体现城市及区域空间结构的经济效率以及竞争力.本研究利用卡利诺模型来对1987年至2001年期间天津市聚集经济进行实证检验.其分析结果表明:在1990年至1994年间天津市呈现出正的聚集经济效应;在1996年至2001年期间呈现出负的聚集经济效应,就是聚集不经济;最近五年聚集经济呈现出上升趋势,相当靠近于1,2001年的聚集经济系数为0.984.本研究的分析结果表明,以工业为主的天津市城市经济效应并不明显,但是,最近天津市工业的总体效应是较良好的,即将能够创造出一些空间外部经济效应.