This paper tests the regional convergence of GDP per capita across 27 Chinese provinces during the period 1961-2018 with considering the spatial interactions. First, this study only finds a slight divergence over the entire period. Furthermore, the flowing research of this paper divides the overall time span into three sub-period based on two major economic policies, namely the “Open Door Policy” and the “Western Development Strategy”. During the period 1961-1977, which is regarded as a phase of planned economy, this paper finds the evidence of regional convergence. Moreover, the results indicate a slight divergence in GDP per capita during the period 1978-1999, proving that the “Open Door Policy” intensifies regional gaps of China. Finally, this study verifies the role of the “Western Development Strategy” in reducing regional differences since a convergence is found during the last period 2000-2018. The outcomes of this research reveal a strong relationship between economic policies and regional convergence, and thus the transition of policies should be considered when investigating the economic convergence. Furthermore, this research also verifies the importance of spatial effects in the process of convergence or divergence. The results are likely to be biased if the spatial dependence is neglected.

For Chapter 1: This paper offers a meta-regression analysis of the controversial impact of EU structural funds on the growth of the recipient regions. It identifies the factors that explain the heterogeneity in the size of 323 estimates of their impact recorded in 17 econometric studies. Heterogeneity comes from the publication status, the period examined, controlling for endogeneity, from the presence of several regressors but not from differences in functional forms. For Chapter 2: Recent spatial econometric contributions call for theory-driven spatial models and W matrices capturing actual and time-varying interregional linkages. This paper answers this call by developing theoretically Griliches' well-known knowledge production function to add knowledge externalities to it. They capture how human and private capital originating from one region benefit the creation of innovation elsewhere. Furthermore, we measure interregional interaction based on the actual flows of patent creation-citation and of migration of the educated workers. They have the advantage of capturing clearly the direction of the knowledge transfers. Their presence in the theoretical model leads to a reduced-form spatial cross-regressive model which differentiates better the role of each type of externality - and displays a better goodness of fit - than the spatially lagged model where spillovers depend on geographical proximity only. Both models are estimated on spatial panel data covering the dynamics of innovation across US states over the 1986-1999 period. For Chapter 3: The Ricardian framework is increasingly used for the study of the impact of climate change on farmland values. While most of the Ricardian studies assume no interaction between the geographical units under study, the few that do rely on traditional proximity-based dependence. In this paper we argue that since the larger share of agricultural goods produced by a state is not for its own local market, including interregional trade in the Ricardian framework provides new perspectives, avoids a missing variable bias and prevents erroneous conclusions. Our new framework is applied to the system of the U.S. states over the four most recent censuses (1997-2012) and demonstrate that climate and socio-economic conditions experienced in a state's trade partners have a significant role on that state's local farmland values.

The dissertation consists of three chapters that study topics related to structural change, spatial and network data. The first chapter considers the problem of testing for a structural change in the spatial lag parameter in a panel model. We propose a likelihood ratio test of the null hypothesis of no change against the alternative hypothesis of a single change. The limiting distribution of the test is derived under the null hypothesis when the number of time periods is large. We also propose a break-date estimator to determine the location of the change point following evidence against the null hypothesis. We present Monte Carlo evidence to show that the proposed procedure performs well in finite samples. We use US state budget data to investigate changes in budget spillovers and the interdependence of fiscal policy within US states. The second chapter proposes a theory of cross-country migration in the form of labor mobility based on regional and sectoral productivity shocks in a multi-country, multi-sector setting. The productivity model when applied to US state data explains both the nominal and relative flow of workers across the U.S. well, which is taken as the frictionless benchmark. On the other hand, when applied to Europe the model explains the relative flow network well, but predicts a higher nominal flow. This missing mass of migrants is explained by socio-cultural-political barriers. We use dyadic regressions to assess the effects of institutional and cultural "distance" between countries in explaining the "European immobility puzzle". The third chapter shows that the "iron-law" of convergence (2\%) still holds for the world. We document a structural break in Africa's convergence rate and argue that Africa was not converging before 2000. The world convergence rate before 2000 was driven by Asian and Latin American countries. We show that recent institutional and infrastructural developments have led the African countries on the path of "catching up". We use Least-Absolute-Shrinkage-and-Selection-Operator (LASSO) to select the variables and a double selection method to estimate the treatment effect in a partially linear model. We compare LASSO variable selections with those obtained using Gradient-Boosting-Method (GBM) and Random Forest.

No description available.

Submitted by isabela.moljf@hotmail.com (isabela.moljf@hotmail.com) on 2016-08-10T15:46:21Z No. of bitstreams: 1 priscilamedeirosdeoliveira.pdf: 2669972 bytes, checksum: cd1944c2f0881d7eb8a64b9384814c4b (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2016-08-15T13:03:55Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 priscilamedeirosdeoliveira.pdf: 2669972 bytes, checksum: cd1944c2f0881d7eb8a64b9384814c4b (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-15T13:03:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 priscilamedeirosdeoliveira.pdf: 2669972 bytes, checksum: cd1944c2f0881d7eb8a64b9384814c4b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-29 / FAPEMIG - Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais / O trabalho se baseia na Função de Produção de Conhecimento (FPC) para investigar o papel das ligações entre inventores na produção tecnológica das microrregiões brasileiras, controlando-se tanto para outros insumos da invenção (com proxies para P&D industrial, universitário e grau de escolaridade de trabalhadores) quanto para características econômicas regionais, que são capazes de influenciar a criação de invenções. Para isso, utilizam-se, principalmente, informações fornecidas pelo Instituto Nacional de Propriedade Industrial (INPI) e pela Relação Anual de Informações Sociais (RAIS) que permitiram construir um uma base de dados longitudinal para as microrregiões brasileiras no período 2001-2011, que foram analisados por meio de técnicas econométricas baseadas em um painel espacial. Os principais resultados mostram que o número de ligações entre inventores (coinvenções) é positivamente associado à produção tecnológica regional. As ligações externas parecem não exercer influência sobre o desempenho tecnológico regional, o que pode indicar que a concentração do patenteamento privilegie as ligações internas, dado que estas são mais importantes que as ligações externas na geração de novo conhecimento para o Brasil. A densidade da rede apresentou-se prejudicial à atividade tecnológica. / Based on the Knowledge Production Function (KPF), this article is aimed at investigating the role of inventor links over technological production of Brazilian microregions, controlling for both other invention inputs (with proxies for manufacturing and academic R&D, and workers´schooling) and regional economic characteristics, which are able to influence the creation of inventions. To do so, we use a Brazilian patent database stemming from Brazilian Patent Office (INPI) and the Brazilian Labor Ministry (RAIS/MTE) in order to construct a spatial panel data model over the period 2000-2011. The database was analyzed by means of econometric techniques based on spatial panel data models. The main findings show that the amount of inventor links (coinventions) is positively associated to regional technological production, whereas the network density might be harmful to technological activity. External links do not seem to influence the regional technological performance, which may indicate that the concentration of patenting favors internal links, as these are more important than the external links to generate new knowledge for Brazil. The density of the network had to be detrimental to technological activity.

Na primeira década dos anos 2000, houve uma intensa expansão do setor sucroenergético no Estado de São Paulo. O objetivo desse trabalho é avaliar os impactos socioeconômicos dessa expansão, tendo como base a representação de bem-estar social proposta por Deaton & Muellbauer (2009). Os impactos da expansão do setor sucroenergético sobre o nível médio da renda per capita e sobre sua distribuição entre os municípios paulistas foi estimado através de um modelo de painel espacial dinâmico desenvolvido a partir da decomposição da renda per capita em seus principais determinantes proposta por Barros et al. (2004). Além da proporção de adultos na população municipal, da taxa de utilização da força de trabalho e do rendimento médio dos vínculos empregatícios, também foram incluídas como variáveis de controle no modelo a taxa de utilização da força de trabalho na agropecuária e o rendimento médio dos vínculos empregatícios na agropecuária. Adicionalmente, para isolar os impactos socioeconômicos da expansão do setor sucroenergético, a participação da agropecuária na área do município, a participação da agricultura na área da agropecuária, a participação da cana-deaçúcar na área da agricultura e uma dummy para os municípios com usina em operação foram incluídas no modelo. As séries abrangem os 645 municípios paulistas no período de 2000 a 2008. Os resultados do modelo Método Generalizado de Momentos em Sistema GMM-SYS evidenciam a existência de relação de dependência espacial e temporal positiva no PIB real per capita. Os efeitos diretos e indiretos estimados indicam que a expansão do setor sucroenergético apresentou um impacto positivo sobre o nível médio da renda per capita e, como a expansão do setor ocorreu em municípios de PIB real per capita inferior à média paulista, também sobre sua distribuição. Dessa forma, constatou-se que a expansão do setor sucroenergético apresentou um impacto socioeconômico positivo. / The Brazilian sugarcane sector experienced an intense expansion in Sao Paulo State during the 2000s. The aim of this study is to evaluate the socioeconomic impacts of such expansion, based on the social welfare representation proposed by Deaton & Muellbauer (2009). The impacts of sugarcane sector expansion over the average per capita income and over its distribution between Sao Paulo States municipalities were estimated through a dynamic spatial panel developed from the decomposition of per capita income into its main determinants proposed by Barros et al. (2004). Besides the municipal rate of adults in the population, rate of workforce employment and average wage, two other variables were included in the model to control regional differences observed in Sao Paulo States economy: rate of workforce employment in agriculture and farming A&F and its respective average wage. Additionally, in order to determine the socioeconomic impacts of the sugarcane sector expansion, the share of A&F in the municipal area, the share of agriculture in A&F area, the share of sugarcane in agriculture area and a dummy for cities with mills in operation were also included in the model. The balanced panel for the 645 cities in Sao Paulo State ranges from 2000 to 2008. The results of the system generalized method of moments GMM-SYS highlight that per capita GDP presents positive lags in both time and space. The estimated direct and indirect effects indicate that sugarcane sector expansion had a positive impact over the average per capita income and, then, also over its distribution throughout Sao Paulo State since sugarcane sector expansion occurred mainly in cities with per capita GDP lower than the States average. Accordingly, the conclusion of this study is that sugarcane sector expansion that occurred between 2000 and 2008 presented a positive socioeconomic impact in Sao Paulo State.

In this paper we estimate space-time impacts of the embeddedness in R&D networks on regional knowledge production by means of a dynamic spatial panel data model with non-linear effects for a set of 229 European NUTS-2 regions in the period 1999-2009. Embeddedness refers to the positioning in networks where nodes represent regions that are linked by joint R&D endeavours in European Framework Programmes. We observe positive immediate impacts on regional knowledge production arising from increased embeddedness in EU funded R&D networks, in particular for regions with lower own knowledge endowments. However, long-term impacts of R&D network embeddedness are comparatively small.(authors' abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

Na primeira década dos anos 2000, houve uma intensa expansão do setor sucroenergético no Estado de São Paulo. O objetivo desse trabalho é avaliar os impactos socioeconômicos dessa expansão, tendo como base a representação de bem-estar social proposta por Deaton & Muellbauer (2009). Os impactos da expansão do setor sucroenergético sobre o nível médio da renda per capita e sobre sua distribuição entre os municípios paulistas foi estimado através de um modelo de painel espacial dinâmico desenvolvido a partir da decomposição da renda per capita em seus principais determinantes proposta por Barros et al. (2004). Além da proporção de adultos na população municipal, da taxa de utilização da força de trabalho e do rendimento médio dos vínculos empregatícios, também foram incluídas como variáveis de controle no modelo a taxa de utilização da força de trabalho na agropecuária e o rendimento médio dos vínculos empregatícios na agropecuária. Adicionalmente, para isolar os impactos socioeconômicos da expansão do setor sucroenergético, a participação da agropecuária na área do município, a participação da agricultura na área da agropecuária, a participação da cana-deaçúcar na área da agricultura e uma dummy para os municípios com usina em operação foram incluídas no modelo. As séries abrangem os 645 municípios paulistas no período de 2000 a 2008. Os resultados do modelo Método Generalizado de Momentos em Sistema GMM-SYS evidenciam a existência de relação de dependência espacial e temporal positiva no PIB real per capita. Os efeitos diretos e indiretos estimados indicam que a expansão do setor sucroenergético apresentou um impacto positivo sobre o nível médio da renda per capita e, como a expansão do setor ocorreu em municípios de PIB real per capita inferior à média paulista, também sobre sua distribuição. Dessa forma, constatou-se que a expansão do setor sucroenergético apresentou um impacto socioeconômico positivo. / The Brazilian sugarcane sector experienced an intense expansion in Sao Paulo State during the 2000s. The aim of this study is to evaluate the socioeconomic impacts of such expansion, based on the social welfare representation proposed by Deaton & Muellbauer (2009). The impacts of sugarcane sector expansion over the average per capita income and over its distribution between Sao Paulo States municipalities were estimated through a dynamic spatial panel developed from the decomposition of per capita income into its main determinants proposed by Barros et al. (2004). Besides the municipal rate of adults in the population, rate of workforce employment and average wage, two other variables were included in the model to control regional differences observed in Sao Paulo States economy: rate of workforce employment in agriculture and farming A&F and its respective average wage. Additionally, in order to determine the socioeconomic impacts of the sugarcane sector expansion, the share of A&F in the municipal area, the share of agriculture in A&F area, the share of sugarcane in agriculture area and a dummy for cities with mills in operation were also included in the model. The balanced panel for the 645 cities in Sao Paulo State ranges from 2000 to 2008. The results of the system generalized method of moments GMM-SYS highlight that per capita GDP presents positive lags in both time and space. The estimated direct and indirect effects indicate that sugarcane sector expansion had a positive impact over the average per capita income and, then, also over its distribution throughout Sao Paulo State since sugarcane sector expansion occurred mainly in cities with per capita GDP lower than the States average. Accordingly, the conclusion of this study is that sugarcane sector expansion that occurred between 2000 and 2008 presented a positive socioeconomic impact in Sao Paulo State.

No description available.

Diese Dissertation umfasst drei empirische Analysen regionaler Arbeitsmärkte in Deutschland. Wir wenden dabei Methoden der räumlichen Ökonometrie auf regionale Arbeitsmarktdaten an, um der räumlichen Struktur von Arbeitsmarktaktivitäten Rechnung zu tragen. In der ersten Analyse schlagen wir ein räumliches Paneldatenmodell zur Untersuchung deutscher Matchingfunktionen vor. Mit Hilfe dieses Modells sollen verzerrte und ineffiziente Koeffizientenschätzungen aufgrund räumlicher Abhängigkeiten vermieden werden. Wir zeigen, dass das Vernachlässigen der räumlichen Struktur zu nach oben verzerrten Matchingkoeffizienten führt. Das Ziel der zweiten Untersuchung ist es, Bestimmungsfaktoren für regionale Unterschiede in Arbeitslosigkeit zu identifizieren. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass ein räumlich und zeitlich dynamisches Paneldatenmodell am besten für diese Fragestellung geeignet ist. Zudem zeigen unsere Ergebnisse, dass die regionalen Unterschiede in der deutschen Arbeitslosigkeit einen Ungleichgewichtszustand darstellen. Diese Erkenntnis kann als Argument für politische Interventionen dienen. In der letzten Analyse wenden wir uns der räumlichen Gewichtungsmatrix zu, der eine zentrale Bedeutung in räumlichen Modellen zukommt. Auf Basis einer empirischen Analyse wollen wir die Definition von räumlichen Gewichten untersuchen und ermitteln Faktoren, die die räumlichen Abhängigkeiten auf Arbeitsmärkten bestimmen. Dabei untersuchen wir sowohl unterschiedliche Dimensionen ökonomischer als auch geographische Distanzen als Wirkungskanal räumlicher Abhängigkeit. Für die Entscheidung, welche dieser Distanzdimensionen einen Einfluss auf die räumlichen Relationen hat, verwenden wir ein räumlich-autoregressives Modell höherer Ordnung. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass geographische Distanz alleine nicht ausreicht, um die räumlichen Interdependenzen zwischen regionalen Arbeitsmärkten zu erklären, sondern auch Dimensionen ökonomischer Distanz einen signifikanten Erklärgehalt haben. / In this dissertation, we present different empirical analyses of regional labor markets in Germany. To account for the spatial structure of labor market activities, we apply spatial econometric methods to regional labor market data. In the first analysis, we propose a spatial panel model for German matching functions to avoid possibly biased and inefficient estimates due to spatial dependence. Based on an official data set, we show that neglecting spatial dependencies in the data results in upward-biased coefficients. Furthermore, our results suggest that a dynamic modeling is more appropriate for matching functions than a static approach. In the second analysis, we study determinants for regional differences in unemployment rates. We specify a spatial panel model to avoid biased and inefficient estimates due to spatial dependence. The study covers the whole of Germany as well as East and West Germany separately. Our results suggest that a spatial dynamic panel model is the best model for this analysis. Moreover, we find that German regional unemployment is of disequilibrium nature, which justifies political interventions. Finally, we study the spatial weights matrix which is the key component in spatial econometric models. We investigate empirically the issue of defining spatial weights in labor market applications and propose factors driving spatial dependence in regional labor markets. In addition to geographic distance, we consider different dimensions of economic distance as transmission channel of spatial dependence. To decide which factors influence spatial dependence in labor markets, we apply a higher-order spatial autoregressive model to data on regional labor markets in Germany. Our results suggest that geographic distance does not capture the spatial dependence between regional labor markets sufficiently but economic distance needs to be considered as well.