The spatial implications of ‘popularism’
Brexit: some possible outcomes for employment
across the EU regions
by Bernard Fingleton
PAGE 05
Recent Voting Outcomes: Fertile Ground for
Regional Science Researchby Robert J. (Bob) Stimson
PAGE 07

Centres of Regional Science:

Istanbul Technical University(ITU), Turkey
PAGE 10

Meet the Fellows

Alex Anas
PAGE 13

RSAI World Congress2018 to be held May 29th
through June 1st in Goa,
India
by Sumona Banerjee

PAGE 04

“the Immediate Past President shall serve as Acting
President during the first year of the presidential term andthe Vice-President and President-Elect shall succeed to
the Presidency during the second year of the uncompletedterm”. While this could be a potential solution, it does
create serious problems in assuring the principle of equal
representation among super-regions. The current situation
would, in particular, put PRSCO at a disadvantage, as it
will not be able to have a proper president, under therotating presidency system, until 2025.
As we are still very early in the presidential cycle, theExecutive therefore has suggested that a Nomination
Committee to elect a PRSCO president with immediate
effect is set up. This was approved by e-mail by theCouncil and the committee has been already established.
The aim is to move swiftly in order to be in a position to
propose a president that could be voted by Council online
before the RSAI meeting in Tainan.
Hence, you will have a new set of words of welcome by a
new president in the next Newsletter. In the interim, rest
assured that the RSAI will continue to function as always,
with our Executive Director, Tomaz Dentinho, and ourFinancial Officer and Website Curator, Elisabete Martins,
always on top of things.
Looking forward to seeing you all at future regional
science gatherings,

1. Introduction
1.1. Welcome from the President
by Andrés Rodríguez-Pose

Welcome to another edition of
the Newsletter, so efficiently
edited by Andrea Caragliu andGraham Clarke.
I am writing from the unusual
position of acting president
and despite having alreadywritten a farewell address,
which was published in theprevious edition. The reason for this is that the incoming
RSAI president, Professor Jacques Poot from PRSCO,
has had to resign as president of the RSAI.
Last December, Jacques let the RSAI Executive know that
his wife, Heather, had been diagnosed with a serious
illness and could not take over until she was better. In themeantime, I – with the valued support of the Executive –have continued to take care of the RSAI’s daily businessas acting president. It has now become clear that Jacques
will not be able to take over and has decided to step down.
This is most unfortunate for the RSAI as Jacques waselected with a programme full of interesting projects andwas undoubtedly the right person to steer the association
over the next two years. He was full of energy and itching
to move things forward. But, unfortunately, we are never incontrol of our destiny and Jacques’ decision to stay by hiswife in these very difficult times is most necessary. We are
all appreciative of the contribution Jacques has made to
the association and stand by him at these very difficult
times. Our thoughts and prayers are with Heather and
Jacques in the firm hope that Heather will make acomplete recovery very soon.
Jacques’ resignation leaves the RSAI in an unusual
situation as this is, I believe, the first time a sitting
president has resigned. According to Article V, section 7dof the Constitution, in case of resignation of the president

Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, Acting President (A.RodriguezPose@lse.ac.uk)

1.2. Welcome to theConference of the RSAI

25th

Pacific

by Fu-Chuan Lai, RCHSS, Academia Sinica, President of theChineseRegional

Science

Association-Taiwan

uiuclai@gate.sinica.edu.tw

Dear Colleagues,
The 25th Pacific Conference of the RSAI will be held on
May 17-20, 2017 in Tainan, Taiwan, and will be hosted by
National Cheng-Kung University. This biannual conference-1-1665 by the son of Koxinga, and was the first school forchildren in Taiwan during the Qing Dynasty. Second,
Anping Fort (site of Fort Zeelandia, 1624) was the originalpolitical centre of the Dutch administration. Third, Chikan
Tower (originally named Provintia by the Dutch) was thebusiness centre during the Dutch and Koxinga periods.
Fourth, Eternal Golden Castle was the largest militaryfacility during the Qing Dynasty.
Tainan is a warm city for every visitor, based on her deep
trade culture and subtropical climate. In May, flowers of
the Delonix regia are blossoming and make the whole city
red in colour, just like the hearts of the warm people in
Tainan. We sincerely welcome you to Tainan.

is a great platform for scholars
coming from different countries
to exchange research results
and share diverse ideas. We
have received more than 160
abstract submissions from 25
countries, and expect to havemore than 200 participants inthis conference. The theme ofour conference is a hot andimportant issue — “Sustainable and Resilient Regional
Development” — which can be explored from many
aspects such as environment, innovation, knowledge,transportation, spatial economy, urban and regional
planning, and other topics of regional science. In order todemonstrate our spirit of sustainability, participants
experience sitting in a pioneer green building during the
keynote speeches, where natural ventilation causes air
conditioning to be unnecessary when the outside
temperature is under 31.

1.3. Welcome
Congress

to

the

2017

ERSA

by Paul Elhorst, University of Groningen, Chair of the LOC,ERSA2017@rug.nl

Dear colleagues,
After 23 years the ERSA
congress is back in
Groningen, a lively student
city with more than
200,000 citizens located in
the most northern provinceof the Netherlands. By
direct train it is approximately two hours away from
Schiphol Amsterdam International Airport. The congress
will be held between August 29 and September 1 and will
be hosted by the Faculty of Economics and Business andthe Faculty of Spatial Sciences of the University ofGroningen. The congress venue and social events are in
the city centre and within walking distance from most of
the hotels.
The main theme of the congress “Social Progress for
Resilient Regions” (Resilience, Well-being, Inequality,
Segregation, Poverty) attracted almost 1,000
submissions by more than 900 people, and 34 proposals
for special sessions next to 20 regular general (sub)Confucian Temple in Tainan

Tainan is the oldest city in Taiwan and now is the second
largest in southern Taiwan. She was once the largest cityand the capital of Taiwan for more than 200 years,
beginning from the Dutch stage (1624-1662), and later
under the Koxinga family (1662-1684), and Qing Dynasty(1684-1895). In the Japan stage (1895-1945), the capital
position of Tainan was gradually replaced by Taipei. As ahistorical city, Tainan has many interesting sites fortourists. First, the Taiwan Confucian Temple was built in-2-

themes. No doubt, the ERSA congress will again be theplace to meet colleagues, to learn the latest research
results, and to discuss their significance. The conference
programme will offer a diverse and challenging scientificprogram garnished with plenary sessions – the keynote
speech at the opening session on Tuesday will be given
by Tony Venables,– technical excursions on
Wednesday and Friday, and – an innovation to the ERSA
congress – a policy day on Thursday. This is a one day
event, which is organized as a special programme within
the full congress, with the specific aim of enhancing theinteraction between scientists and policymakers. To
make this possible, the LOC has invited public
representatives and policymakers, professionals inpublic or private organisations and consultants working
in the field of regional policy. The Policy Day starts with aplenary session for all congress participants withkeynotes and a roundtable discussion in which MarcLemaître of EU DG REGIO and Joaquim Oliveira Martinsof the OECD will participate.
The LOC of ERSA2017 is also proud to offer free use of
exclusive daycare for children of the congress
participants. This service is provided by the professionalchildcare organization SKSG. More details can be foundat the congress website http://groningen.ersa.org.
As a lively university city, Groningen has the youngest
average population in the Netherlands. Furthermore, it
has a long and turbulent history, which becomes evident
from the historic warehouses, courts and buildings.
Groningen is also a bold city with many examples ofinnovative architecture within its boundaries. In addition,
it was once proclaimed the city with the best city centre
in the Netherlands because of its charm. Experience all
of
this
and
exploreGroningenat
http://citytrip.groningen.nl/en/or
http://toerisme.groningen.nl/en/about-groningen/city-ofgroningen. Consider coming a few days early and enjoy
the festivals in late August!

1.4. Welcome from the Editors
by Andrea Caragliu (andrea.caragliu@polimi.it) and Graham
Clarke (G.P.Clarke@leeds.ac.uk)

Andrea Caragliu

We are looking forward to your visit of ERSA 2017 in
Groningen!

-3-

Graham Clarke

Dear all,
We are happy to welcome you to the latest issue of the
RSAI Newsletter.
Many of you will read the printed version at the PRSCO
Tainan congress or at the ERSA Groningen conference.
Many more will access this newsletter through the RSAI
web site.
As usual we have been blessed by a number of interesting
contributions from a range of celebrated members of ourcommunity.
In the main Section of the Newsletter we address one of
the hottest topics today, i.e. the spatial implications of
popularism. The referendum held in the UK on Thursday
23 June 2016, introduced the notion of Brexit to many
people all over the world. While the referendum only
involved British voters, its potential fallout on the whole
structure of the European Union is potentially very
relevant, and represents an excellent case study forunderstanding the consequences of voting on complex
issues such as membership of supranational entities. On
this topic, Bernard Fingleton first shows that Brexit will
have long-lasting employment effects way beyond theshort-run decrease in investment and output it will
engender. Then, Robert Stimson provides a thoughtprovoking overview of the linkages among the unexpected
voting outcomes in the UK, Australia, and USA, paving theway for many spatial analyses of the determinants ofthese phenomena.
For the ‘Centre of Excellence in Regional Science’ column
we fly to Istanbul, for an interesting story about the role ofIstanbul Technical University in nurturing the birth andprosper of the Turkish Section of the RSAI. Lastly, in ‘Meet
the fellows’ Alex Anas tells us about his lifetime
commitment to research in spatial (urban) modelling.
We are both happy to wish you all an enjoyable read, andare keen to talk to you at some RSAI event in the near
future concerning potential topics of interest.

and pre-conference workshops will be organised at the campusof the Birla Institute of Technology, a premier institution of the
Indian sub-continent. From day 2 onwards, the Congress is likely
to move to a hotel by the pristine beaches, for the delegates toenjoy the sunset after a hard days’ work.
Goa is one of the idyllic tourist destinations of India – its location in
the hilly western coast brings together the beauty of the terrain
and the Arabian Sea. Steeped in history, Goa presents a blend of
Indian and Portuguese cultures – Old Goa is a UNESCO World
Heritage Site. The local culture is a blend of sorts and reflected inits customs, traditions, cuisine and music. Tourists from all over
the world visit Goa around the year to experience the beauty of its
landscape and culture. From the most luxurious hotels to home
stay in villages, Goa provides it all.
Dabolim Airport in Vasco da Gama lies just 29 kilometres from thestate’s capital, Panjim and just 9 kms from BITS campus. Someairlines fly directly to Goa, but most international flights arrive in
Mumbai. There are daily flights to and from Mumbai, New Delhi,
Hyderabad, Chennai, Cochin and Bangalore. We hope to see
you there!

2. News from the RSAI Council
2.1 RSAI World Congress 2018 to beheld May 29th through June 1st in Goa,
India
by Sumona Banerjee, Chair of the Local Organizing Committee,
PresidentoftheRegional

Science AssociationofIndia,

sumona_bm@yahoo.com

Goa in India will host the RSAI World
Congress of 2018. The Regional Science
Association of India is collaborating with
Birla Institute of Technology to organise
this event under the aegis of RSA
International. The choice of India as thedestination for the World Congress isextremely significant in the context of impacts of globalisation inSouth Asia. The purpose of this Congress is to create an
opportunity for bridging the networks established by the supraregional organizations and to provide a scientifically and sociallyattractive event for scholars and postgraduate students from allparts of the world.
The main theme of the Congress is Regional Cooperation andDevelopment. The challenge is to understand the factors that
explain cooperation and conflict in different parts of the world
mainly looking at the barriers to trade, investment and migrationand the effects they create for regional sustainable development.
The sub-themes and special sessions will be organised arounddemographic, economic, social, political and cultural aspects ofregional cooperation and hopes to cover a wide range of issues
impacting regional development. The Inaugural Plenary Sessions

2.2 New editorial team for Regional
Science Policy and Practice 2017-2019
by

Tomaz

Ponce

Dentinho,

editor-in-chief

of

RSPP,

tomas.lc.dentinho@uac.pt

With the support of an
excellent editorial team, acommitted editorial board
and building on the fantastic
work done by Michael
Carroll and his colleagues,
we proposed a three years
project to edit RSPP thatreceived the approval of the RSAI Council.
The aim of RSPP is to promote and diffuse the understanding of
human interaction in space; based on sound, rigorous andupdated methodologies; and focusing on real and urgent issues
for peoples and places, that require scientific, practical andpolitical responses.

-4-

To achieve that the Editorial Team andBoard are committed: a) to further
enhance the scientific character andgeographical scope of the journal; b) tofocus on urgent global issues sensed
locally; c) to promote a fruitful interaction
between the various agendas of Regional
Science; and d) to mobilize the personal and organizational
capabilities of the regional science community.
The main aim is to reach an Impact Factor of 0,5 by 2019 and1,25 by 2022, and to increase the number of issues per year fromfour in 2016 to six in 2019.

2.4 New RSAI Fellows elected
The RSAI Fellows selection committee has deliberated on the
raw results of the election of Fellows of RSAI.
The Committee is glad to announce the election of threenominees:• Marlon Boarnet• Roberto Camagni• Adam Rose
From the RSAI, warm congratulations to the three new Fellows
on their election!

3. The spatial implications of‘popularism’

2.3 2016 ERSA Summer Schoolorganized at Politecnico di Milano, Italy
In the week between Jul. 3 and Jul 10 2016, the Politecnico di
Milano hosted the 29th ERSA Summer School on “Space,
Territory and Growth. Advances in Regional Science”. 75
applications were received, coming from as many as 25
Countries (including Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Czech
Republic, Ecuador, France, Greece, India, Indonesia, Iran,
Ireland, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Romania,
Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey, United
Kingdom). Eventually, 51 students participated, with a good levelof satisfaction as can be inferred by the questionnaireadministered at the end of a rather intensive week of lectures withthe likes of Ansgar Belke, Roberto Camagni, Roberta Capello,
Fabio Mazzola, Peter Nijkamp, Andrés Rodriguez-Pose, andFrank Van Oort taking part.

Participants and lecturers at the Summer School 2016

3.1 Brexit: some possible outcomes for
employment across the EU regions
by Bernard Fingleton, Department of Land Economy, University ofCambridge, bf100@cam.ac.uk-5-

What will be the impact across the
EU regions of a shock to the UK
economy following Brexit? What I
want to do is show possible,
speculative, predictions of the impactof Brexit on employment across the
EU. The Brexit effect will not be
confined to the UK, but how far will it
spread, and how long will it last? I am using a state of the art
modelling approach, but the predictions, like all predictions, canonly be very imprecise. Nevertheless, we can look at theoutcome qualitatively. The main outcome of my effort is thatspatial and temporal spillovers are a significant feature. In otherwords, the impact of Brexit will extend beyond the shores of theUK, and will persist as impacts on employment levels, even after
reductions in output and capital investment due to Brexit havepresumably disappeared. Hopefully policy makers will take note,and as regional scientists we can help them understand the fuller
consequences of their actions!

To give estimates of the Brexit effect, I estimate employment
levels across N = 255 EU regions with and without Brexit.
Without Brexit, I assume a continuation of current austerity into
the future. With Brexit, I assume uncertainty and reductions in
trade reduces demand so that output and capital investment
levels fall. With Brexit, I assume that capital and output fallsignificantly below their post 2007 paths from 2017. In line withcurrent thinking, as Brexit negotiations commence at the time ofwriting, I assume that there will be a so-called Hard Brexit rather
than soft Brexit. To capture this, I speculate that for the UK
regions output and capital remain at 5% below their non-Brexit
paths for the years 2017 to 2021 before reverting to their post2007 paths. Optimistically, I assume that trade patterns
embodied in the N by N interregional ‘connectivity’ matrix WN,
whereby employment depends on employment in WN otherregions, remain the same, so here we simply explore the impactof within-UK region changes in output and capital, which willthemselves be partly in response to changing trade relationships.
Capturing trade effects explicitly is also possible, but beyond thescope of this short note. So, I predict the job shortfall, relative toregion-specific counterfactual post 2007 non-Brexit paths, ofshocks to employment and capital in the UK regions alone,assuming the same interregional connectivity as pre-Brexit.
Clearly what the with-Brexit predictions are based on is crucial to
our interpretation. For prediction, we need a model, preferably
driven by theory. My underlying theory has a strong postKeynesian flavour. In other words, the theoretical basis of myanalysis is the so-called Verdoorn’s Law, linking productivity tooutput. This can be written with employment as the dependent
variable, and elaborated by introducing temporal and spatial
spillovers. The key variables are Employment in N = 255 regions
at time t (Et), GVA or ‘Output’ (Qt) in N regions, plus a measure ofinvestment in capital, namely Gross Fixed Capital Formation(GFCF),‘Capital’ (Kt), hence the model is

Following Baltagi et al. (2014), estimation is in the spirit ofArellano and Bond, mixing spatial and non-spatial instruments
together with a GMM estimator for spatially dependent moving
average errors εt . The errors allow for other unobservable

Hard Brexit: Employment deficit in 2019-6-

effects, notably controls for regional heterogeneity acrossregions i = 1,…,N. This gives plausible estimates, which
incidentally are based on an assumption of endogeneity for thedrivers of employment, namely output and capital. Both ln Kt andln Qt, and the spatial and temporal lags, are highly significant
causes of variation in ln Et . The prediction equation for this model
is solved recursively starting at 2017.
These are speculative simulations, conditional on important
assumptions, so the numbers SHOULD NOT be taken too
seriously. The prediction is a shortfall of 198,800 jobs in anotherwise booming Inner London for 2019, falling to 28,500 by
2025, but these numbers are entirely dependent on arbitrarily
assuming a 5% drop in output and capital. However, the story
they tell in a qualitative sense is that the Brexit effect onpredictions come out, more or less, the same. So we can neverbe precise in prediction, we might predict the average outcome,but there is undoubtedly a dispersion around the mean whichshould also be taken into account.
David Spiegelhalter, Professor of the Public Understanding of
Risk at the University of Cambridge, refers to Donald Rumsfeld
as the patron saint of Risk Analysis. He will be remembered forfamously saying that “but there are also unknown unknowns.
There are things we do not know we don’t know”. We should
therefore put forward predictions with all due humility, but clearly
and without fear, because we don’t want to come across as‘dithering scientists’. In defence of the approach adopted, there is
support from the words of Pesaran (1990), who points out that
‘Econometric models are important tools for forecasting andpolicy analysis, and it is unlikely that they will be discarded in the
future. The challenge is to recognise their limitations and to work
towards turning them into more reliable and effective tools. Thereseem to be no viable alternatives’.

Hard Brexit: Employment deficit in 2025

References
Pesaran MH (1990) Econometrics. In: The New Palgrave:
Econometrics, ed. by Eatwell J, Milgate M, Newman P, 25–6. New York:W.W. Norton and Company.
Baltagi BH, Fingleton B and A Pirotte (2014) Estimating and Forecastingwith a Dynamic Spatial Panel Model, Oxford Bulletin of Economics andStatistics 76(1): 112–138.

employment will be longer lasting and extend further
geographically than the assumed direct local impacts on output
and investment. In terms of total employment, its impact will be
felt most strongly in southern England, but have non-negligible
effects beyond the confines of the UK to the rest of Europe, as
highlighted by the shaded areas which indicate regions with a job
shortfall of at least 1000. Hopefully I am wrong!
Great caution is needed in interpreting the validity and value ofany ‘prediction’ effort. It is worth recalling the words of George
Box: “All models are wrong but some are useful”. The parametersof the model may be wrong, even if the overall specification iscorrect. But it is likely and possible that both the structural
equation and the parameters may be wrong. We might try to getaround this by fitting different model specifications, to see if the

3.2 Recent Voting Outcomes: Fertile
Ground for Regional Science ResearchbyRobertJ.

(Bob)

Stimson, AM,

rstimson@unimelb.edu.au

What a twelve-month period it has
been for surprising voting outcomes
across several countries in thewestern world.
First was the Brexit vote in the UK last
May, which saw a small majority vote
to exit the EU. Then there was the big
gain in votes for the independents-7-

Melbourne

University,

Presidency, by taking a number of the more populous States(with a significant number of Electoral College votes) from the
Democrats in capturing Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan andWisconsin, and holding Florida. This was a significant attack on
the Democrat’s ‘Wall of Blue’ across the Mid-West. It did not
matter that Hillary Clinton won the ‘popular vote’ by a couple ofmillion votes, but a lot of that was due to her overwhelming
support in the two populous states of California and New York.
The pundits and the pollsters sure got it wrong in confidently
predicting a win for Hillary. The Trump supporters were garneredfrom the Southern (traditionally Republican) States, but also were
swung over from the Democrats across the declining industrial
heartland States and particularly in their smaller cities and towns,
that are finding it tough economically, and rural areas. The reality
was that Trump only had to get a voter swing of about 3 to 4% inthree or four of those Mid-West States that had voted Democrat
in the previous Presidential Election in 2012 to gain a majority ofElectoral College votes -, and that he did.
The voting patterns for the candidates in round one of the
Presidential Election in France also showed patterns of marked
geographic differentiation.
What strikes me as a powerful thread across all three of thesepolls is the complex juxtaposition between geography (the socioeconomic environments where people live), demographic
groupings (ethnic, socio-economic, gender, age), and how thosepeople and those places vote.
I was not really surprised at the voting outcomes associated with
Brexit, the Australian Senate, and the US Presidential race. I think
all of them were predictable and occurred with reasonable levelsof probability that the political ‘in-class’, the big city elites, andgreen-left ideologues simple ignored and/or were so arrogant andout of touch with the rest of the electorate that they did not evencontemplate it could happen. But it did!!
And it should have been predicted, because it has well been
known for some time - especially in the aftermath of the Global
Financial Crisis of a decade ago - how many of the communities
that were once prosperous industrial regions have been
adversely impacted by globalisation and the GFC and continue tosuffer from economic transition and technological disruption,
without-migration and high levels of unemployment, and poor
prospects for future labour-force engagement for particularand non-major parties in the Australian Election in July, withstrong voting support for a swag of minor parties andindependents. In November, there was surprise victory of Donald
Trump in the US Presidential Election. More recently there had
been large voter support for populist candidates in the elections in
The Netherlands and in France where the main political party
candidates have been eliminated in the first round of the election
for the President of France, with Marine Le Pen and EmmanuelMacron to contest the final round of voting next week.
And there is probably more to come as it seems that voter
sentiment is angry with the ‘political class’ with big drifts awayfrom the major parties (note that Trump is not seen as amainstream Republican and was an outsider candidate,threatening to ‘drain the Washington swamp) and the issues they
promote. It seems there is most fertile ground for voter backlash
against the establishment and the major political parties as votersunleash a storm populist backlash at the ballot box.
But are these outcomes really surprising? Should they have been
predicted by the pollsters and the political pundits who seemed to
be bowled-over and perplexed at how the voters have been so
stupid to rebel against the political establishment?
Let me make some observations.
In the UK the Brexit vote was not expected but it happened
relatively big time, defying all the pundit and opinion polls. It
polarised the nation, with the big cities and periphery (such as
Scotland) voting to remain and the smaller cities and towns andrural areas voting to exit the EU. The ramifications of Brexit will
likely take years to play out.
In Australia independents and far right One Nation Party garnered
enough votes in the upper house (Senate) to hold, along with abevy of other minor parties and independents, a significant
balance of power in the Senate (the Upper House) and to havegarnered sufficient votes in the Lower House (House ofRepresentatives) to see the allocation of their preferences tocause the sitting conservative government to scrape home with arazor edge majority of one seat. Their supporters, such as thosethat voted for the Pauline Hanson One Nation Party, were
geographically concentrated on the fringes of the big cities andsome of the regional cities and towns and rural areas.
In the US, the Trump bandwagon saw him win a significant
majority of Electoral College votes for ‘The Donald’ to take the-8-dubious behaviours on the part of elected officials, the roles of theunelected political machine advisors, and the sanctimonious
attitude of much of the media.
5. There is the immigration issue which in the UK and Europe isbeing widely seen as having escalated out of control, along withconcerns about Islam and terrorism, that also feeds into the
feelings of being disadvantaged and marginalised by disaffectedvoters. Call it xenophobia and even racism as the elites andpolitically correct class do, but it is nonetheless a factor driving
voter discontent across large parts of the electorate, and thisbecomes fertile ground for populist candidates to attract voter
support.
Focusing on the US Presidential poll (it was fascination for me towatch from Australia the unfolding of the voting outcomes on
various TV channels that gave continuous coverage to it), it isobvious that Clinton was ‘damaged goods’, with very many votershaving the attitude of ‘anyone but Hillary’. Too much was taken for
granted by the Democrats, and they got it terribly wrong. While ahuge majority of votes were won by Clinton in CA and NY andsome other States with US’s ‘world cities’, those places are hardly
the home of the disaffected ‘silent majority’ across the industrial
heartland.
I could go on, but I won't.
Overall the voting outcomes in nations as diverse as the UK, US
and Australia are indeed fascinating. All of the outcomes shouldhave been seen as being strong possibilities, but it was not by thepolitical and media in-class and pollsters. (By the way, it is evident
that the methodologies being used by the pollsters surely needs
rethinking and redesign.)
The polarization that is so evident in those voting outcomes has amarked geography to it, and this spatial differentiation is worthy ofconcerted investigation. I hope that regional scientists will now
enter the fray to take up that challenge and undertake
sophisticated spatial modelling, at various levels of spatial
disaggregation, to seek explanation and help untangle the web of
demographic and socio-economic factors that are embedded
within those spatially differentiated patterns of voting outcomesthat are so evident in the Brexit poll, the Australian House ofRepresentatives and Senate elections, the US Presidential
Election, and elections for the French President. Regional
scientists have the tool-kit necessary to do this using spatial

demographic cohorts.
I am tempted to liken all of those blinkered attitudes of the'insiders' and 'elites' as being typical post-modernist attitudes andbehaviours. They simple dismiss as ‘out of hand’ those having
views and attitudes and values that differ from their own often
green-leftist ideologies. The sizeable 'silent majority' from thesuburbs, smaller cities and towns, and the rural areas have
revolted as they sought their revenge against the ‘in groups’. One
might see this as truly being democracy at work. In the US
Presidential Election, Clinton’s railing against the Trump
supporters across the de-industrializing Mid-West heartland of
America as labelling them ‘deplorables’ was typical of the offhanded insulting abuse that the ‘in group’ ideologues load on
those opposing their privileged dogmatic views. In fact, Clinton's
statement was itself deplorable and a dreadful castigation of her
fellow citizens. That behaviour seems to be entrenched in thethinking of the ‘in group’, and this is seen as highly
condescending by those they dismiss and ignore. (By the way, I
am certainly not condoning the uncouth and vulgar utterings ofTrump throughout the Presidential campaign).
So what might be the factors that could explain the voter revolt in
Brexit, the Australian Senate and the US Presidential voting
outcomes?
Let me make some suggestions:
1. Middle and working class people (men especially, but also
plenty of women, older people, and people suffering from theunequal impacts of globalization who are largely whites) are,frankly, fed-up and are now wielding the power of what are
powerful and widespread concentrations of dissolution, economic
suffering, and a feeling of being ignored. They are simply sick ofbeing dismissed and forgotten.
2. The ‘gender’ issue is now irrelevant, and when played in thecontext of supporting a female candidate per se is likely to be
counter-productive.
3. ‘Political correctness’ is coming close to having had it day. It
might sit well with (and indeed is the invention of) the politicalclass and big city elites, but it is anathema to the 'silent majority’(which is much more geographically and demographically diverse
than the elites have imagined).
4. People are well-and-truly sick of the notion of politicalentitlement (vis a vis political dynasties), corrupt or at best-9-

modelling drawing on local voting data and a variety of spatiallydemographic, socio-economic, and local environmental
situational data to search for relationship among those data
potentially proffer explanation as to causative factors in the votebacklash that is occurring.
Long live voter power and the ability of the populace to generate
unexpected outcomes which we might not like, but will have to
graciously accept and attempt to understand why that ishappening in the context of globalisation, technological disruption,
economic transition and regional economic performance, socialchange, and demographic dynamics.

Next, they were invited to Istanbul, for a one-day seminar,“Regional Planning Seminar” which was organized in 1984.
Within this first period, regarding the founders' areas of
specialization, Professor Orhan Göçer introduced the conceptof network/corridor development, and has written books onnational and regional planning, development corridors, andrelated subjects. Professor Vedia Dökmeci (PhD, Columbia
University) conducted research, extensively on location theory.
Professor Fulin Bölen focused on development planning.
Professor Gündüz Atalık oriented his research to systems
approach, and methods of regional analysis. Professor Gülden
Erkut dealt with the system dynamics, regional socio-economic
development models, and regional policy.

4. Centres of Excellence inRegional
Science:
Istanbul
Technical University (ITU), Turkey
Istanbul Technical University (ITU) is one of the important centresof Regional Science for at least three reasons. First, the Turkish
Section of the Regional Science Association International (RSAI)
was established at Istanbul Technical University. Second, theRegional Planning Master Program at Istanbul Technical
University is one of the two Regional Planning Master Programsin Turkey. Third, the Turkish Section with its increasing number ofmembers is one of the largest sections of the RSAI and around
30% of the Turkish Section members are associated with Istanbul
Technical University. Istanbul Technical University has played apioneering role in the establishment of the Turkish Section of the
RSAI and has contributed a lot to the institutionalization ofregional science and the development of regional studies in
Turkey.
The roots of Regional Science at Istanbul Technical University
go back to the early 1980s when the Department of Urban andRegional Planning was established (1983) and the Regional
Planning Section started to perform academic activities under
this new department. Professor Orhan Göçer was the first Chairof the Regional Planning Section. In order to develop regional
planning courses in the curricula, a questionnaire was posted toheads of Planning Departments in Europe, to find out thephilosophy and structure of planning education and tocontextualize regional development and planning courses.

Gündüz Atalık, 11th National Regional Science/Regional Planning
Congress, Istanbul Technical University, 2007

After Professor Orhan Göçer, Professor Gündüz Atalık became
the Chair of the Section. This second period was a milestone in
the development of regional science in Turkey at both national
and international levels with the establishment of the Regional
Planning Master Program and the Turkish Section of the RSAI.
Following the First and the Second National Regional Science
Congress in 1987 and 1989 at Istanbul Technical University,
Professor Atalık founded the Turkish Section of the RSAI firstwith a temporary status regulation in 1989; in 1990, the statuschanged to a full-fledged association and finally the Turkish
Section was institutionalized in 1991 as the Turkish National
Committee of Regional Science
Meanwhile, the Regional Planning Master Program wasestablished (1989) as one of the master programs of the
Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Istanbul- 10 -

Technical University and one of two in Turkey. Gündüz Atalık as
the President of the Turkish Section of the RSAI was thefounder of the program. Vedia Dökmeci, Fulin Bölen, Yücel
Ünal, Gülden Erkut were the scholars who made major
contributions to the program. This second productive period
under the presidency and leadership of Gündüz Atalık lasted
until his death in 2013. Professor Atalık was a prominent
member of the regional science international community, fully
devoted to the development of regional science in Turkey andwithin the European Regional Science Association (ERSA).
Following the first and the second National Regional Science
Congress in 1987 and 1989, he organized the 30th ERSA
Congress in 1990 in Istanbul. Under his leadership, Istanbul
Technical University hosted 6 out of the 12 national congresses
from 1987 to 2007 (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 8th, 10th and 12th), the 30th
ERSA Congress in 1990 and the ERSA Summer Institute in
2000. These events inspired the new generations of Regional
Science at Istanbul Technical University. Young scholars had
the chance to meet distinguished regional scientists. ProfessorPeter Nijkamp, Professor Peter Batey, Professor Geoffrey
Hewings and Professor Manfred Fischer were among the mostfrequent visitors of Istanbul Technical University, supporting thedepartment and contributing a lot to the development ofregional science in Turkey

ERSA Summer Institute, Istanbul Technical University, 2000

After the retirement of Gündüz Atalık, Gülden Erkut led both theRegional Planning Section and the Regional Planning Master
Program between 2000-2009. During this period, especiallyfrom 2000 to 2006, the program curriculum had been
conducted by Gülden Erkut, Tüzin Baycan and Ferhan Gezici
with contributions from the new members of the Regional
Planning Section. In 2009, academic re-organization ended up

with the demolishment of chair/section heads and a new
system introduced. Against the Regional Planning Section
disappeared, Regional Planning Master Program has become
increasingly more attractive in the following period. Gülden
Erkut continued to chair the Regional Planning Master Program
until 2012. Interregional disparities; the issues of rapidly growing
metropolitan regions and less developed regions had long been
the main interests for both academia and policy makers in
Turkey. Therefore, the program was established in order toanalyse these issues and to develop alternative solutions
based on empirical research. However, the influence of
globalization, changing paradigms in regional development, EU
accession process and methodological improvements createda great attention to regional science and we can call this as a“rising period” for the program. In recent years, the content of
the curriculum has become more interdisciplinary with thecontributions from the Department of Business Management,
Humanities and Social Science and Geomatics. Meanwhile, themembers of the program have been involved in a wide range ofinternational scientific networks; both being visiting scholar anddeveloping research collaborations: University of Illinois
Regional Economics Application Laboratory, George Mason
University, Free University of Amsterdam, University ofBarcelona Research Institute of Applied Economics, Cardiff
University, University of Berlin, Politecnico di Milano, Universityof Pecs, Madrid Autonoma University ECONRES and Oviedo
University REGIOLAB. 2013 would be remembered as one of
the sad periods for the Turkish Section as well as the RSAI.
Professor Gündüz Atalık passed away at the age of 82 and2013 has been the end of an important period with his death.
The period following the death of Professor Gündüz Atalık wasvery challenging. A new Board came together and decided toorganize a national congress as soon as possible in order toactivate the Turkish Section and to come together with the allmembers at the General Assembly. The following period wasan extremely dynamic period with lots of challenges achieved.
First, the Turkish Section has enlarged, the number ofmembers tripled in one year from 36 in 2013 to 107 in 2014.
This enlargement has brought an interdisciplinary diversity as
well with the involvement of economists and geographers fromdifferent universities. Turkish Section has transformed from a- 11 -

small and closed community of planners into an open and large
regional science society of economists, geographers andplanners. The 14th National Regional Science/Regional
Planning Congress hosted by the Istanbul Technical University
in 2014 has been a very successful congress with a wide
interdisciplinary participation of the new members.
The 14th National Congress was also an extremely important
event of the transition period with the participation and supportof the ERSA President Jouke van Dijk and RSAI President
Andrés Rodriguez Pose. The improvements achieved in such ashort period and the success of the transition period wasawarded by a Memorandum of Understanding signed at thecongress that given the organization of the 11th RSAI World
Congress in 2016 in Istanbul.

Tüzin Baycan and Andrés Rodriguez Pose sign the Memorandum ofUnderstanding to organize the 11th World Congress of the RSAI in
Istanbul in 2016, 14th National Regional Science/Regional Planning
Congress, Istanbul Technical University, 2014

The transition period and opening to a wider community has
been also successful in terms of the development of institutional
collaborations with the Ministry of Development and theRegional Development Agencies. A huge institutional andfinancial support from the Ministry of Development and Istanbul
Development Agency provided for the RSAI World Congress.
Besides the financial support, participation of experts fromdifferent Regional Development Agencies to the national
congresses was also provided in this period.
In this new period, the new generation of regional scientists andthe members of the Turkish Section at Istanbul Technical
University have become more active both nationally andinternationally as a result of the long-term collaborations with

the Ministry of Development, Ministry of Environment and
Urbanization, Regional Development Agencies andMunicipalities of different metropolitan cities in Turkey as well as
the long-term collaborations with the important internationalorganizations and schools of regional science in Europe andthe US. The members were invited to the ad hoc committees
for preparation of regional policy sections of the 7th, 8th, 9th
and 10th Development Plans of Turkey. They collaborated with
the Ministry of Development and were commissioned toprepare reports for Regional Development Agencies. They
were also involved in the planning process of several cities in
Turkey, e.g. Istanbul, Bursa, Eskişehir, and have obtained new
consultancy experiences. Moreover the members establishedco-operations with other international scientific communities:
Society for Risk Analysis - Europe (Seda Kundak/President);
Association of European Planning Schools (Ferhan
Gezici/CoREP of Turkey); European Real Estate Society(Kerem Yavuz Arslanlı/President). The 23rd Annual Conferenceof the Society for Risk Analysis – Europe was organized by
Seda Kundak at Istanbul Technical University in 2014. A Joint
Special Symposium of Society for Risk Analysis Europe (SRAE) and European Regional Science Association (ERSA) was
also organized at this conference by Tüzin Baycan as a joint
activity of these two associations. Next, the 22nd Annual
Conference of the European Real Estate Society (ERES) was
organized by Kerem Yavuz Arslanlı at Istanbul Technical
University in 2015 and attracted many participants fromregional science society as well. The organization of the 11th
RSAI World Congress Istanbul was successfully completed
until March 2016. The congress attracted regional scientists
from 56 countries with around 400 abstracts submitted. It was
the largest participation to the RSAI World Congress by thatdate, but unfortunately several terrorist attacks and the security
concerns led first to a postponement of the congress and later
on to its cancellation because of the unchanged conditions in
Turkey. Against the unfavourable conditions and the cancelledworld congress, members have continued to keep theorganization of the national congress. The 16th National
Congress was organized in December 2016 in Isparta and has
been very successful with the highest participation level ofmembers and non-members of scholars.

- 12 -

16th National Regional Science/Regional Planning Congress,
Süleyman Demirel University, Isparta, 2016

Active national and international collaborations of the Turkish
Section members at Istanbul Technical University have resulted
in getting funding and conducting national and international
projects. The members are involved in several EU, ESPON
and TUBITAK (Turkish National Research Council) Projects.
Therefore, the curriculum of the Regional Planning Master
Program and the quality of the master theses has been affectedby the greater national and international visibility. Members of
the program have participated in the European Regional
Science Association Congress, whilst students of the program
have also been encouraged to present papers at the national
and international conferences in order to be the part of regional
science as new generations. The program has continued to
attract students from cities and universities all over the country
and also other countries, e.g, Iran, Turkmenistan, Ghana.
Istanbul Technical University has contributed a lot to theinstitutionalization of regional science in Turkey. With the wellknown Regional Planning Master Program at the international
standards, Istanbul Technical University has played apioneering role in the development of regional science inTurkey.

5. Meet the Fellows: Alex Anas
I was born in Istanbul to Greek parents. After an education atRobert Academy, the boys’ American high school on the
Bosporus, I was offered a scholarship by Carnegie-Mellon
University (CMU). I was an intellectual hybrid, trying tobalance assertive right and left cerebral hemispheres; oneside engaging in drawing and painting and amateurishly trying
creative writing; the other, developing a strong interest ingeometry, applied mathematics and science. This drama did
not end at CMU. I started out in engineering, then transferred
to architecture, finally finding a “home” in civil engineering. I
wanted to invent a science that would enable the design of acity as a well-functioning social and physical system. But I
was quickly humbled by realizing that while cities should bedesigned for people, unpredictable human behavior
necessitated new designs and so on. This led me toeconomics, a technical enoughscience of human behavior
that made both prediction andprescription possible. At thetime, CMU started double
degree programs. I graduatedwith a B.S. in civil engineeringand a B.A. in economics. I had
also
concentrated
myelectives, putting me a handfulof courses short of a degree inphilosophy.
Graduate studies at Penn were ideal. Penn allowed aninterdisciplinary approach to urban and regional studies with
regional science at the center. I was most strongly influenced
by Britton Harris. At the end of my first year, I daringly turned
down a fellowship offered by Walter Isard, to continue as a
research assistant for Britt. Meanwhile, Colin Gannon taught
an influential introduction to urban economics at a time when
the field was receiving attention from Robert Solow, Avinash
Dixit and Edwin Mills (then at nearby Princeton). Alan Wilson
and David Pines who visited Penn were also influential.
The monocentric city was the jewel of urban economics. As astudent in Colin’s class, I was frustrated by its assumptions: astatic model, one dimensional and assuming that all jobs are
pinned in the city center. The beauty of economics shone
through the model, but the anachronism of the model wasdisheartening. This tension explains why I took an
iconoclastic approach to urban economics. In my dissertation
at Penn, I modeled a monocentric city as growing in- 13 -

successive rings, like a tree does, the width of the rings
depending on the population added, the income level andother variables in a given time interval. With durable buildings,
the model explained rents that rose with distance from thecenter and possible abandonment of buildings. Later, with
Leon Moses at Northwestern, we published a twodimensional version of the monocentric city with public andprivate transportation competing and producing various land
use patterns.
At Penn I discovered two schools of thought on modelingspatial interactions. Alan Wilson at Leeds, a geographer witha background in physics, had developed the macroscopic
approach of entropy. Dan McFadden, an economist at
Berkeley, was working on a type of econometrics particularly
suited for urban studies because it incorporated random
heterogeneity in a tractable way. Those who knew both
approaches regarded them as inconsistent with one another,but I quickly realized the strong similarity and looked for asynthesis. This resulted in my paper on discrete choice,entropy and the equivalence between multinomial logit andthe gravity models.
My true mission as a scholar was the development ofcomputable models of city structure that could be used tomake predictions and evaluate policy. Looking back, I haveapproached this goal systematically and holding myself tostrict standards, but perhaps moving a bit too slowly. The
standards are: (1) the empirical models should be an
implementation of the theory itself preserving cause andeffect relationships, not a distortion of the theory; (2) that asmuch of the available data as possible should be used; (3)that one should avoid over parametrization (a reason I neverwarmed to spatial econometrics and other descriptive
approaches that place more emphasis on errors than ontheory).
My book published in 1982 introduced a multi-centric (asopposed to monocentric) version of location and rent theory
based on discrete choice, with the aim of making urban
economics empirically and computationally pliable. Using a
version of this approach, I forecast how much residential rents
near transit stations would change on the planned Southwest
Corridor rapid transit line in Chicago. Later, after the Orange

line going to Midway was built there, John McDonald and Dan
McMillen measured actual rent changes in the Southwest
Corridor and concluded that my predictions were accurate.
This is the only case of validated prediction that I know inurban economics.
More recently, I have extended the approach to develop the“Regional Economy, Land Use and Transportation (RELUTRAN)” model, a computable general equilibrium model of anurban economy published in 2007, and I have applied it to
Chicago. Articles on the model’s application to Los Angeles
and Paris are now in preparation, and there is a European
project attempting to apply the model to Amsterdam,
Barcelona, Goteborg and Istanbul.
Belief that the science should be applicable has always been
the hallmark of my efforts, but I am often frustrated. Modelingcities should be the work of urban economists. They have thebest theory of human behavior and of how to allocate
resources optimally. Some excellent scholars from otherdisciplines, notably from geography, urban planning, andtransportation, also model cities but with little or no
economics. In the real world, such work competes witheconomics. Meanwhile, the “new urban economics” of the
1970s and 1980s produced much theory, but since the early
1990s there has been a furious flurry of interesting empiricalwork, adding relatively little to known theory. As such theanachronistic monocentric city is still often used to draw
incorrect policy prescriptions. For example, an unregulated
congested monocentric city sprawls excessively, but
polycentric models such as those I have used show that more
urban sprawl is often efficient. It does matter with what tools
one looks for the truth.

6. Obituary RaymondFlorax (1956–2017)

J.G.M.

by Henri L.F. de Groot (h.l.f.de.groot@vu.nl) and Erik T. Verhoef(e.t.verhoef.nl), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

In the early evening on March 1, 2017, at home in
Lafayette, our dear colleague and friend Raymond Florax
passed away – totally unexpected, in the middle of his- 14 -

teachingsemester.
Raymond was a true
academic in all respects.
He lived up to the opening
sentence of the preface of
his PhD thesis (p. xiii):‘Knowledge is increasingly
regarded as one of the vital(aspects of) production
factorsinmodernindustrialised economies’.
Characteristic of everything
he did was his great eye for detail, his passion, and his
strive for perfection. This was true for his research, his
education, and the many administrative duties.
Raymond’s career
Born in Heerlen (in the Southeast of the Netherlands) on
December 29, 1956, Raymond evolved over his lifetime
into a global citizen. Although every Dutch person would
immediately recognize his characteristic Southern tongue,
and also his typical Southern cultural habits (amongst
which the consistent use of no fewer than four initials), for
Raymond the reality of these cultural differences neverturned into barriers. He felt at home in many places. He
talked passionately about Tilburg where he obtained twobachelor degrees (in economics and sociology in 1979
and 1981, respectively) and a master degree in economics(in 1983) from the Catholic University of Brabant. This iswhere his research interest in economics and humanbehavior started. Already then, the topic of his masterthesis, on the burden of government debt, reflected his
interest in theoretically complex, controversial and policyrelevant topics.
During the period from 1980 to 1986, so partly overlapping
his studies, Raymond was a high-school teacher in
economics, business economics and accounting (and later
assistant vice-principal), at the Van Maerlantlyceum in
Eindhoven. Already so early in his career Raymond thus
revealed his great enthusiasm for education of youngsters,
and also made it clear he was always happy to undertake

administrative duties.
The next and logical step in his career was to pursue anacademic career which started in 1986 at the departmentof Economics and Public Administration at the Universityof Twente. As senior research associate, he specialized inspatial economics and planning and the financing of
higher education systems, topics that would feature
dominantly in his PhD thesis. In 1990, he continued his
career as an assistant professor at Wageningen
University. His research increasingly focused on regional
economics and spatial econometrics and resulted in his
PhD thesis which he defended at the University of Twente
on October 23, 1992. Also in Wageningen, Raymond wascalled upon for administrative tasks, this time to become
the President of the university council (1994-1997). In thatrole, he provided substantial contributions to the internal
restructuring process of the university and its
amalgamation with agricultural research organizations. He
did so with great dedication and eye for detail. In
hindsight, this has been a very important period in theprocess of transforming Wageningen University into one of
the top agricultural universities globally in research andeducation on healthy food and the living environment.
In 1997, Raymond decided to leave Wageningen
University for a new challenge, leading the newly
established Masterpoint at the Vrije Universiteit
Amsterdam: a research institute established by Peter
Nijkamp, focusing on comparative analysis in spatial,
transport and environmental economics. It was the start ofa very productive period in which he was intensively
involved in the supervision of many PhD students, severalof whom he had met at Wageningen University.
In 2005, Raymond became full professor at the
Department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue
University, the same department where his wife Brigitte
Waldorf holds a full professorship. Although he spent mostof his time in the United States, he retained a part-time
position at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He almost
literally lived in two worlds, active and respected on bothsides of the Atlantic Ocean, with an impressive network ofcolleagues, and involved in the continued supervision of a

- 15 -

huge group of PhD students, both in Amsterdam as wellas in Lafayette. He took pride in bringing these two worlds
together, letting persons benefit from the lively researchgroups to which he contributed himself with great passion,strongly convinced that working together and enjoying thepassion of doing research was the way to push theresearch frontier ahead. Many people enjoyed his andBrigitte’s generous hospitality in Lafayette and in
Amsterdam.
Throughout his career, Raymond has provided great
services to the field of Regional Science. Just to mention
some of his activities, he served as Editor-in-Chief andEuropean editor of Papers in Regional Science between
1997 and 2007, and he has furthermore been on the
Editorial Boards of the Journal of Regional Science, theInternational Regional Science Review, and Regional
Studies, Regional Science. He has organized several
conferences, and he was always available for sharing his
strategic insights for others organizing academic events.
His contributions to the Regional Science community wererecently underlined by the award of the EIB/ERSA award
in 2014, and his election as a Fellow of the RSAI in 2015.
Raymond was identified as one of the intellectual leadersof the 1990’s generation by Andrew Isserman in the“Golden Anniversary Issue” of Papers in Regional
Science. He was also fellow of the Spatial Econometrics
Association, the Tinbergen Institute and the Wageningen
School of Social Sciences.
Raymond’s academic legacy
For his research, Raymond will mainly be remembered forhis great methodological contributions to spatial
econometrics and meta-analysis. Although his interest in
topics was wide-ranging, from valuation of wetlands toeconomic growth, inequality and cultural diversity, his main
passion was for methodological advances. This inparticular was where he always pushed for perfection.
This passion for methodology is clearly evident from his
PhD thesis on universities as boosters of economic
development, which he defended in 1992 at the Universityof Twente (under the supervision of Peter Boorsma andHenk Folmer), and for which he was awarded the firstprize in RSAI’s Dissertation Competition in 1993. Thisestablished his reputation as a leading scholar in spatial
econometrics and subsequently resulted in several wellknown and highly cited publications.

Raymond in the middle of colleagues from the Vrije Universiteit
Amsterdam

Methodological developments and applications went handin hand throughout his career. This resulted in several
important contributions, many in the field of the empirics of
economic growth. This was an area in which for long, thetime dimension had been dominant (after Marshall) andwhere Raymond pushed the research frontier byemphasizing the equally important spatial dimension, truly
in the spirit of Walter Isard who criticized mainstream
economics in his famous statement ‘In this sense, thefactor of space is repudiated, everything within theeconomy is in effect compressed to a point, and all spatial
resistance disappears’.1 In this research, he aimed toaddress a research challenge that he had alreadyidentified in the third proposition accompanying his PhD
thesis: ‘Empirical research concerned with the catch-up
hypothesis (i.e., convergence of per capita income offactor productivity among countries) is to date insufficient,
as it mostly consists of data instigated models without an
explicit specification of the spatial diffusion of knowledge
and technology, the spatial variation in social institutions
and processes, the occurrence of special interest groups,
etcetera’.
His academic career got a new boost when he joined the
1 In: Walter Isard (1949, p. 477): ‘The General Theory of Location andSpace-Economy’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 63 (4), pp. 476-506.

- 16 -

department of Spatial Economics at the Vrije Universiteit
Amsterdam in 1997, to lead the MASTER-point researchgroup engaged in research on meta-analysis in spatial,
transport, and environmental economics. In a relatively
short period in time, he became one of the leading
scholars in the field of meta-analysis. Interesting andrelevant applications went hand in hand withmethodological refinements and fundamental discussions
to make the tool of meta-analyses apt for applications ineconomics.
To achieve this relevance, Raymond continuously
challenged the differences between meta-analysis in
medicine and psychology (fields where it belongs to thestandard toolkit of undergraduate students) and ineconomics. He enjoyed discussions on the limits of metaanalysis and pushed for methodological developmentsthat made the tool more acceptable in the research field of
economics where he witnessed reservation and evenskepticism against the use of meta-analysis
He strongly advocated the view that meta-analysis should
not be after the detection of natural constants, but insteadshould focus on the detection of patterns in heterogeneitythat can often be observed in primary literatures. Thissearch for patterns can subsequently result in new insightsthat are difficult to identify in primary studies. He
contributed to several applications of meta-analysis thatstood up to this promise. The scholars that apply metaanalysis in economics will deeply miss his sharp andconstructively critical approach. The road that he paved forrelevant contributions is worth to be pursued further in thenear future.
Raymond as lecturer and supervisor
Raymond also was a deeply respected supervisor of PhD
students. He pushed his students to the limits, challenging
them on all fronts. His contagious enthusiasm led many topursue a career in academia. He also loved to work inteams (as evidenced by the many co-authors in his
bibliography). His eye for detail and strive for perfection is
also clearly visible in the many PhD theses that hesupervised, and often explicitly expressed in theirprefaces. Just some examples to illustrate this from
prefaces of PhD theses: ‘Raymond, working with you
allowed me to reach further than I anticipated. Your
enjoyment of getting into all the nitty-gritty parts of
estimating and programming the regression models wascontagious, and ultimately gratifying’ (Jessie Bakens,
2016, p. viii); ‘I have worked closely with Raymond Florax
during the last four years and his intuition, honesty andsearch for perfection has been an example (and mirror) for
my own work’ (Thomas de Graaff, 2002, p. vii). Also as alecturer, Raymond was appreciated. His lecture material
was always well developed, continuously improving, andhis lectures were an important source of inspiration. For
his students (as well as colleagues), Raymond was a rolemodel in many respects.
Raymond as a friend
Doing joint research with
Raymond and working
together was fun for the
many colleagues that werepart of his impressiveinternational network. He
loved travelling and tasting
the good life in different
parts of the world, forexample during academic
conferences and while
being a visiting professor
at universities in San Diego and Tucson in the UnitedStates, Barcelona in Spain, and Hamilton in New Zealand.
Raymond got along with people very easily. The line
between professional and personal relationships was thin,
and working with Raymond quickly turned into friendship.
Raymond was a wonderful scholar and great colleague.
We are sad but also extremely grateful for the many
important contributions that Raymond made to academia
in general and regional science in particular. He will bedearly missed in the many places in the world where heestablished deep academic friendships that will be warmly
remembered.

- 17 -J OURNALS OF THE REGIONAL S CIENCE A SSOCIATION I NTERNATIONAL

Papers in Regional Science
Edited By: Roberta CapelloOnline ISSN: 1435-5957
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)14355957

Regional Science Policy & Practice
Edited By: Tomaz Ponce Dentinho
Online ISSN: 1757-7802
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)17577802

RSAI M EMBERSHIP I NFORMATIONAll RSAI members have online access to the Papers in Regional Science (PiRS) and to the
Regional Science Policy and Practice (RSPP): Journals of the Regional Science Association
International. Members will need to log in to access full text articles Online.
RSAI NEWSLETTER, the newsletter of the Association, appears two times a year and contains
information about upcoming conferences and meetings, recent publications and a periodic guide tograduate programs in regional science. Please send all electronic submissions of material for the RSAI
Newsletter directly to andrea.caragliu@polimi.it and/or G.P.Clarke@leeds.ac.uk.
In addition to the RSAI publications, members are offered an opportunity to purchase other regional
science journals at reduced rates and participate in the national and international conferences at
reduced rates.
For details on how to become a member, contact the Executive Director at rsai@apdr.pt or visit
www.regionalscience.org.

- 18 -

1. Introduction
1.1 Welcome from the President
1.2 Welcome to the 25th Pacific Conference of the RSAI
1.3 Welcome to the 2017 ERSA Congress
1.4 Welcome from the Editors

2. News from the RSAI Council
2.1 RSAI World Congress 2018 to be held May 29th through June 1st in Goa, India
2.2 New editorial team for Regional Science Policy and Practice 2017-2019
2.3 2016 ERSA Summer School organized at Politecnico di Milano
2.4 New RSAI Fellows elected

3. The spatial implications of ‘popularism’
3.1 Brexit: some possible outcomes for employment across the EU regions
3.2 Recent Voting Outcomes: Fertile Ground for Regional Science Research

01
01
01
02
03

04
04
04
05
05

05
05
07

4. Centres of Excellence in Regional Science:
Istanbul Technical University (ITU), Turkey

10

5. Meet the Fellows: Alex Anas

13

6. Obituary Raymond J.G.M. Florax (1956–2017)14