Jungyul Sohn

Agglomeration and Trade: Some Additional Perspectives

The form of agglomeration economies (those internal to the firm as well as those external to it) is reviewed. Consideration is next given to recent changes in the regional (state) economies of the US Midwest, as part of an effort to explore the evolving nature of agglomeration economies. Particular attention is paid to the changing relationship between the establishment and the firm and to radical developments that have affected the transportation sector. The impact of these changes on the nature of interstate trade and on the structure of the metropolitan economy are then examined. There follows a discussion of how agglomeration economies are being supplemented and perhaps replaced by less spatially-constrained advantages. Finally, certain of the more important implications of these various trends are discussed.

Analysis of Economic Impacts of an Earthquake on Transportation Network

Prior to the 1990s, natural disasters and their economic impacts were not a major field of study for regional economic analysts even though there was a sizeable literature based on structural engineering and geotechnical approaches. The latter approaches attempted to understand the behavior of earthquakes and to explore ways to prevent or minimize damage from the disaster should it occur. However, when decisions needs to be made on the retrofit of existing facilities as a prevention or the restoration of disrupted facilities after damages, economic considerations related to budgeting priorities have not been prominently featured. As a consequence, decisions about retrofit strategies tend to focus on engineering-based criteria (for example, bridge 21 on route 50 should be retrofitted because it presents the greatest probability of collapsing given an earthquake of magnitude x) rather than on economic criteria (for example, a 10% loss of capacity on bridge 10 on route 60 would create the greatest economic disruption under a similar earthquake scenario and hence would have the highest priority for retrofit). Hence, there is a clear need to provide some interface to explore the ways in which engineering-based assessments can be compared with those based on economic analysis tools. The current research described in this chapter provides such an interdisciplinary research effort.1

Information technology and urban spatial structure: A comparative analysis of the Chicago and Seoul regions

This paper examines comparatively the impact of information technology on urban spatial structure in the Chicago and Seoul metropolitan regions in an attempt to measure the potential influence of IT on urban form and structure. We analyzed the metropolitan areas to understand ways in which the information technology has influenced the distribution of urban economic activities: concentration or dispersion by examining two aspects of impacts: an attraction effect on a zone (level of activity) and a spillover effect on surrounding areas (distributional effects).

Information Technology Impacts on Urban Spatial Structure in the Chicago Region

This paper examines the impact of information technology on urban spatial structure in the Chicago region. Urban scientists are challenged to understand in what ways information technology has influenced the distribution of urban economic activities: concentration or dispersion. Using data collected in the Chicago region, orientation of establishments toward the center is tested to separate the impact of locational features of centers from the impact of information technology. The result reveals that information technology has attraction as well as spillover effect on urban spatial structure and thus concentration rather than dispersion is dominant at a local scale in the Chicago region. It was found, however, that center-orientedness varies depending on the sector.

Information technology in the 1990s: More footloose or more location‐bound?*

Abstract.This article examines whether the growth of information technology (IT) is associated with a dispersion or concentration of economic activities. The locational Gini coefficient and Moran’s I are first applied to ascertain the relationship between the growth of information technology and the distribution pattern of economic activities at the metropolitan scale. Next, using the Gi* statistic as the dependent variable and the level of information infrastructure as the independent variable, the above relationship is analysed at an intra-metropolitan scale. The results suggest that trends at a metropolitan scale do not necessarily reflect the trends at an intra-metropolitan scale in association.