The origins of agricultural inheritance traditions

We investigate the origins of agricultural inheritance traditions, equal partition and primogeniture. Our case study is the German state of Baden-Württemberg. Our empirical findings suggest that rural inheritance traditions were primarily determined by geography. First, fertile soils allowed splitting of the land among siblings for longer and with fewer conflicts, and hence we find more equal partition in areas with higher soil quality, especially at elevation levels conducive to intensive agriculture. Second, geography determined the settlement pattern. Areas that were settled before the Middle Ages, when land was abundant and free, are more likely to apply equal partition today. In areas that were largely uninhabited until the Middle Ages, primogeniture is the norm. We argue that these areas were deforested with the obligation of primogeniture, imposed by feudal lords.     

城市规模、空间距离与城市经济吸引区——一个简单的经济地理模型

本文从经济运行的微观基础出发，构建了一个简单的经济地理模型，并以此为基础对城市经济吸引区的相关问题进行了初步的探讨，解释了由“引力法则”和断裂点理论推导出的两个经验性推论：一是两个相邻且规模相等的城市其经济吸引区分界线为二者连线的中垂线；二是对于两个相邻但规模不相等的城市，则小城市的经济吸引区可能处于大城市吸引区的包围（或部分包围）之中。     

区域经济学主流化的新格局:迈向新综合的空间一般均衡理论

区域经济学的研究从1990年后，日趋活跃、争论纷呈，在某种意义上讲，发生了很大的转向。即由克鲁格曼发轫的新经济地理把该领域的某些问题带向经济学主流的一般均衡分析框架下来讨论，他们更加宏伟的蓝图是要实现具有新综合特征的空间一般均衡理论，为区域经济学的研究注入了新的活力。该文简述了这些新理论的基本模型、主要特征和模型的扩展及对经济体系空间特性研究的主要贡献，以及由之而引起的各方面的争论和共识。     

Good geography,good institutions? Historical evidence from nineteenth-century British colonies

This paper uses a historical natural experiment – the opening of the Suez Canal – to investigate the relationship between geography and the formation of institutions. While the conventional view is that good geography (commodity endowment) inevitably favours the creation of extractive institutions, we discover that a second aspect of geography – location – may in fact encourage the establishment of non-extractive institutions when rent extraction by elites depends on the productivity of non-elites. Specifically, we find that entrepôt colonies (Hong Kong and the Straits Settlements) received larger public investments in the post-Suez period than resource colonies (British India, Ceylon, and West Africa), after accounting for year effects and permanent differences across colonies. We demonstrate, using supplementary data, that the entrepôt colonies' locational advantage, coupled with their lack of extractable resources, plays a key role in explaining our empirical findings.     

Raising the bar (4)

This editorial summarizes and comments on the papers published in issue 11(4) so as to raise the bar in applied spatial economic research and highlight new trends. The first paper deals with common factors and spatial dependence in the error term specification of a production function model. The second paper sets forth a New Economic Geography (NEG) model with production activities that vary in their complexity, so as to analyse the impact on specialization patterns across different regions. The third paper measures the efficiency of local public investments using a relatively unknown econometric technique in which the time span over which the variables in the regression equation are measured is increased by one time period every run. The fourth paper adopts a conditional quantile regression approach to determine the impact of people employed in informal jobs on the wage distribution in Colombia and five of its regions. Finally, the last paper proposes and tests two new Bayesian variable selection approaches for spatial econometric models.     

产业转移的新经济地理学解释

不同于传统的产业转移理论,新经济地理学在规模报酬和垄断竞争框架下解释了产业转移现象,认为产业转移的基础不必然是第一自然的差异,在完全相同的均质空间下,由于市场接近效应、生活成本效应和市场拥挤效应所构成的集聚力和扩散力的相互作用,产业转移也会发生,并且表现出突发性、自我强化、预期自我实现和价值链环节分离的特性及关联度弱的产业先转移等规律。此外,新经济地理学还运用一般均衡分析方法考察了产业转移的福利效应,包括瓦尔拉斯效应、生产租金和规模区位效应、累积效应以及转移效应,并对影响产业转移的税收优惠竞争、公共基础设施改善和区域补贴等政策措施的效果进行了剖析。     

流动性与地理因素：基于中国上市公司的实证研究

针对地理因素研究了我国股市的流动性特征.首先按GDP排名把31个省市划分成经济发展程度有差异的两类,在此基础上构建虚拟变量代表地理因素,分别把交易量、换手率和流动性度量指标作为被解释变量,研究上市公司股票流动性和地理因素之间相关性的存在性以及其显著程度.研究结果表明地理因素对交易量没有影响,对换手率和流动性有一定的影响,"发展中"省市公司在流动性方面相对于"发达"省市公司表现出明显的差异.     

影响资本主义在中国发展之因素探析

有关＂资本主义＂未能在中国得以发展问题的研究一直是学术界的热点,但至今众说纷纭,甚至有人将资本主义的帽子硬戴在古代中国的头上。应结合先前各种学术流派的观点,从自然条件、人文条件和历史条件等方面分析资本主义在中国不可能得到发展的原因。