Alexander C. Vias

Initial Diagnostics of a Regional Adjustment Model

Adjustment models are used increasingly to analyze population and employment changes in regional economies. However, questions remain about the most appropriate geographic scales and time lags for these models. In this paper we estimate a well-known adjustment model for a recent 25-year period in the USA. Regional population and employment changes (levels and densities) are examined at three scales (states, Bureau of Economic Analysis regions, counties) using various time lags (one to ten years). Two-stage least squares regression estimates, based on Regional Economic Information System data running between 1969 and 1994, are generated and discussed. Analysis is restricted to the core relationships between population and employment; the roles of other exogenous variables, normally included in adjustment models, are not considered. Instead, concern is focused on issues such as stability and directional causality of the interacting population—employment systems. Some brief suggestions regarding future research conclude the paper.

Disaggregate Economic Base Multipliers in Small Communities

Economic base analysis is frequently used to describe employment profiles and to predict project-related impacts in small communities. Considerable evidence suggests, however, that economic base multipliers should be estimated from survey data and not from shortcut methods. In this paper two competing versions of the economic base model are developed and then these two models are estimated by use of the Arizona community data set. In both cases, marginal multiplier estimates, controlled for transfer payments, are generated for ten individual sectors in five different types of communities. Results from these two disaggregate economic base models are assessed and then compared with results provided earlier by more aggregate models. The better of these two new models closely resembles the popular input—output model.

Population and Employment Interactions in the Growth of United States Micropolitan Centers.

This paper examines population and employment growth in 219 emerging metropolitan (micropolitan) areas in the United States during the 1980s. In the spirit of Carlino and Mills (1987) and Clark and Murphy (1996), a partial adjustment model is used to examine the simultaneity of population and employment change, while controlling for the area-specific effects of amenities, fiscal conditions, and demographic composition, as well as for broad regional differences. The statistical evidence does not provide strong support for the simultaneity of micropolitan-area population and employment change during that decade.

Economic structure and socioeconomic change in America’s micropolitan areas, 1970–1997

Abstract Micropolitan areas, county-level geographic units with central cities larger than 15,000, represent a small but increasingly important part of the U.S. urban hierarchy. Despite the attraction of micropolitan areas to migrants, and increasing interest from federal policymakers who may soon officially recognize this geographic unit, little appears in the social science literature on the characteristics of these areas, and how they have evolved over time. In this paper, we examine micropolitan areas, focusing on economic structure and change over a 27 year time frame (1970–1997). The classification system we develop permits us to see structural change as it occurs in these geographic areas, while also allowing us to see how economic structure influences socioeconomic change over time. We find that micropolitan areas exhibit extraordinary diversity in terms of economic structure, and that economic structure explains much of the differential growth these areas have experienced over the last few decades.

CHANGING LIVELIHOODS IN RURAL AMERICA

Globalization and economic restructuring have profoundly affected the rural economy over the past 30 years (Glasmeier & Conroy, 1994). As noted in the introductory chapter, the notion of a rural economy reliant on a stable farming sector has been outmoded for decades. Today, fewer than one in 10 people living in rural America has a job directly related to farming. New competitive pressures will continue to change the rural economy and have significant impacts on the livelihoods of rural Americans, as workers in virtually all industries scramble to maintain a reasonable and sustainable standard of living in an increasingly volatile global market. At the same time, the ways in which globalization and economic restructuring play out both across geographic regions and within economic sectors is far from uniform. Impacts of these macro-scale processes on rural livelihoods merit examination at various levels of analysis. The nature of rural economic change over the past few decades is an active topic of research (Barkley, 1993; Falk & Lobao, 2003; Galston & Baehler, 1995; McGranahan, 2003), as are the linkages between economic, demographic and social change (Castle, 1995; Fuguitt et al., 1989). However, the increasing pace of global change, especially over the past 10 years, presents new challenges to rural Americans and their way of life. In this chapter we consider the nature of nonmetropolitan economic change in the last 30 years by examining links between the rural and global economies, exploring internal restructuring in specific sectors of the rural economy, and outlining repercussions of these changes for employment and income in various U.S. regions. The last 30 years brought significant sectoral shifts in rural employment within the United States (see Figure 4.1). Using data from the Regional Economic Information System (REIS) throughout our analysis, we identify three broad sectors that now comprise well over three quarters of all nonmetropolitan employment (Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2003). These include agriculture, manufacturing, and the tertiary sector consisting of transportation, communications and public

The Arizona community data set: a long‐term project for education and research in economic geography

Abstract The teaching of economic geography has received considerable attention in the literature over the last three years. This paper contributes to the debate by illustrating and analyzing a project based at the University of Arizona, the Arizona Community Data Set (ACDS). The ACDS is a long‐term field‐project that has given students the opportunity to go in the field to collect and analyze regional economic data and to apply theory and techniques learned in the classroom. This unique data set has yielded additional benefits in the area of basic research. It is argued that projects such as the ACDS complement some of the theoretical and analytical curriculum developed and recently published by other instructors in economic geography. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that some of the limitations commonly associated with field projects, especially the cost, can partly be overcome through sponsorship by community agencies.

Book Review: Polèse, M. (2010). The Wealth and Poverty of Regions: Why Cities Matter. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press

its call to measure the real costs and benefits of both collective investment in and private disinvestment of productive capacity in local urban spaces. This is an important consideration because typical corporate balance sheets are not forced to measure the true and extensive costs of their (dis) investment scenarios within the communities in which they operate. However, there is some subject matter in the book that needs further consideration to strengthen the author’s overall argument to get beyond liberal urban regimes. For example, Imbroscio mentions some theorists who impugn overly narrow applications of urban regime theory. In particular he cites Lauria’s (1997) work that weds urban regime theory and its local scale focus with regulation theory’s concern for macroscale processes. Yet, in Imbroscio’s focus on the local scale he never interrogates the possibilities of regulation theory. Geographers have been using a combination of the two theories to understand scalar dimensions of political economy for some time and, arguably, have previously reached some of the conclusions that Imbroscio reaches in his tome. Consider works by Peck and Tickell (2002) and Jessop (2002) that consider the neoliberal state as an extension of capital whereby urban politics are necessarily geared toward reproducing profitable spaces for multinational capital within cities at the expense of most local social considerations. Also, Imbroscio does not succinctly delineate how LEADS are not themselves neoliberal. Calls for entrepreneurialism, local enterprise, community empowerment, and the like are all infamous tenets of urban neoliberalism. He writes on page 120, “The key here is to promote the kind of local economic environment supportive of locally generated enterprise development, that is the creation and expansion of (often) small-scale, entrepreneurial businesses springing from existing local resources.” There is a very fine, if not ambiguous, line between his principles and those he seeks to subvert; the reader may be confused as to how LEADS can be operationalized in ways that do not contribute to the very principles he rails against. Despite these issues, Urban America Reconsidered is a prescriptive work that usefully challenges us to think about urban governance from a better paradigm of prosperity and equality. Well-versed urban theoreticians might not find much novel material in its pages, but theoreticians and practitioners alike will find themselves reevaluating their convictions in relation to this treatise. Imbroscio’s writing is accessible and his book can be read by a diverse audience interested in understanding and solving problems with urban governance. He therefore makes an excellent and necessary contribution to the literature on cities and political economy.