experimental evidence on unemployment insurance work search policies this paper describes findings from an experimental evaluation of alternative work search policies in the unemployment insurance ui program we find that the no work search treatment significantly increased ui receipt relative to the standard work search approach by 3 3 weeks and 265 per claimant and that the treatment with the most intensive requirements reduced ui payments by one half of a week or 70 per claimant the results suggest that work search requirements reduce ui spells by increasing the nonmonetary costs of remaining on ui rather than enhancing job search abilities we also find little treatment effects for wages earnings or total income suggesting that an increase in the nonmonetary costs of continued ui receipt are associated with more intensive job search rather than a reduction in the reservation wage

problems of urban decline and growth in eec countries or measuring degrees of elephantness the purpose of this paper is to draw together several strands of literature concerned with the measurement of spatial economic and social differences and then suggest an alternative approach we then apply that approach to classifying the problems of 103 of the largest metropolitan regions in the eec countries in the process this allows us to conceptualise and attempt to quantify urban decline in europe and simultaneously discover the extent to which urban problems in europe are still associated with growth although it is hoped that the paper is infused with some theoretical and analytical insight it is primarily empirical in scope it draws on a small part of a much wider project some of the analytical support particularly the arguments and evidence that support the use of functional urban regions furs as units of analysis and all of the analytical and policy implications are reported on elsewhere 1

the regional financial sector a scottish case study dow s c 1992 the regional financial sector a scottish case study reg studies 26 619 631 the regional finance literature suggests that financial market segmentation may affect regional economic activity but that the uk financial sector is sufficiently integrated to rule out this effect this paper attempts to broaden the scope of the debate by considering the credit creating behaviour of the banking sector together with the interdependent financial behaviour of all other sectors in a region it is concluded that financial behaviour in this broad sense affects regional activity even in an integrated national financial market in particular financial integration may adversely affect the allocation of new credit to a peripheral region the argument is assessed by considering the scottish case dow s c 1992 le secteur financier regional cas d etude de l ecosse reg studies 26 619 631 la documentation relative au secteur financier regional laisse supposer que la segmentation du marche finan

productivity growth in uk manufacturing and production industries 1948 68 this paper estimates residual productivity growth for twenty eight uk manufacturing and production industries for 1948 68 using a production function approach and the importance of distinguishing between a gross output and value added from of production function is stressed the results are compared to those obtained by the cambridge growth project which uses an input output framework the value added production function gives similar results to the cambridge approach and it is shown that this is not altogether surprising the results from a gross output production function are also shown these estimates are generally lower than those obtained using a value added or net output system which is what would be expected

does a minimum job search requirement reduce time on unemployment payments evidence from the jobseeker diary in australia this study examines the impact of thejobseeker diary jsd a program designed to increase the job search effort of unemployed persons in australia the jsd program is distinguished by combining a focus on work search verification with large scale imple mentation applying a quasi experimental matching method to data on unemployment spells occurring in 1997 98 the authors find that jsd participation was associated with an increased rate of exit from unemployment payment recipiency and a shorter total time spent on payments payment receipt duration is estimated to have fallen for about one half of jsd participants the largest effects of the jsd occurred for payment recipients for whom labor demand conditions were the most favorable cost benefit analysis suggests a fairly large net societal gain per program participant this study examines a large scale interven tion intended to increase job search ef fort of unemployed persons in australia the intervention the jobseeker diary jsd is a work search verification program that re quires unemployment payment recipients to complete a fortnightly biweekly diary in which details of a specified minimum number of job applications must be recorded the scale of the jsd program and its focus on work search verification make it unique in the international context

dreams of urbanization quantitative case studies on the local impacts of nuclear power facilities using the synthetic control method this paper uses the synthetic control sc method to examine how the establishment of nuclear power facilities npfs in japan in the 1970s and 1980s has affected local per capita income levels in the municipalities in which they were localted npf municipalities eight quantitative case studies using the sc method clarify that the effects of npf establishment on per capita taxable income levels are highly heterogeneous the estimated effects are often economically meaningful and in some cases huge the income level was 11 higher on average and 62 higher in one municipality in 2002 when compared with counterfactual units on the other hand a few of the npf municipalities have received only weak or negligible effects from npf establishment the post estimation comparisons of employment between the npf municipalities and the sc units suggest that the size of the direct labor demand shocks and subsequent indirect employment effects on nontradable service sectors have contributed to the increase in per capita income levels

lessons from the u s unemployment insurance experiments recent social experiments have evaluated two reforms of the unemployment insurance ui system reemployment bonuses and job search programs the bonus experiments show that economic incentives affect the length of ui receipt and provide weak evidence that an earlier return to work does not decrease earnings the experiments do not show the favorability of a permanent bonus program as they ignore its effect on the number of the claimants the job search experiments test several more promising reforms nearly all of the combinations of services and increased enforcement reduce ui receipt and have favorable cost benefit analyses earnings often increase though the estimates are imprecise

assessing the effect of the polytechnic wolverhampton on the local community the paper reviews the literature related to the assessment of the effects of an establishment on a local community particularly those concerned with educational establishments the theory of the methods of impact assessment are reviewed and some of the problems associated with empirical identification and evaluation of effects are highlighted the limitations of the basic models are considered in the case of an educational establishment there are a number of specific impacts such as the effects of student incomes and expenditures the paper includes estimations of the impact on jobs and incomes in and around wolverhampton of the polytechnic and identifies a number of additional benefits which accrue but cannot be given monetary values a number of assumptions have had to be made in order to assign values to certain impacts wherever these occur they are clearly detailed so that they may be open to debate

using a metropolitan area econometric model to analyse economic development proposals this paper shows how an integrated input output and econometric model has been developed and used by a municipal government to evaluate economic development proposals the model simulates the impact of attracting or retaining various types of new businesses and calculates fiscal impacts for state and local governments it can be used to determine a government s bottom line tax concession or how much it is witting to give up to attract new businesses into the community we present examples of proposals evaluated using our louisville metropolitan area econometric model and suggest that the methodology is readily adaptable to other urban areas

area policy impacts a multiplier analysis of gear this paper attempts to quantify the employment and income effects of the glasgow eastern area renewal gear programme on its target area this is done using an augmented keynesian multiplier approach the multiplier model is adjusted to take into account the particular characteristics of the injection and the fact that the target area is small and well integrated within a large conurbation the results are disaggregated so that the impact of each element of the programme is separately identified and the overall results are subject to sensitivity analysis although the estimated increases in employment and income are large in absolute terms they are small relative to the decline that immediately preceded the introduction of the gear programme

technology and regional policy a case study of northern ireland the importance of technical change through the innovative activity of industry has received a lot of attention in the regional economic literature regional policy has now begun to reflect the changing emphasis in the recent literature and especially the key role of inventive activity in achieving long run self sustaining regional growth this paper concentrates on research activities in terms of inventive inputs r d and innovative outputs especially patented innovations in general the results suggest that there is a low level of technological activity in northern ireland especially in industries that are characterized as being technologically advanced this is partly because external ownership reduces r d activity which in turn reduces innovation outputs but there is also a problem in that companies in northern ireland are relatively unsuccessful at producing new products and processes of the type and quality required in the market place the availability of government sponsored r d grants s

differential multipliers for the accomodation sector abstract this study examines differential income and employment multipliers according to types of industrial organization because of differences in production processes and purchasing patterns it is hypothesized that the size of the multipliers varies inversely with size scale degree of affiliation and degree of outside ownership differential multipliers for the accomodation sector were calculated by adapting the regional tourism models developed by archer to an 11 sector input output model of metropolitan victoria bc the findings support the hypotheses of the study since significant variations and correlations were found for the multipliers and other selected variables by organization types

the role of manufacturing in regional growth harris r i d 1987 the role of manufacturing in regional growth reg studies 21 301 312 since a shift in regional policy away from manufacturing to aiding services is being advocated this paper re examines the role of manufacturing in regional growth from both an empirical and theoretical viewpoint first of all it discusses the importance of manufacturing s share of output concluding that in output terms and prior to 1979 manufacturing has not been displaced by services in shares of total output secondly the paper focuses on the theoretical importance of manufacturing to the growth of regional output showing that for most theories demand side growth pole cumulative causation manufacturing is the natural base for growth potential harris r i d 1987 le role des industries de fabrication dans la croissance regionale reg studies 21 301 312 vu que l on propose une reorientation de la politique regionale au depens des industries de fabrication et en faveur du tertiaire cet article

job search requirements effort provision and labor market outcomes abstract how effective are effort targets this paper provides novel evidence on the effects of job search requirements on effort provision and labor market outcomes based on large scale register data we estimate the returns to required job search effort instrumenting individual requirements with caseworker stringency identification is ensured by the conditional random assignment of job seekers to caseworkers we find that the duration of un and non employment both decrease by 3 if the requirement increases by one monthly application when instrumenting actual applications with caseworker stringency an additionally provided monthly application decreases the length of spells by 4 in line with theory we further find that the effect of required effort decreases in the individual s voluntary effort finally the requirement level causes small negative effects on job stability reducing the duration of re employment spells by 0 3 per required application we find a zero effect on re employment wages

the size distribution of innovating firms in the uk 1945 1983 a survey of 4 378 significant innovations shows that firms with fewer than 1 000 employees commercialized a much larger share than is indicated by their share of r and d expenditures innovations per employee have been consistently above average in firms with more than 10 000 employees and have become so in firms with fewer than 1 000 intersectoral variation in the size distribution of innovating firms can be explained as a function of r and d based technological opportunities and of technological ease of entry by user firms with principal activities outside the sector copyright 1987 by blackwell publishing ltd

policy review section in this policy review section gerry stoker of the institute of local government studies presents a critical review of the role of urban development corporations udcs in comparing the experience of the udcs consideration is given to the varying nature of the land and property market in each udc area to the relationship with local authorities and other local bodies and the regeneration strategies pursued by the udcs this is followed by an assessment of the impact of the udcs in economic social and political terms in the second article john britton of the university of toronto examines the theoretical case for interventionist public policies to assist the innovation process in small and medium sized enterprises these arguments are supported by a review of the experience of various national support programmes introduced in the uk in particular the manufacturing advisory service introduced in 1978 and the design advisory service launched in 1982

the semiconductor industry in south east asia organization location and the international division of labour 1 scott a j 1987 the semiconductor industry in south east asia organization location and the international division of labour reg studies 21 143 160 the paper deals with the functional and geographical organization of the semiconductor industry in south east asia the discussion opens with a broad description of the growth of us owned assembly plants in the region this is followed by an account of the current geographical distribution in south east asia of 1 us owned assembly plants 2 locally owned diffusion facilities and 3 locally owned subcontract assembly houses the internal functional characteristics of assembly plants are examined it is then shown that there is an emerging international division of labour in the semiconductor industry within south east asia the growth of localized semiconductor production complexes is analysed the theory of the new international division of labour is briefly reconsidered in the light of all this scott a j 1987 l industrie des semi conducte

activating unemployed workers works experimental evidence from denmark abstract in a field experiment in two danish counties about half of the unemployed workers were randomly assigned to a mandatory activation program analyzing data from this experiment we show that activation can be very effective in reducing unemployment durations

trade production sharing and the international transmission of business cycles countries that are more engaged in production sharing exhibit higher bilateral manufacturing output correlations we use data on trade flows between us multinationals and their affiliates as well as trade between the united states and mexican maquiladoras to measure production sharing trade and its link with the business cycle we then develop a quantitative model of international business cycles that generates a positive link between the extent of vertically integrated production sharing trade and internationally synchronized business cycles a key assumption in the model is a relatively low elasticity of substitution between home and foreign inputs in the production of the vertically integrated good

does job search monitoring intensity affect unemployment evidence from northern ireland because unemployment benefit reforms typically package together a number of changes few existing evaluations have been able to isolate the effects of changes in job search monitoring intensity on benefit recipient stocks or flows those few studies that do so draw mixed conclusions this paper provides new estimates of monitoring impacts by exploiting plausibly exogenous periods where search monitoring has been temporarily withdrawn with the regime otherwise unchanged during a series of benefit office refurbishments in northern ireland as we would expect from search theory withdrawal of monitoring significantly increases the stock of unemployment benefit recipients via reduced outflows

the failure of training in britain analysis and prescription in the last decade education and training et reform has become a major issue in many of the world s industrial powers one theme which runs throughout these reform initiatives is the need to adapt et systems to the changing economic environment these changes include the increasing integration of world markets the shift in mass manufacturing towards newly developed nations and the rapid development of new technologies most notably information technologies education and training are seen to play a crucial role in restoring or maintaining international competitiveness both on the macro level by easing the transition of the workforce into new industries and at the micro level where firms producing high quality specialized goods and services require a well qualified workforce capable of rapid adjustment in the work process and continual product innovation this paper will highlight the need for policy makers and academics to take account of the two way nature of the relationship between et and the economy

regional innovation policies compared regional policy and technology policy increasingly converge into regional innovation policies in the europe of regions the comparison of technology transfer networks in the german regions baden wu

urban regeneration and the development industry healey p 1991 urban regeneration and the development industry reg studies 25 97 108 this paper examines a key assumption of urban policy in britain in the 1980s this assumption is that urba

the measurement of capital services in production for uk regions 1968 78 harris r i d 1983 the measurement of capital services in production for uk regions 1968 78 reg studies 17 169 180 the purpose of this study is to obtain meaningful measures of the factor input capital so that estimation of the production function is possible at a regional level firstly gross stock measures are converted into a net stock series and the series obtained are then adjusted for levels of utilization finally some use of the data is made to look at various issues such as which regions have experienced rapid growth in capital stocks the composition of these stocks and changes in the capital labour ratios which have resulted

high technology industry in the bristol sub region the aerospace defence nexus boddy m and lovering j 1986 high technology industry in the bristol sub region the aerospace defence nexus reg studies 20 217 231 this paper presents a detailed study of high technology industry in the bristol region which comprises an important element of the uk s m4 corridor growth area high technology industry in the region is found to be primarily identified with the aerospace industry in terms of both products process and occupational structure aerospace is central to high technology industry as a whole in terms of sub contracting and purchasing and through its domination of the labour market the origins of the electronics based aerospace sector are traced in the development of the aircraft and guided weapons industries as they related to the bristol sub region in the post war period this indicates the key role of defence related production and ministry of defence procurement to the genesis and continuing importance of the advanced technology sector in the sub region demonstratin

experimental evidence on the effects of early meetings and activation we analyze the effects of four randomized social experiments involving early and intensive active labour market policy conducted in denmark in 2008 the experiments entailed different combinations of early and intensive treatment in terms of meetings and active labour market programmes we find that frequent meetings between newly unemployed workers and case workers can increase employment rates over the next two years by up to 10 weeks the effects continue to grow over the whole 4 year horizon studied for men we find evidence of a threat effect of having to participate in early active labour market programmes while no such effect is found for women we conduct a cost benefit analysis of each ofthe four experiments and find that meetings yield the largest net benefits

explaining recent trends in new firm formation in the uk some evidence from south hampshire mason c m 1989 explaining recent trends in new firm formation in the uk some evidence from south hampshire reg studies 23 331 346 the paper contributes to the debate on the reasons for the increase in business start ups in the uk since the late 1970s it compares the results of a survey of new manufacturing firms started since 1979 in south hampshire with a previously conducted survey of firms started between 1976 and 1979 the study provides partial support for the recession push explanation the post 1979 cohort contained a higher proportion of firms started by founders who were unemployed redundant although there was no evidence to support other aspects of the recession push explanation the study fails to support structural change explanations in addition there was no evidence that government assistance to small businesses had been a significant factor in the formation of the post 1979 cohort of new businesses mason c m 1989 une explication des tendances recentes en faveur de la creat

job loss and the regional incidence of redundancies in the current recession industrial change is a two sided process it both creates new plants production methods and jobs and displaces others at present in operation but the two sides of this process rarely coincide in time or space and in britain over the past fifteen years or so the develop ment path of the economy has been increasingly dominated by displacement effects whether measured in terms of output exports investment or employment there has been a cumulative weakening of the contribution of manufacturing to the national economy an unprecedented de industrialisation although opinions differ over the precise causes of this persistent industrial decline it is clear that the british economy has become caught in a process of declining external competitiveness which is both a consequence and a cause of a deteriorating economic environment characterised by low profits the holding back of new investment and insufficient job opportunities blackaby 1978 hughes 1981 cambridge economic policy group 1982 it is the absolute decline in industrial employ ment sustained now for some sixteen years and accelerated by the current recession that is one of the worrying features of this deindustrialisation from a peak level in 1966 total industrial employment has declined by over four million of which three million is accounted for by jobs lost in manufacturing during the 1970s there were some increases in service employment especially in the public sector which offset the decline in manufac turing jobs but that offsetting trend came to a halt towards the end of the decade over the period 1966 81 service employment increased by just over one million so that the loss of four million jobs in industry has been primarily reflected not by jobs created else where in the economy but by an increase in the army of unemployed of nearly three million industrial unemployment is now more than ten times what it was in 1966 this decline in the demand for labour has been characterised by a number of cyclical phases over the last decade or so cycles in the rate of capital accumulation appear to have become more marked and to have been accompanied by pronounced swings in the financial balance of a large number of firms and industries much of the labour displacement that has occurred during these crises has been concentrated in a single year within the four or five year cycle as in 1967 1971 1975 and in the current recession in 1980 with out doubt this latest downturn is the most severe of the post war period an economic col lapse that has been sharply intensified by the tory government s pursuance of restrictive monetarist policies to combat inflation and a laissez faire approach to the supply side of

external ownership of industry and government policy some further evidence for northern ireland harris r i d 1990 external ownership of industry and government policy some further evidence for northern ireland reg studies 25 45 62 this paper considers the causes and consequences of external ownership and control of manufacturing in northern ireland the province is an interesting example of a branch plant economy since government regional policy has been particularly responsible for encouraging inward investment the effect of external control on occupational structures inter firm linkages technological development and plant closures is assessed using various and often unique databases the results obtained suggest that high levels of external ownership in northern ireland lead to proportionately more unskilled as opposed to skilled manual workers linkages tend to be truncated leading to generally lower levels of integration into the local economy rd and there appears to have been a higher propensity for closure if the plant w

international trade transmission channel of a local crisis a simple model espanolproponemos un modelo de interdependencia general lineal para la economia mundial y utilizamos datos de la division estadistica de las naciones unidas para estimar sus parametros esto nos permite evaluar la propagacion de un shock exogeno a los gastos autonomos de un pais mediante el canal del comercio internacional pudiendo construir un ranking de vulnerabilidad para los paises de la muestra frente a un shock a cualquiera de ellos la respuesta del sistema a un shock negativo sobre los gastos autonomos de estados unidos es llevado a cabo como ejemplo si bien sujeto a multiples debilidades estos resultados de estatica comparativa pueden ser utiles para analisis de politica englishwe propose a linear general interdependence model of the world economy and use united nations statistics division data to estimate its parameters this allows us to assess the propagation through the channel of international trade of an exogenous shock to one country s autonomous expenditures thereby constructing a vulnerability ranking for the countries in the sample to an exogenous shock to any of them the response of the system to a negative shock to the united states autonomous outlays is carried out as an example though subject to multiple caveats these comparative statics results might be useful for policy analysis

how to help unemployed find jobs quickly experimental evidence from a mandatory activation program abstract this paper investigates how a mandatory activation program in denmark affects the job finding rate of unemployed workers the activation program was introduced in an experimental setting where about half of the workers who became unemployed in the period from november 2005 to march 2006 were randomly assigned to the program while the other half was not it appears that the activation program is very effective the median unemployment duration of the control group is 14 weeks while it is 11 5 weeks for the treatment group the analysis shows that the job finding rate in the treatment group is 30 higher than in the control group this result is mainly driven by the more intensive contacts between the unemployed and the public employment service

northern ireland an economy in crisis it is now more than a decade since british troops were sent to northern ireland and the conflict in the province continues with no end in sight a great deal has been written about the economic and political background to this conflict but relatively little about what has actually happened since 1969 whilst a great deal of information is available from official sources and specialist publications there have been few attempts to collate this material and provide a general picture of the situation in northern ireland the present article has been written in an attempt to fill this gap 1 it is mainly concerned with the 1970s but it also briefly considers preceding history for reasons of space and time the article is highly selective and a number of important questions are ignored or touched upon only superficially in particular discussion of politics has been kept to a minimum and the emphasis is mainly upon economic and social questions moreover the article is almost entirely concerned with the situation inside northern ireland itself and whilst there are occasional references to the independent republic in southern ireland there is no attempt to provide a comprehensive picture of ireland as a whole the article is divided into four parts it begins with a short description of how northern ireland was created as a self governing province of the uk it then examines the history of the province up to 1970 and describes the rapid but uneven development of the northern irish economy during the late 1950s and the 1960s next comes the main part of the article which considers in some detail the economic crisis which has beset northern ireland over the past decade and analyses the enormous structural changes which have occurred during this period finally the article concludes with some general observations about future prospects and possibilities

the anatomy of job creation nations regions and cities in the 1960s and 1970s hall p 1987 the anatomy of job creation nations regions and cities in the 1960s and 1970s reg studies 21 95 106 oecd data for four industrial countries great britain federal germany usa and japan demonstrate a clear shift from manufacturing to service employment most marked in the usa there are sharp differences in the degree to which these countries have compensated for manufacturing job losses by gains in the services within the uk there are also marked differences in these replacement ratios both between regions and between major cities hall p 1987 anatomie de la creation d emplois reegions et cites dans les annees soixante et soixante dix reg studies 21 95 106 les donnees de l ocde pour quatre pays industrialises la grande bretagne la republique federale allemande les usa et le japon montrent un changement manifeste de l emploi dans la fabrication a l emploi dans les services cette tendance etant particulierement accentuee aux usa il y a des differences tres nettes dan

the growth and geographical anatomy of venture capitalism in the united kingdom martin r l 1989 the growth and geographical anatomy of venture capitalism in the united kingdom reg studies 23 389 403 the 1980s have seen the emergence and rapid growth of venture capitalism in the uk this paper examines this growth both in terms of the spatial organization of the venture capital industry and the regional distribution of venture capital investment the picture that emerges is of an industry which is over centralized in the london area and which in the course of its recent development has tended to concentrate investment in the already more prosperous southeastern and adjacent parts of the country while local venture capital markets are beginning to become established in northern britain it will be some time before the existing regional imbalance is likely to be redressed martin r l 1989 la croissance et la distribution geographique du capital risque au royaume uni reg studies 23 389 403 les annees 1980 ont temoigne de la naissance et de l essor du capital risque au

the economic benefits of the channel tunnel the channel tunnel john kay alan manning and stefan szymanski the channel tunnel connecting the uk to france is due to open in may 1993 this paper analyses both the social and private profitability of the tunnel project we do this by modelling the competitive process in the cross channel market and assessing the impact of the tunnel on prices and demand we find that the characteristics of the tunnel enormous capacity and very low marginal costs will have the effect of driving down prices and hence providing a huge social benefit we find that the private profitability is less clear cut and although positive is quite sensitive to changes in the strength of competition and demand this analysis can be used to explain the fact that although the channel tunnel is widely perceived as a beneficial infrastructure project it proved extremely difficult to raise finance for the venture

tourism and economic development a survey this article surveys the literature on tourism and economic development identifying the contribution that tourism can make to development including foreign currency income and employment and the costs that it entails single equation and system of equations models for estimating tourism demand are provided indicating developing countries potential to benefit from increasing expenditure on tourism but their susceptibility to deterioration in price competitiveness the main sectors of tourism supply transportation tour operators travel agents and accommodation are examined and the importance of cross country integration between firms is highlighted the article argues that many of the problems associated with the use of environmental resources for tourism stem from market failure and it considers methods for increasing sustainably the returns from them

an empirical analysis of the unemployment duration of school leavers unemployment is a waste of vaulable human resources which also imposes various economics medical and psychological costs on the individual these costs are likely to be greater the longer the duration of umemployment this is true for both prime aged workers and the youngest entrants to the labour market that is school leavers using careers service data on 1979 1980 and 1981 leavers the authors seek to shed light on the issue of what factors determine the duration of unemployment for minimum aged school leavers the way in which these factors can be used by the careers service to identify those school leavers who have a higher risk of long term unemployment is discussed and a number of strategies for helping this group are outlined the results show that after allowing for the distorting influence of the youth opportunities programme longer durations of unemployment are associated with an absence of work experience low to intermediate qualifications and other personality traits

industry characteristics and productivity growth the study examines the relationship between several industrial characteristics the presence of large or small firms the concentration ratio the extent of unionization and the amount of research and development and multifactor productivity growth overall r and d is the only influence which consistently has a positive effect on productivity growth under all circumstances this conclusion is particularly meaningful since the present study uses three digit specific research data while prior studies have generally assigned a common two digit research value to more detailed industries the evidence therefore supports science and knowledge as the primary determinant of productivity growth and indicates that the firm or market structure within which knowledge is applied to production is less consistently influential than the knowledge effort itself 14 references 2 tables

the role of large producers in industrial districts a case study of high technology systems houses in southern california scott a j 1992 the role of large producers in industrial districts a case study of high technology systems houses in southern california reg studies 26 265 275 a generalized concept of industrial districts is proposed the concept hinges on the intertwined notions of the social division of labour external economies and locational agglomeration it is argued that large production units often play an important part in sustaining the growth and development of industrial districts and that such districts need not be composed solely of small production units the argument is illustrated by means of a case study of the role of large systems houses within the high technology industrial districts of southern california it is concluded that neither large establishments nor the internationalization of the economy necessarily threaten the continued viability of industrial districts it is also suggested that industrial districts represent a very widely developed phenomenon in time and space scott a j

an econometric study on estimation of trade shares using the almost ideal demand system in the world link the objectives of this paper are to analyse the import shares by country using the world trade matrix data for 25 countries regions of the world various methods for the analysis of import or export shares are used in the literature but none of the studies has made use of the approach of an almost ideal demand system aids deaton and muellbauer 1980 the results based on aids for import shares are plausible and when maximizing behaviour is not assumed estimation of import share equations by ordinary least squares is possible in the aids approach import shares turn out to be a function of real value of imports and export prices of major competitors homogeneity and symmetry restrictions can be tested and estimation with constraints can conducted using fiml full information maximum likelihood or equivalent methods the paper presents results for three important countries regions namely the usa japan and the eec as importing country regions and for major suppliers to each country region the impo

evaluating the effects of employment changes on local unemployment gordon i 1988 evaluating the effects of employment changes on local unemployment reg studies 22 135 147 this paper outlines a general methodology for estimation of the effects of employment

real wage and real labour cost growth 1948 81 a disaggregated study the paper examines growth rates in labour cost and real wages for up to 38 separate uk industry categories this reveals much interesting information about labour markets which is ignored in most studies of the real wage the latter are mostly concerned with disequilibrium behaviour of the real wage the theoretical section of the paper explores the relationship between the growth rates in productivity real wages labour costs profit rates and value added prices relative to average prices under the assumption that factor markets are competitive the second section computes these respective growth rates and explores how well the competitive hypothesis stands up the results indicate reasonable agreement with the competitive thesis

location choice and labour market perceptions a discrete choice study henley a carruth a thomas a and vickerman r 1989 location choice and labour market perceptions a discrete choice study reg studies 23 431 445 the location of industry in an economy raises many important issues for economists and governments interested in economic efficiency and equity one interesting question is whether economic factors have an important role to play in explaining location patterns this paper uses a survey data set of uk establishments in growth activities it implements a discrete choice framework to contrast the performance of economic variables with that of establishments perceptions about these economic conditions in explaining location choice henley a carruth a thomas a et vickerman r 1989 le choix de localisation et les perceptions du marche de l emploi une etude par choix discret reg studies 23 431 445 dans une economie la localisation de l industrie souleve de nombreuses questions importantes a la fois pour les economistes et pour les gouvernements qu

small firms business services growth and regional development in the united kingdom some empirical findings keeble d bryson j and wood p 1991 small firms business services growth and regional development in the united kingdom some empirical findings reg studies 25 439 457 since 1980 the united kingdom has experienced very rapid growth in firms and employment in information intensive business services this paper documents the nature and extent of this growth with particular reference to small and new firms in management consultancy and market research and reviews its locational impact numbers of business service firms most of which are small independent companies have grown much faster than consumer service firms despite a significant death rate many small businesses in these sectors have grown rapidly as have very large firms business service growth has contributed powerfully to the uk s north south divide being focused on london and the outer south east possible causes of these trends and key future research issues are reviewed keeble d bryson j et wood p 1991 petites entreprise

measuring the local employment impact of a tourist attraction an empirical study johnson p and thomas b 1990 measuring the local employment impact of a tourist attraction an empirical study reg studies 24 395 403 a framework for estimating the local employment impact of a major tourist attraction in the north of england is presented direct employment occurs inside and outside the attraction as a result of final expenditure the problem of identifying only that expenditure which is attributable to the attraction is confronted indirect employment in the chain of suppliers to the direct activities and induced employment from spending incomes generated in direct and indirect activity are discussed and measured attention is focused on the diversion of demand and the loss of employment elsewhere and estimates of the net employment impact are provided johnson p et thomas b 1990 la mesure de l effet emploi local d une attraction touristique une atude empirique reg studies 24 395 403 une structure qui sert a estimer l effet emploi local d un projet se voit pre enter y

market structure and innovation a survey economics we all recite deals with allocation of limited resources towards satisfaction of unlimited wants resources are typically identified as land labor and capital plus a technology that determines their transformation into consumer goods disparity between the available goods and services and the desired gives rise to scarcity and the question of what how and for whom to produce the focus then shifts to description and evaluation of alternative resource allocation mechanisms for making the choices the pareto criterion by which an allocation of resources is deemed efficient if any reallocation improving the position of some individual worsens the position of others is a commonly employed gauge of a mechanism s performance in the absence of externalities increasing returns to scale and uncertainty a perfectly competitive market system yields a pareto optimal allocation of resources this underlies the view that individual self interest is compatible with society s interest the further conclusion that pareto optimality may not be achieved via the market system in the presence of monopoly elements provides an economic rationale for antitrust laws the objective of a resource allocation mechanism appears to be according to the analysis described above to make the best of available resources the alternative objective of relaxing constraints through expanding the resource base or developing new technology seems to be beyond its scope thus until rather recently technical advance had been regarded in the mainstream of economic theory as unmotivated by the quest for profits and substantially unaffected by resource allocation instead as j schmookler observed technology had been viewed as a parameter like the weather affecting the outcome of resource allocations but itself unaffected by them 84 1965 evidence that technological progress has significantly contributed to growth in productivity together with a substantial increase in research and development activity largely financed by government and carried out by industry see f machlup 51 1962 may have spurred reconsideration of this view once technical advance is regarded as an economic variable it is natural to in

effects of unemployment insurance work search requirements the maryland experiment this paper describes findings from a 1994 experimental evaluation of alternative work search requirements in the unemployment insurance ui program requiring additional employer contacts or verification of contacts reduced ui receipt by one week and 115 per claimant because these additional requirements did not entail additional re employment services the ui spell reduction can be attributed to increased non monetary costs for remaining on ui a job search workshop requirement reduced ui receipt by half a week and 75 per claimant and additional results indicate that the effects were due to increased costs of continued ui receipt rather than to enhanced job search productivity these treatments did not affect employment or earnings implying that reduced ui duration led to more intensive job search rather than a reduction in the reservation wage in contrast elimination of the employer contact requirement increased ui receipt and post ui earnings suggesting that delayed exit from ui improved job matches he unemployment insurance ui program is designed to provide temporary income support to involuntarily unemployed individuals while they search for work although the ui program provides only temporary income support for the involuntarily unemployed it can reduce the incentive to seek employment because ui benefits reduce the cost of being unemployed resulting in an increase in the reservation wage and longer spells of unemployment to partially offset the negative impact ui benefits have onjob search state ui programs typically impose work search requirements for continued benefit receipt

is it socially efficient to impose job search requirements on unemployed benefit claimants with hyperbolic preferences dellavigna and paserman 2005 and paserman 2008 have shown that imposing job search requirements on sophisticated unemployed benefit claimants with hyperbolic time preferences is pareto improving in that it raises welfare for the unemployed by limiting harmful procrastination and for employees since the enhanced search boosts the job finding rate thereby reducing the contributions required for the funding of benefits this paper demonstrates that the range of pareto improvements is much reduced if the analysis takes into account the fact that benefit claimants may not comply with the requirements especially if the monitoring technology displays imperfections induced by caseworker discretion or measurement error

spatial aspects of the growth of part time employment in britain townsend a 1986 spatial aspects of the growth of part time employment in britain reg studies 20 313 330 part time employment has a large and growing share of total employment in britain it is substituting for the growth of full time jobs and is the principal employment opportunity for women with children its distinct spatial pattern of expansion 1971 81 is notable for including peripheral regions such as wales and the south west as most of the growth is in services it proves best analysed in relation to total population growth supplemented by shift share analysis of employment in the public sector a broad relationship to both population and government expenditure trends is evident part time employment must be incorporated in the study of established employment trends such as urban rural shift demand for part time workers is sufficient to explain the regional convergence of female activity rates demand is for relatively cheap labour

how effective are unemployment benefit sanctions looking beyond unemployment exit this paper provides a comprehensive evaluation of benefit sanctions i e temporary reductions in unemployment benefits as punishment for noncompliance with eligibility requirements in addition to the effects on unemployment durations we evaluate the effects on post unemployment employment stability on exits from the labor market and on earnings in our analysis we use a rich set of swiss register data which allow us to distinguish between ex ante effects the effects of warnings and the effects of enforcement of benefit sanctions adopting a multivariate mixed proportional hazard approach to address selectivity we find that both warnings and enforcement increase the job finding rate and the exit rate out of the labor force warnings do not affect subsequent employment stability but do reduce post unemployment earnings actual benefit reductions lower the quality of post unemployment jobs both in terms of job duration as well as in terms of earnings the net effect of a benefit sanction on post unemployment income is negative over a period of two years after leaving unemployment workers who got a benefit sanction imposed face a net income loss equivalent to 30 days of full pay due to the ex post effect in addition to that stricter monitoring may reduce net earnings by up to 4 days of pay for every unemployed worker due to the ex ante effect

the regional impact of the small firms loan guarantee scheme in the united kingdom harrison r t and mason c m 1986 the regional impact of the small firms loan guarantee scheme in the united kingdom reg studies 20 535 550 the small business loan guarantee scheme was introduced in the uk in 1981 in response to long standing concern about the problems encountered by small businesses in raising external finance although the scheme was introduced nationally its impact has varied among regions not unexpectedly the south east and east anglia account for the largest proportion of guarantees both by number and by value of loans this lends superficial support to the argument that nationally oriented small firms policies may actually contradict the aims of regional policy however this conclusion must be qualified in the light of the evidence once each region s share of the total stock of businesses is taken into account certain peripheral regions notably the north west join the south east east anglia region as having more than their expected share of loan guarantees evidence p

development scenarios and policy guidelines for the lagging regions in the 1990s camagni r p 1992 development scenarios and policy guidelines for the lagging regions in the 1990s reg studies 26 361 374 the least favoured ec regions will benefit less from the creation of the single european market due to their weaker economic structure and they will suffer directly from some of the harmonization regulations and the consequences of moving rapidly towards economic and monetary union they will be forced to give up some of the traditional assistance tools and their advantage in unit labour costs will vanish rapidly a renewed effort in terms of regional policy interventions based on new principles and philosophies rather than on new tools is required ideas include integration of different policy instruments and their spatial concentrations the enhancement of local synergies network co operation among firms and interregional co operation camagni r p 1992 des strategies de developpement et politiques d orientation aux annees 90 pour les regions de la ce en retend reg

the estimation of keynesian income multipliers at the sub national level 1988 the estimation of keynesian income multipliers at the sub national level applied economics vol 20 no 11 pp 1435 1444

productive decentralization or indigenous growth small manufacturing enterprises and regional development in central portugal lewis j r and williams a m 1987 productive decentralization or indigenous growth small manufacturing enterprises and regional development in central portugal reg studies 21 343 361 small firms are crucial to the portuguese economy and have been important in the recent expansion of industrial activity away from core regions a survey of the formation and development of manufacturing enterprises in four contrasting rural locations within the central region tested the relevance of explanations based on north italian evidence of productive decentralization and spatial spread however analysis of employment characteristics inter firm linkages and conditions of firm formation reveals the dominance of independent and indigenous growth in the present wave of industrialization variations in firm characteristics between industrial sectors and economic environments indicate the need for more effective promotion policies not least to contain intra regional inequalities lewis j r et williams a m 1

a second great depression in the uk regions can anything be done moore b and rhodes j 1982 a second great depression in the uk regions can anything be done reg studies 16 323 33 this is a revised version of a paper given to the regional studies conference in glasgow in may 1981 the authors were asked to put forward the views of the cambridge economic policy group cepg on the economy as a whole and to draw out any implications for the uk regions a diagnosis of the uk economic problem and its regional manifestation is followed by a discussion of the macro economic strategy favoured by the group which aims to ensure that the economy can be expanded at a permanently faster rate without running into balance of payments problems only a strategy of this kind could make a significant impact on the very high rates of unemployment in the depressed regions

the economic impact of the operation and closure of a nuclear power station lewis p m 1986 the economic impact of the operation and closure of a nuclear power station reg studies 20 425 432 this paper addresses the question of the extent to which one nuclear power station has generated economic benefits for its host economy throughout its operational stage and how far these benefits will be reversed on its closure it does this by evaluating the employment impact of the station s operation and thence predicting the impact of closure on employment opportunities and on unemployment a keynesian multiplier exercise forms the basis of the predictions which relate to the travel to work area which plays host to the power station an essential element in the question in the effect of remoteness on economic impact and dependence the implications of closure for planners are considered

courses or individual counselling does job search assistance work how does labour market policy affect welfare recipients and long term unemployed people we investigate whether job search assistance jsa helps disadvantaged individuals to find jobs and whether courses or individual counselling is more successful in reaching this goal to evaluate individual employment effects we apply a quasi experimental design and construct suitable comparison groups using propensity score matching methods we compare participants to nonparticipants as well as participants of both schemes directly our article benefits from access to rich administrative data from the german federal employment agency when comparing participants to nonparticipants results suggest that the individual jsa does not affect participants employment prospects at all and that the course jsa even decreased their employment chances at the same time differences in these effects can be ascribed to programme design differences and to differences in the groups of participants therefore we compare both progr

structural empirical evaluation of job search monitoring to evaluate search effort monitoring of unemployed workers it is important to take account of post unemployment wages and job to job mobility we structurally estimate a model with search channels using a controlled trial in which monitoring is randomized the data include registers and survey data on search behavior we find that the opportunity to move to better paid jobs in employment reduces the extent to which monitoring induces substitution toward formal search channels in unemployment job mobility compensates for adverse long run effects of monitoring on wages we examine counterfactual policies against moral hazard like reemployment bonuses and changes of the benefits path

the measurement of the impact of regional policies in europe a survey and critique ashcroft b 1982 the measurement of the impact of regional policies in europe a survey and critique reg studies 16 287 305 the paper examines the broad approaches and particular methods used to estimate the impact of regional policies in several european countries the strengths and weaknesses of the major approaches are identified the total effects their components and the effects of individual policy instruments are considered the theory and measurement of the costs and benefits of regional policy is examined some areas for further research are suggested