Blockchain Papers

Eddie C.M. Hui, Ka-hung Yu

No abstract is available for this record.

Yinxin Su, Yuzhe Wu, Charles L. Choguill, Jiaojiao Luo · 5 authors

Transit-oriented development (TOD) is a sustainable land use planning tool based on land value-added capturing and urban quality improvements and has been vigorously promoted by Chinese city governments. However, few studies have been conducted on the role of the ‘land finance’ model and on people-oriented planning approach focusing on urban inclusive growth. This paper examines the current implementation of TOD in China and attempts to explore the approach to the paradigm transformation of urban development in China. Evidence from Hangzhou illustrates that the current land-centered and property-led urban rail transit construction, although contributing to the economic sustainability of ‘urban development strategy’, has led to unaffordable housing prices and failed to decentralize population away from downtown areas. This study highlights inclusive growth models which integrate TOD planning with affordable housing for the floating population, not only to ensure equity in housing affordability and space accessibility but also to promote polycentric urban development strategies. The locations of inclusive growth models include new towns/sub-cities, traditional cores and suburbs, which are all based on existing industrial cluster areas and promote the full utilization of existing public service facilities.

Qingke Yang, Lei Wang, Yongle Li, Yeting Fan · 5 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Michael Fritsch, Michael Wyrwich

Popular theories claim that innovation activities should be located in large cities because of more favorable environmental conditions that are absent in smaller cities or peripheral areas. Germany provides a counterexample to such theories. We argue that a major reason behind the geography of innovation in Germany is the country’s pronounced legacy of political fragmentation that created a decentralized settlement structure, shaped the geographic distribution of universities and public research institutions, and brought about a rather uniform and local access to finance. We show how political fragmentation influenced the emergence of historic centers of knowledge production and impacts the positioning of innovation activities today. We conclude that institutional factors should play a more prominent role in theories that aim at explaining the spatial distribution of innovation activities.

Edilberto Tiago de Almeida, Raul da Mota Silveira Neto, Jaime Macedo de Brito Bastos, Rubens Lopes Pereira da Silva

No abstract is available for this record.

Theresa Grafeneder-Weissteiner, Ingrid Kubin, Klaus Prettner, Alexia Prskawetz · 5 authors

This article introduces a social planner version of a model central to the New Economic Geography for explicitly answering whether the symmetric equilibrium outcome of the decentralized market economy is socially desirable. We find that savings incentives are too weak, resulting in an inefficiently low capital stock and therefore an inadequate number of product varieties. The optimal subsidy and taxation scheme to remedy these distortions resulting from the monopolistic competition structure is shown to be a sales subsidy financed by a lump-sum tax that results in marginal cost pricing. Interestingly, implementing this optimal policy might actually destroy the stability of the symmetric equilibrium and result in unintended agglomeration processes.

Matthias Geißler, Johannes König

Highly skilled human capital is usually also highly mobile. Concerns regarding interregional migration revolve around suboptimal public financing of higher education rooted in free-riding behaviour if budget responsibilities are decentralized. This investigation sets out to answer whether cross-state mobility of students in general and individual taste variation in the preference for ‘home’ and ‘university’ states in particular justify concerns about the free-riding behaviour of state governments. We analyse graduates’ location choices when leaving university using a mixed logit model and subsequently relate the revealed taste variation to individual characteristics. The results suggest some attachment to ‘home’ states that justify concerns about potential free-riding. However, substantial taste variation exists and is partly associated with the quality of human capital. State governments free-riding on the investment of others therefore may face a quality trade-off.

", Sorin Mazilu, Cristian Încalțărău, Karima Kourtit

The creative economy has attracted increasing attention from academia and policymakers for more than two decades. However, despite the flourishing literature on this topic, its complex connection with development and its role in strengthening resilience are yet to be properly examined. The paper addresses this issue by investigating how different cities in Romania, with a different intensity of creative industries, have managed to resist and to recover from the aftermath of the Great Recession. Our findings reveal that, as a whole, creative industries strengthen urban resistance against a recession, but do not necessarily fasten urban recovery. As our results suggest, this might be due to the asymmetrical impact across different groups of creative industries. Besides a creative economy proliferation, other factors are also identified as significant resilience drivers. Whilst a better access to healthcare services, higher local investments and a higher decentralization of local budgets appear to enhance the cities’ resistance, higher shares of agriculture and finance, as well as a higher income per capita appear to correlate with a faster urban recovery.

昌孝 田代, Masayuki Tashiro

When economy grows, and resident’s needs are diversifying, finance starts to become decentralization of power as a result. The offer of the public service by the centralized government is suitable to unify the citizen’s preference of the wide area, but what the local government where inhabitants are the nearest carries is desirable for the offer of the community service in a small range(Oates’s decentralization theorem). On the other hand, it becomes to cause the difference of various public services in each area in fiscal decentralization. Therefore, it is important how we measure progress of the financial decentralization in each area and the financial decentralization of power difference between each area. The purpose of this report analyzes economic and fiscal decentralization disparities in China from the measurement of the tile index based on the data of “the Chinese statistics summary (2000 through 2007)” before and after the western great development, at the same time it analyzes whether the relation between economy and financial decentralization is correlative, in other words, Oates’s decentralization theorem is concluded in Chinese economy. As a result of analysis, following three points were confirmed. 1. Expenditure decentralization disparities and difference of the district production per capita have positive correlation. Therefore, Oates’s decentralization theorem may be concluded. 2. However, when I consider population movement, Fiscal empowerment disparities and difference of the district production per capita have negative correlation. As a result, when I consider the side political, Oates’s decentralization theorem may not be concluded. 3. In the major cities of the coastal place such as Beijing and Shanghai, as for the growth rate of expenditure decentralization and the original expenditure decentralization, these coefficients of correlation were negative. Oates’s decentralization theorem is not concluded in these cities, and it is predicted that a factor except the finance strongly works for economic growth.The conclusion whether or not Oates’s decentralization theorem was concluded remains much more vague by the complicated political economic system in this way in China.

Lina Li, Nannan Liu, Xiaoping Zheng

There are two major models in China's Province-Managing-County (PMC) reform: the Province-Fiscally-Managing-County (PFMC) and the Power-Expanding-County (PEC). This paper is intended to compare the fiscal and economic effects of these two reform models based on their different categories of reform policies—fiscal decentralization policies and economic empowerment policies. By taking Henan's PMC reform as an empirical case study, we find that a) Henan's PFMC reform did not contribute to the growth of county economy through a series of economic empowerment policies and exclusively fiscal decentralization policies, though it promoted the increase in transfer revenue at the county level. b) By contrast, Henan's PEC reform through only economic empowerment policies did not contribute to county's growth of transfer incomes, but it significantly promoted the growth of county economy with an annual downward trend. The further analyses on these findings show that the expansion of economic autonomy by the economic empowerment is the key positive factor to the growth of county economy in the PEC reform, while the moral hazard caused by the fiscal decentralization is the major negative factor holding back the economic effect of the PFMC reform. Therefore, this throws out a hint that the improvement of economic autonomy in county governments will be a right and effective approach to promote the sustainable development of county economy, though it should be further examined in the future research.

Iván Muñiz, Miquel-Àngel Garcia–López

This study focuses on the employment decentralization process in the Barcelona Metropolitan Region (BMR) between 1991 and 2001. Disaggregating employment data among four categories of knowledge-intensive activities (Knowledge-Intensive Services; High- Technology Industries; Producer Services; and Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate) and two groups of other employment (Other Manufacturing and Other Services), the aim is to test whether these four groups decentralized in a similar way to other employment, and whether this process encouraged them to locate in a polycentric or spatially dispersed pattern. The results show that knowledgeintensive and other employment activities decentralize in a similar way, although the former tends to be more concentrated through the formation of employment subcenters and therefore follows a polycentric location model. As a result, physical proximity is still important for numerous activities, especially those that incorporate more knowledge.

Wadu Mesthrige Jayantha, Lau Stephen Siu Yu

Changes in locations of FIRE and business services firms in Hong Kong during 1980–2000 could be characterized by trends of both centralization and decentralization. A heavy concentration of finance firms in the CBD is highly significant, implying the presence of strong forces promoting the spatial concentration of the finance firms. Insurance and business service firms tend to locate mainly in areas adjoining the CBD in order to enjoy the externalities or support services, which CBD offers. Volatility in rents has also provided opportunities for firms to relocate within the CBD at lower cost. In contrast, real estate firms tend to decentralize away from Hong Kong Island due to cheaper rents. The important finding of the sample survey analysis is that non-traditional factors such as office buildings with IT facilities have emerged as dominant factors determining choice of location. For instance. during the survey period, finance firms considered office buildings with IT facilities as the most important factor, while business service firms considered sufficient floor-space as the second most important factor after rent in choosing the present location.

Sean O’Hagan, Milford B. Green

No abstract is available for this record.

Matthew J. Higgins, Daniel Lévy, Andrew T. Young

No abstract is available for this record.

Andrew F. Haughwout

* Infrastructure investment may indirectly affect firm productivity and household welfare through its impact on the location of economic activity. * State infrastructure policies currently favor decentralization--the opening of new territory to development and the movement of firms and households from dense urban environments to the surrounding suburbs. * Recent research, however, suggests that the clustering of producers and consumers in a given geographic area is economically and socially beneficial. * In light of this research, institutional reforms that would change the management and direction of public infrastructure investment may be in order. Agencies authorized to choose and finance investments that promote regional well-being would most likely target more investment to central cities and less to the surrounding suburbs. Public infrastructure is an important part of a well-functioning urban economy. Such infrastructure--defined here as publicly owned and maintained physical capital--has historically played a central role in allowing cities to grow by mitigating or reducing problems such as congested roadways, potholes, water-main breaks, and overcrowded schools. Yet while the benefit of some public works can hardly be disputed, a key policy issue is whether additions to our stock of public infrastructure provide overall benefits that exceed their costs. (1) That is to say, is the amount of infrastructure we have sufficient, or would we benefit from an increase? Another important question is, do our institutional structures promote efficient infrastructure investment decisions? As these questions suggest, the status of urban public infrastructure is an important topic. Education and highway facilities are being stretched to their limits in fast-growing cities and suburbs, while concerns are being raised about the level and physical condition of public works in slower growing, older central cities. (2) No doubt, public investment is an important function of government, and it is particularly crucial at the state and local level. In 1999, states and localities invested more than $210 billion in equipment, software, and structures (Table 1). By combining this amount with the nearly $43 billion in nondefense investments made by the federal government, we see that new gross public investment in 1999 exceeded a quarter-trillion dollars, or 2.7 percent of GDP. Moreover, the stock of publicly owned nondefense capital in 1999 exceeded $4.5 trillion, or nearly 50 percent of GDP. (3) Although complete data on the geographic distribution of this spending are not available, it is certain that a large share of these national totals, particularly the state and local portions, is going to public investment in and around America's metropolitan areas. More than 200 million people reside in these areas, and the public investments made there affect the lives of a large and growing share of the U.S. population. (4) Accordingly, the question of whether we should increase the amount of infrastructure available has received much attention from economists. This article puts that research into a broad perspective, attempts to draw policy conclusions from what is known, and suggests some directions for further research. Infrastructure investments can affect social welfare in two ways (see Appendix A). One way is by adding to economic growth. The relationship between infrastructure and economic growth has been the subject of intensive economic research over the past decade. The second way in which infrastructure investments can affect social welfare is by potentially improving the quality of life of those living in the invested area. For example, public parks, water systems, and other facilities can improve social welfare without having any effect on residents' incomes. This article also examines this second channel, which has received less attention in the research, in part because the value of quality-of-life improvements is difficult to measure. …

Daniel Immergluck, Erin Mullen

The declining federal role in economic development in distressed urban areas and concerns over the problems associated with metropolitan decentralization necessitate increased attention to the intrametropolitan distribution of business development programs. We examine the distribution of business loans made by the U.S. Small Business Administration's 504 development company program in the Chicago metro-politan area over a 5-year period and find that, after controlling for firm density, firm size, and industrial mix, higher income areas and outlying zip codes receive more loans than lower income and closer-in areas. We suggest a number of supply-and demand-side explanations for such patterns, call for measures to direct the flow of 504 financing more to lower income areas, and call for examining more loan and subsidy programs for their effects on intrametropolitan business development patterns.

E. Marcelpoil

This thesis is a contribution to the analysis of spatial organization: it aims at determining and analyzing the social and economic organization of the " Sillon Alpin ", which is the space going from Geneva to Grenoble in the Rhône-Alpes region. This research participates to public decision, and particularly to the definition of differenciated development policies. Due to Decentralization and European construction, the notion of " territory " has taken the place of the traditional levels of decision and action and is considered as the relevant level for development. The very polysemic term of territory results from the crisis of the seventies, which proved the importance of social, historical, cultural and institutional factors in understanding the diversity of development paths. The main hypothesis is that the concentration of population and economical activities remains the main trend but is not contradictory with a certain autonomy of territories, which leads to a wide range of territorial forms. Very cohesive and autonomous territories are indeed situated near territories which have lost this autonomy and have been included in the influence area of a metropole, whereas the situation of other territories is intermediate. If this diversity of territorial forms is to be taken into account, a method for identifying territories must be elaborated. Thus, every dimension of the territories has been represented by a statistical indicator. Using quantitative data for the " départements " of Isère, Savoie and Haute-Savoie, we have been able to show the spatial organization of " Sillon Alpin " : it is mainly structured by the agglomerations of Grenoble, Chambéry, Annecy and Annemasse, but, nevertheless, it also contains territories with a relatively autonomous development. We have thus characterized the diversity of typical territorial forms of the " Sillon Alpin ". However, using mainly statistical data implies taking also into account qualitative information, which could validate the qualification of a given territorial form on one hand, and, on the other, precise its functionment. Combining quantitative and qualitative data should also enable to analyse dynamically this territorial typology, by characterizing their different trajectories and by putting the stress on the part played by the actors in territorial evolution. / La thèse a pour objet l'organisation territoriale ; son objectif est d'analyser la structuration socio-économique du Sillon Alpin, c'est-à-dire l'axe Genève-Grenoble en région Rhône-Alpes. La recherche s'inscrit dans un contexte d'aide à la définition de politiques de développement différenciées. Les échelons traditionnels d'action sont remis en cause au profit du territoire, le nouvel échelon pertinent pour penser le développement. Ce terme de territoire est le fruit de la crise des années 70, laquelle a mis en évidence l'importance des facteurs sociaux, historiques et institutionnels dans la compréhension des modes de développement. Ainsi, l'hypothèse est faite que la logique de concentration de la population et des activités économiques reste prégnante mais s'articule avec des marges d'autonomie territoriale, conduisant à une large palette de formes territoriales. De fait, des territoires très cohérents avoisinent avec des territoires ayant perdu cette même autonomie relative au profit d'une intégration dans l'aire d'influence d'une métropole de proximité ; d'autres territoires sont eux qualifiés d'intermédiaires car sous l'effet de plusieurs dynamiques de développement contrastées. Appréhender cette diversité de formes territoriales impose une méthodologie d'identification des territoires, relativement exhaustive ; ce qui nous a amené à retenir une entrée statistique. La mobilisation de données quantitatives sur l'exemple du Sillon Alpin a permis de visualiser son organisation territoriale. L'axe est essentiellement structuré par les agglomérations de Grenoble, Chambéry, Annecy et Annemasse. Cependant, cette polarisation n'empêche pas l'existence de territoires, certes intégrés à l'aire d'influence des métropoles mais qui parviennent néanmoins à affirmer une certaine autonomie de développement. La thèse a donc permis de caractériser la variété des formes territoriales typiques du Sillon Alpin. Cependant, l'utilisation préférentielle de données statistiques implique en parallèle de mobiliser des informations qualitatives. Une telle articulation données quantitatives-qualitatives permettrait de dynamiser la typologie des territoires, en mettant en particulier l'accent sur le rôle des acteurs dans l'évolution des dits territoires.

William J. Coffey, Mario Polèse, Réjean Drolet

Much recent North American research has focused on the decline of the central business district (CBD) as the economic core of metropolitan areas, and the corresponding rise of suburban employment centres. According to the literature, this trend is particularly evident in the case of high-order service functions: business services, finance, insurance, and real estate services, and head offices. In this paper, we argue that the decentralization of high-order service activities and the corresponding CBD decline may be neither as strong a trend nor as universal a phenomenon as certain authors have indicated. Rather, the growth of suburban office employment may reflect a strong CBD whose economic base is becoming increasingly specialized. Using data from the Montreal metropolitan area, we first examine intrametropolitan decentralization in a shift-share framework, then document the mobility of establishments and employment. Our findings suggest that, in spite of a certain level of intrametropolitan decentralization, the CBD continues to be the primary locus of high-order services.

William J. Coffey, Réjean Drolet, Mario Polèse

No abstract is available for this record.

William J. Coffey, Réjean Drolet

Certaines activités tertiaires ont la capacité de jouer un role de ‘moteur’économique. Ces activités du ‘tertiaire moteur,’ ou ‘services supérieurs,’ constituent une partie importante de la base économique des régions métropolitaines. Récemment, aux États‐Unis, des chercheurs ont commencéà remarquer la tendance de ces activitès à quitter leur ‘habitat naturel’ dans le centre d'affaires des grandes villes pour se relocaliser dans des ‘edge cities’ ou ‘magnet areas’ vers la périphérie de la zone métropolitaine. Le but principal de cet article est de vérifier si la région métropolitaine de Montréal se caractérise, elle aussi, par des tendances semblables de décentralisation des services supérieurs. Nous utilisons la base de données longitudinales sur les entreprises canadiennes de Statistique Canada pour examiner la question de la décentralisation de ces activités dans la région montréalaise. Nos résultats indiquent que pour 11 des 17 secteurs d'activité compris dans les services supérieurs, la période 1981–1989 a vu un transfert du poids relatif de la ville de Montréal vers les deux couronnes périphériques de la région métropolitaine. Ce transfert été plus fort dans les services financiers, d'assurances et d'affaires immobilières que dans les services aux entreprises. Certain service activities have the capacity to play the role of a ‘motor’ of economic development. These ‘hight‐order services’ now form one of the principal components of the economic base of metropolitan areas. Recently, researchers in the U.S. have begun to notice a new propensity for these activities to leave their ‘natural habitat’ in the downtown business district of large cities and to relocate in ‘edge cities’ or ‘magnet areas’ toward the periphery of the metropolitan region. The purpose of this article is to verify if the Montreal metropolitan region is characterized by similar patterns of spatial decentralization of high‐order services. Our study uses Statistic Canada's Longitudinal Database on Businesses in the Canadian Economy to examine this issue. Our results indicate that for the period 1981‐1989, 11 of 17 high‐order service sectors were marked by a relative shift from the City of Montreal towards the periphery of the metropolitan area. This shift was more pronounced for the finance, insurance, and real estate group than for the business service group.

Hirofumi Abe

Regional disparities in terms of income and employment showed marked decline under various regional policies during the Period of Rapid Economic Growth. However, the drastic changes in Japanese industries after the Oil Crises in 1970s have caused structural recessions in some regions which have been dependent on resourceand energy-intensive industries. Furthermore, the economic activities are rapidly concentrating in Tokyo Metropolitan Region under the internationalization of Japanese economy. Regional income disparities began to widen again since the early 1980s under these circumstances.This paper aims to examine the trend of industrial differences in Japanese regions in the postwar period, and to identify its current problems. Three analytical methods, namely the analysis of coefficient of variation, the rate-share analysis, and the shiftshare analysis are applied using employment data for the years 1955 to 1985.Major findings of the study are summarized as follows:(1) Manufacturing sector showed a clear decentralization of employment during the period 1960-1985, whereas the decentralization of tertiary sector was not very clear.(2) Marked decentralization was found in the high-tech machinery industry which have been rapidly concentrating in North and South Tohoku Regions. Despite the recession of manufacturing industries after the Oil Crises, these regions showed remarkable employment growth.(3) The shift-share analysis of manufacturing sector has showed low growth performance in the western part of Japan. These regions had been specialized in the heavy and petoro-chemical industries during the Period of Rapid Economic Growth, and suffered much damage in the Oil Crises.(4) Locational patterns of tertiary sector differ among industries. Finance, retail and wholesale industries have been concentrated in metropolitan regions, whereas local regions have been specialized in the service industry.(5) The shift-share analysis of tertiary sector has identified little difference of growth performance which comes from the industrial structure of each region. However, a marked difference has been found in the differential shift components between metropolitan and local regions, which indicates a clear gap of locational attractiveness among them.

Kiyoko HAGIHARA

During the periods of high economic growth, outmigration from agricultural and mountain villages to urban areas increased rapidly. As a result overpopulation in the urban areas and depopulation in rural areas have become social problems.The rural areas play a very important role particularly in supplying food, conserving national land, cultivating the head sources of a stream and conserving the natural environment. However, it has become difficult to manage the community and these areas have not been able to play the abovementioned roles in depopulated areas. Therefore, the Japanese government has taken a number of measures to promote rural areas and alleviate some of the problems. In this paper the depopulation problem is considered from the viewpoint of local finance. Attention is paid particularly to the role of intergovernmental grants.Firstly, using a concept of local public goods, the inefficiency which results from free migration is considered. If in moving from one region to another a migrant does not account for the effect of his moving on the tax price of the public good of residents in the region he leaves or enters, Tiebout type of decentralized free market equilibria may not be Pareto-efficient. And if this externality is not internalized by centralized decision-making, the one region may be overpopulated and the other underpopulated. In the framework of a simple model the source of inefficiency of resource allocation is shown. Using the same model the analysis is extended to consider the role for intergovernmental grants in the face of such inefficiencies. And it is suggested that the central government may be justified in using a system of intergovernmental grants to overcome these inefficiencies.In order to explore the role of intergovernmental grants, the model is applied to Agatsuma district of Gunma Prefecture, a district which includes a number of the depopulated towns and villages. Firstly, settled accounts of revenue and expenditure from 1965 F. Y. to 1982 F. Y. are investigated. The percentage of transfer payments including grants from both the Japanese government and the government of Gunma Prefecture has become very large since the laws of the depopulated areas enforced. Secondly, principal expenditures are determined for each town and village. In each town expenditure on education and promotion for agriculture and construction account for a very large percentage of total expenditure. Finally, the level of components which constitutes residents' utility is examined. There is still a difference between the levels of many components in this district and those in the other region.From the above results it is shown that the situation is going to a desired direction by various measures, particularly intergovernmental grants. However, in some areas there is still a possibility of the situation deteriorating. Therefore, it is necessary to allocate intergovernmental grants carefully as well as encouraging each local government to work autonomously.