AGGLOMERATION ECONOMICS IN REGIONS: THE CASE IN THE RUSSIAN INDUSTRY

Svetlana RASTVORTSEVA

World Economy Department – National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russia, http://www.hse.ru

Srartvortseva@gmail.ru

Abstract

The paper deals with the issues of economic activity location in the Russian regions, that is influ-enced not only by factors “first nature” – the presence of minerals, fertile land, favorable geographic position, but also factors of a “second nature”, in particular, the agglomeration effects and the econ-omy of scale. Analysis of geographic concentration and regional specialization reflects the general trend of the location of industrial production, investment and human resources, provides the necessary information basis for a balanced economic policy.

Keywords: New Economic Geography, Regional Economics, Location Theory, the Geographic Concentration of Economic Activity, Regions of Russia

JEL classification: R11, R12

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A NOTE ON OPTIMAL INCOME REDISTRIBUTION IN A CREATIVE REGION

Amitrajeet A. BATABYAL

Department of Economics, Rochester Institute of Technology, 92 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623-5604, USA.

aabgsh@rit.edu

Abstract

We study optimal income redistribution in a region that is creative in the sense of Richard Florida and thereby extend aspects of the recent analysis in Batabyal and Beladi (2017). Using the terminology of these researchers, members of the creative class are either artists or engineers. This bipartite grouping stems from the manner in which creative capital is acquired by the artists and the engineers. Specifically, we show that when the savings rates of the artists and the engineers comprising the creative class satisfy a particular inequality, it is possible for a regional authority (RA) to uniquely redistribute income between these two groups in a way that achieves the so called “golden rule” stock of physical capital.

Keywords: Creative Capital, Creative Class, Golden Rule, Income Redistribution, Region

JEL classification: R11, D31

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OUTPUT, GROWTH, AND CONVERGENCE IN A GREATIVE REGION: AN ANALYSIS OF SOME MEASUREMENT ISSUES

Amitrajeet A. BATABYAL

Department of Economics, Rochester Institute of Technology, 92 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623-5604, USA.

aabgsh@rit.edu

Abstract

We study some measurement issues that arise when analyzing the long run behavior of the  jth creative region’s time t log output per creative class member (yj(t)) when this region is part of an aggregate economy of j=1,…N creative regions. We focus first (second) on absolute (relative) convergence. In the absolute (relative) convergence case, the N creative regions are similar (dissimilar) in that they all have the same (different) balanced growth path (BGP) level of log output per creative class member denoted by yBGP(yjBGP) In the absolute convergence case, we analyze how to estimate the speed of convergence parameter (σ) and then discuss the relationship between the variance of yj(t) and that of yj(0) In the relative convergence case, we study the error associated with estimating σ using the methodology of the absolute convergence case. Finally, suppose yjBGP= a + bXj where Xj is an explanatory variable such as creative capital and a and b are positive constants. Here, we study how to estimate b from our knowledge of the coefficients of a related cross-region growth regression.

Keywords: Convergence, Creative Capital, Economic Growth, Measurement, Output

JEL classification: R11, C18

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