bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Transforming the Social Relations of Research Production in Urban Policy Evaluation
Authors: Imrie R
Published: October 2006

In this paper I argue that urban-policy evaluation makes little or no difference to the lives of the communities which are the recipients or targets of urban-policy projects. In particular, I will show how processes of policy evaluation are alienating both for communities and for researchers alike. This is related, in part, to the socioinstitutional contexts within which evaluation takes place but, as importantly, to the utilisation of evaluative (broadly positivist) models which conceive of the process as socially and politically neutral. Such approaches, as I show, are poorly sensitised to the evaluative contexts. It is suggested that a more fruitful, although not necessarily unproblematical, way to produce sensitised, and relevant, evaluative methods is to change what Oliver terms “the social relations of research production”. This involves the development of what some social scientists are terming an emancipatory research paradigm. In the paper such issues and their implications for urban-policy evaluation are explored.
Marketing Software Products: The Importance of ‘Being There’ and the Implications for Business Service Exports
Authors: Cornish S L
Published: October 2006

If business services have any potential to function as basic industries that access autonomous sources of demand outside the region or nation, it hinges on the degree to which these activities can be sold to distant, and preferably international, export markets. It is essential to understand the factors that make business services more or less tradeable over distance. In this paper, empirical evidence concerning the extent of producer and business service exports is reviewed, and the more qualitative dimensions of the tradeability of business services are explored in greater detail in order to identify factors that both limit and encourage exports of business services. Research in the software product segment of the computer services sector suggests that it may not actually be the ‘need’ for face-to-face interaction with clients that keeps some types of suppliers of business services from exporting. The traditional rationale regarding the importance of proximity to markets, the impact of information technology, and the dynamics of producer—user interaction is examined in order to identify when it is most important for suppliers to ‘be there’, close to customers. Based on research with software products, it is possible to identify other attributes of business services that may be more critical to determining tradeability and explaining sectoral differences in export intensity than the need to ‘be there’ for clients.
Proximity and Territory versus Space in Regional Science
Authors: Crevoisier O
Published: October 2006

Empirical evidence tends to show that regional development occurs only in certain places. Therefore, one can ask the central question of the role of physical proximity in economic development processes. Economists try to answer this question through the concept of externalities, but this does not explain why certain externalities are linked with physical proximity. In this paper the author tries first to show why mainstream economists are not able to catch the problem of proximity and territory in their model. It is argued that they make a systematic confusion between physical space and abstract mathematical spaces. In the second part of the paper a tentative definition of a terrority is given and a first mathematical formulation of this concept is proposed. Starting from this definition, the author shows in the third part of this paper how a consideration of territory and proximity should change our understanding of economic development processes in general.
Analysis and Computational Schemes for p-Median Heuristics
Authors: Horn M
Published: October 2006

This paper is concerned with solution procedures for the p-median problem: the well-established heuristic of Teitz and Bart, and the GRIA (Global/Regional Interchange Algorithm) technique developed more recently by Densham and Rushton. A computational scheme is presented which facilitates efficient implementations in both cases. The mathematical basis for the computational scheme is explained concisely by means of set-theory notation, and implementation of the Teitz—Bart heuristic is discussed with particular reference to search and storage considerations in large networks and in trees. In addition, it is shown that the two procedures in general do not terminate at solutions of equivalent local optimality.
Employment Decentralization in US Metropolitan Areas: Is Los Angeles an Outlier or the Norm?
Authors: Gordon P , Richardson H W
Published: October 2006

In this paper data from the economic censuses are utilized to show that most job growth in the manufacturing, wholesaling, retail, and service industries in the 1982–87 period has been in the urban peripheries of the twelve consolidated metropolitan statistical areas (CMSAs). Similar data for 1976, 1980, and 1986 from another source, the Wharton Urban Decentralization Project, confirm many of these trends, and for a larger set of metropolitan areas. The results show that Los Angeles is more in the middle of the twelve CMSAs than it is an outlier. It is suggested that these common results reflect a common process, that is, an initial movement of households towards the metropolitan edge in search of amenities (or flight from central city ills), followed by the decentralization of firms to increase their access to suburban labor pools.
Small Manufacturing and Nonmetropolitan Socioeconomic Well-Being
Authors: Lyson T A , Tolbert C M
Published: October 2006

We build on earlier work by Mills and Ulmer in which characteristics of the local economic base, particularly establishment size, were related to civic welfare. They posit that small business is ‘good’ for local community welfare, whereas big business is ‘bad’ for it. Data from County Business Patterns and various population censuses are used to examine this issue for US nonmetropolitan counties. With regression procedures adjusted for spatial autocorrelation across counties, we find support for the Mills and Ulmer hypothesis for three measures of civic welfare.
Examining the Thesis of Central Business District Decline: Evidence from the Montreal Metropolitan Area
Authors: Coffey W J , Polèse M , Drolet R
Published: October 2006

Much recent North American research has focused on the decline of the central business district (CBD) as the economic core of metropolitan areas, and the corresponding rise of suburban employment centres. According to the literature, this trend is particularly evident in the case of high-order service functions: business services, finance, insurance, and real estate services, and head offices. In this paper, we argue that the decentralization of high-order service activities and the corresponding CBD decline may be neither as strong a trend nor as universal a phenomenon as certain authors have indicated. Rather, the growth of suburban office employment may reflect a strong CBD whose economic base is becoming increasingly specialized. Using data from the Montreal metropolitan area, we first examine intrametropolitan decentralization in a shift-share framework, then document the mobility of establishments and employment. Our findings suggest that, in spite of a certain level of intrametropolitan decentralization, the CBD continues to be the primary locus of high-order services.
Entrepreneurial Approaches to Urban Decline: The Honeysuckle Redevelopment in Inner Newcastle, New South Wales
Authors: McGurik P M , Winchester H P M , Dunn K M
Published: October 2006

Global changes in production and consumption, and the resulting competition between places for investment flows, have encouraged the emergence of the ‘entrepreneurial state’. This paper focuses on the Honeysuckle redevelopment in Newcastle, New South Wales. This case study of active entrepreneurialism, aimed at promoting Newcastle's interurban competitiveness through material and symbolic reconstructions, reveals the changes wrought by an entrepreneurial approach to the style and content of city government and politics. The Honeysuckle Development Corporation operates at the juncture between federal, state, and local government engagement with capital in the attempt to address the local impacts of economic restructuring. It provides an important case study of the shifting parameters of the relationship between various tiers of the state, and between these tiers and the interests of capital in contemporary urban redevelopment. It also addresses the problematic questions of sustainability, accountability, and equity in urban entrepreneurialism, while providing a long-overdue empirical study of Newcastle.
Affordability and the Demand for Separate Accommodation
Authors: Miron J R
Published: October 2006

The number of private households in Canada surged in the 1970s; at the same time, rental housing was becoming more affordable. Then, in the first half of the 1980s, affordability declined and household formation slowed. Were these changes in household formation attributable to changing affordability? In this paper, a model is estimated by means of logistic regression, in which the living arrangement of a family (or a nonfamily adult) is a choice made on the basis of the income and other characteristics of the family (or adult), and the price of maintaining one's own dwelling. In the model current income is partitioned into expected and transitory components, indicators of income expectations are included, and the endogeneity of living arrangement and income is considered. Income variables are measured in terms of the units of standard rental housing that the family or individual can purchase. The model is estimated empirically by using pooled data drawn from the 1981 Census and 1986 Census public-use samples. The estimation is comprehensive in coverage; separate model estimates are presented for up to 44 distinct pools of consumers defined by age, sex, family status, and income. Estimates derived from the model show that affordability had an effect on living arrangement that, although often statistically significant, was numerically small and that declining affordability does not predict well changes in living arrangement in metropolitan Canada for 1981 and 1986.
Farming Out Factories: Japan's Law to Promote the Introduction of Industry into Agricultural Village Areas
Authors: McDonald M G
Published: October 2006

Questions as to how social regulation serves renewed accumulation may be answered by mesoscale studies of the ways states make sites and localities available to new forms of production. In this study I examine the important social-regulatory role of the Japanese state in the rapid creation of new factory sites for flexible producers after 1970, particularly through negotiation with rural constituencies. Firms in leading sectors of Japanese industry have spun-off thousands of new production units over the past twenty years, not only as a result of growth but as a continuous strategy to achieve that growth. One way new factories obtained land and labor was through Japan's 1971 Law to Promote the Introduction of Industry into Agricultural Village Areas, Nōson Chiiki Kōgyō Dōnyū Sokushin Hō. This policy coaxed farmtown governments to carve new industrial parks out of farmland and to sell improved factory sites to manufacturing firms. By subscribing hundreds of farmtowns into this national program annually in the 1970s, the policy helped to structure the external conditions of industrial firms' flexibility, granting full rein to the internal logics allowing their greater spatial reach. By early 1992, over 6800 factories had acquired rural sites under this program and 444000 workers had been hired, many from farm households. The state has by no means abandoned interventionism in this growth period, but has actively reregulated the countryside away from its former engagements in agriculture and into the service of flexible industrial production.
Not Flexible Accumulation—Contradictions of Value in Contemporary Economic Geography: 1. Workplace and Interfirm Relations
Authors: Gough J
Published: October 2006

In this and a subsequent paper, work by geographers that is based on the idea that we are in a period of transition to an epoch of flexible accumulation, or post-Fordism, is examined. It is argued that this thesis relies on abstracting the technical and organisational aspects of current restructuring from its value relations. An account which includes value relations shows that the phenomena said to characterise flexible accumulation are more contradictory and unstable, more varied, and more open to struggle than is supposed in work in which a new epoch is assumed. An approach based on value relations can give a richer account of current spatial-economic change. In this first paper, capital—labour relations within production, and the relations between firms are discussed.
The Value of Making an Extra Effort: Campaign Spending and Electoral Outcomes in Recent British General Elections—A Decomposition Approach
Authors: Pattie C J , Johnston R J
Published: October 2006

An increasing volume of research has shown that the amount which British political parties spend on constituency campaigns at general elections is related to their relative performance there. Because parties are better able to mobilise campaign resources where they are already electorally strong, and because they tend to remain strong in the same parts of the country over long sequences of elections, however, there are technical problems in separating out the ‘real’ impacts of campaign spending from those which reflect prior strength. A two-stage modelling procedure is introduced here which allows such separation: it provides strong evidence that where parties spend more than the average for a constituency of a certain type, they garner electoral rewards accordingly.
A Review of Regional Labour Supply and Demand Forecasting in the European Union
Authors: van der Laan L
Published: October 2006

In this paper I review existing models which forecast regional supply and demand in the European Union. I distinguish between five main classes of models. I also show their recent applications as well as their main features. If the findings are linked with changes in economic thinking, the direction of future model development can be indicated.
The Greening of Free Trade? The Debate about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Environment
Authors: Benton L M
Published: October 2006

The study of human—nature relationships has long been central to geographic inquiry. Recent attempts to reconcile the growing demands of the international economy with the equally important concerns about environmental protection can be seen as one challenge to the dominant construction of human—nature relationships. Attempts to ‘green trade’ are well illustrated in the debate about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the environment. This paper presents three arguments. First, the growing influence of the environmental movement in the USA during the past twenty-five years has embedded concern for the environment in political culture. This ‘politics of the environment’ is exemplified in NAFTA's explicit goal of promoting sustainable development. Including sustainable development as a specified goal thus provided environmentalists a legitimate entry into the NAFTA debate over free trade, development, and environmental protection. Second, it is argued that the NAFTA debate highlights several trade—environment dilemmas, dilemmas which must be addressed in order to reconcile economics and the environment. Particular attention will be paid to the debate about NAFTA and environmental sovereignty. Third, the NAFTA debate brought together two distinct communities: free traders and environmentalists. Far from being two exclusive communities, in this paper I assert that economics and the environment must be seen as interdependent forces which will increasingly interact with each other. In the case of NAFTA, these two communities not only interacted with each other, they created a common ground which made supporting NAFTA acceptable to both interest groups. The creation of a common ground took place through negotiation, debate, and compromise, and thus is a fundamental engagement with human—nature constructions. I conclude that we can expect the environmental community to participate in future trade and development issues because environmentalists now see these areas as critical to reconciling economic—environment and human—nature relationships.
Retail Restructuring and the Strategic Significance of Food Retailers' Own-Labels: A UK—USA Comparison
Authors: Hughes A
Published: October 2006

Recognising the use of food retailers' own-labels as a particular form of competitive strategy, I seek to show how such a strategy is embedded within the very different retailing environments of the United Kingdom and USA. It is argued that power relations in the production—consumption chain, which have been influenced by regulation, have favoured the retailers in the United Kingdom more than they have in the USA. This appears to have allowed the UK food retailers to execute own-label strategic action which has ‘creatively destroyed’ the preexisting configuration of power, competitive behaviour, and cultural relations in the production—consumption chain. The US retailers, in contrast, have been restricted to quantitatively lower levels of own-label trading and strategy which has been qualitatively more rigid and conservative. It is suggested, then, that power relations produced in different national contexts can either constrain or enable retailers in their ability to formulate and execute own-label strategies which are a part of the complex logic of capital which characterises retailing. Therefore, given a continued period of deregulation in the USA, and an erosion of manufacturer power, retail capital is likely to develop more along the lines of the UK system and generate own-label strategies with similar economic and cultural significance to those in the United Kingdom.
Retail Saturation, Retail Location, and Retail Competition: An Analysis of British Grocery Retailing
Authors: Langston P , Clarke G P , Clarke D B
Published: October 2006

The appreciably dramatic idea that British grocery retailing is facing imminent saturation has attracted increasing attention particularly since the mid-1980s to late 1980s. In this paper we seek to review and attempt to sophisticate the debate over saturation by providing a detailed discussion and spatial analysis of current levels of retail provision. This analysis, in itself, offers a view of the potential for future retail expansion. We argue here, however, that spatial patterns of retail provision must be interpreted carefully, particularly given the profoundly different competitive conditions that characterise British grocery retailing in the 1990s as compared with the 1980s. In considering both the spatial patterns of, and competitive processes underlying, British food retailing, we offer an account of recent retail geography in a way that synthesises approaches that are all too frequently presented as antagonistic.
Cities in the Real-Time Age: The Paradigm Challenge of Telecommunications to the Conception and Planning of Urban Space
Authors: Graham S
Published: October 2006

In this paper I argue that contemporary processes of telecommunications-based urban development provide challenges to how urban space is conceptualised and planned within advanced industrial cities. The paper has four parts. First, I briefly review the loosely integrated body of research on city—telecommunications relations and highlight the tendency of much contemporary research to adopt futuristic metaphors for explaining such relations at a general level. In part two, the argument that the current explosion of telecommunications applications across all aspects of urban development challenges old urban paradigms, for understanding and planning urban space, is developed. Four challenges are identified and explored: the challenge of invisibility, the conceptual challenge, the challenge to urban planning, and the challenge of containment. Given this context, the third part of the paper builds on recent insights in cultural studies to explore the potential for new conceptual frameworks which help explain the new relations between telecommunications, time, space, and advanced industrial cities.
International Urban and Housing Policy: A Review of the ‘Cambridge Studies’, 1989–95
Authors: Pugh C
Published: October 2006

The post-1980 period has been one of rapid and fundamental changes, including the international integration of economic activity, structural economic reforms, and the widespread revisions of theories and practices. These changes have influenced urban land, and housing policies. In a context of rapid change scholars are faced with problems of selection, interpretation, and critical evaluation. Information and interpretations can be dated and have omissions. It is argued in this paper that such has been the case in the programme of urban research carried out by Peter Ward and some of his research team. In this paper the aim is to correct, reinterpret, and then develop ideas which are more appropriate in a period of fundamental change, relying upon principles from political science, and institutional and public policy economics.
“Hell Hath no Fury like an Academic Scorned”: A Reply to Pugh (with Apologies to Congreve and to Women)
Authors: Ward P M , Jones G A
Published: October 2006

In our response to Pugh's critique of our work which he rather grandiosely describes as ‘Cambridge studies’, we take major issue with his arguments on three principal fronts. First, he is very selective in his review of our publications, and in seeking to defend the position of the World Bank, UNDP, and UNCHS, he fails to acknowledge an extensive debate in which we have already engaged with senior analysts from those institutions. Moreover, his reading of what we do and do not say about World Bank leadership in the housing and land management policy fields is partial and erroneous. Second, his critique that our methodology lacks a strong theoretical and empirical grounding is at best distorted and at worst quite wrong. The methodology has been widely used and applauded, and if it has been criticized in the past it is for being too empirical and overly focused upon household interviews and surveys. He also ignores the context in which several of the methods he criticizes were published: namely in a collection of essays on Methodology for Land and Housing Market Analysis, the express purpose of which was to contrast different approaches. Third, he mistakenly assumes that because we do not cite certain authors we are ignorant of their work, and further, that our analysis fails to privilege neoclassical land economics. This latter point at least is true, but not because we are ignorant of the approach, but because the theoretical aims of our work required that we experiment with other methods.
Population Georeferencing in England and Wales: Basic Spatial Units Reconsidered
Authors: Martin D , Higgs G
Published: October 2006

In this paper the concern is with the increasing number of methods which are available for the georeferencing of population and socioeconomic data. The majority of routine users of such data will tend to treat georeferencing of a transparent process, and will not question the impacts which georeferencing methods may have on substantive applications. In this paper four levels of geographical resolution in England and Wales are considered, between the most detailed census geography and individual property locations, and the potential for the creation of hybrid georeferences by the combination of existing data products is explored. With examples from a study area in Cardiff, South Wales, the interrelationship of the major data products is explored, with reference to basic household counts and incidence data. On the basis of these experiments, the use of hybrid georeferencing systems is reconsidered, highlighting potential applications as well as problems of data standards, confidentiality, and comparability.
The Integration of Intrametropolitan Office Markets
Authors: Hanink D M
Published: October 2006

A model of an integrated metropolitan land market with respect to office location is provided. The model combines aspects of production theory and utility theory in outlining the locational choices of the office-using sector. The mixed basis of the model arises from the possibility of factor intensity reversals in the office sector which allow locational choices. Empirical tests of some of the propositions of the model yield the supporting result of a city-size effect in the linkages between downdown and suburban office-location markets.
Competition for Metropolitan Resources: The ‘Crowding Out’ of London's Manufacturing Industry?
Authors: Graham D , Spence N
Published: October 2006

In this paper we consider the extent to which manufacturing activity in London in the 1980s has been influenced by a ‘crowding-out’ effect as a result of the expansion of ‘global-city’ functions within the capital. First, a brief outline is provided of the concept of the global city and the related interpretations of urban manufacturing change. We then examine the relevance of global-city hypotheses, focusing on three different empirical aspects of London's manufacturing in the 1980s—employment change, floorspace and land-use issues, and change in firm stock, output, and productivity. The conclusion is that the ‘crowding-out’ hypothesis of manufacturing change expressed in the literature on global cities is not demonstrated by the existing evidence, and that such an hypothesis is an oversimplified way of examining the complexities of manufacturing change across London over this period.
Using the 1991 Census SAR in a Multilevel Analysis of Male Unemployment
Authors: Gould M I , Fieldhouse E
Published: October 2006

The risk of unemployment varies between individuals, between occupations and industries, and between places. The Sample of Anonymised Records drawn from the 1991 Census is used to model geographical, demographic, and socioeconomic variations in male unemployment by means of multilevel logit models. The underlying structure of the problem is such that cells in a multiway cross-tabulation of individual characteristics (level 1) are nested within places (level 2). Geographical variations in male unemployment are found even after allowing for age, marital status, ethnicity, higher education qualifications, social class, and industry.
Modelling the Influence of Individual and Spatial Factors Underlying Variations in the Levels of Secondary School Examination Results
Authors: Coombes M , Raybould S
Published: October 2006

There are several strands of research which have recently converged in the analysis of exam results. A long-standing line of enquiry has been to assess the impact of deprivation on educational performance. At the school level, recent work has concentrated on trying to assess the ‘added value’ of the education provided by a school, taking into account the abilities of the children on entry. The need to assess influences operating at different levels (notably, the individual and the school) has led the analysis of exam results to be a core area in which multilevel models (MLMs) are being developed. A key question which remains is whether conditions in the neighbourhood in which the child lives exert a separate influence over and above the individual's characteristics and those of the school. This paper is an examination of the value of different data sources for explanatory MLMs of 16 year olds' exam results in Newcastle upon Tyne. Several different types of data source are assessed in order to profile individuals, schools, and neighbourhoods. The process of linking the data sets is described, highlighting some problems which are inherent to the innovation here of drawing upon administrative data from several separate information systems. As a result of these and other limitations, the MLMs which are then developed are essentially exploratory. The aim is to indicate which of the data sources provide the variables which appear to have the most predictive power in these analyses. The results are interesting and intuitively reasonable and enable judgments to be made as to, for example, which data sources provide the more indicative measures of the effects of deprivation (which the MLMs show to be operating independently at two different levels, with schools and wards cross-classified at the higher level).
Mapping the Self: Gender, Space, and Modernity in Mid-Victorian London
Authors: Nead L
Published: October 2006

In 1857 the first Obscene Publications Act was passed in Britain. In the months leading up to the passing of this legislation, a debate emerged which focused on the spaces of the modern metropolis, the production of modern forms of visual culture, and the possibility of transgressive forms of cultural consumption. One street in London became the symbol for this definition of obscenity—Holywell Street in Westminster, which ran parallel to the Strand from St Clement Danes to St Mary-le-Strand. The narrow contours and crumbling buildings of this Elizabethan alley signified physical, moral, and cultural impurity, in contrast to the modernising ambitions of the city in this period. The display of obscene images in the shop windows enabled a new form of cultural consumption based on looking while moving through the street. As such, it represented a dangerous promiscuity which could address women and men of all classes as they moved through the spaces of the metropolis.
Institutions, Alternative Farming Systems, and Local Reregulation
Authors: Clark G , Bowler I , Shaw A , Crockett A , Ilbery B
Published: October 2006

The weakening of the postwar nexus of a productivist agriculture and a distinctive system of regulating the rural economy has created new challenges for British rural institutions. The task of diversifying rural and farm economies has required the institutions to change how they operate. Using the concept of the local mode of social regulation (MSR) we explore the interrelationships between the development of alternative farming systems and the institutional regulatory environment, using as a case study an area in northern England. We conclude by demonstrating how institutions cope with new policy challenges. The diversity of local responses to this challenge is illustrated and the links between local and national MSRs are explored.
Spatial Selectivity of the State? The Regulationist Enigma and Local Struggles over Economic Governance
Authors: Jones M R
Published: October 2006

In this paper I assess the value of regulation theory for studying transformations in governance at the local level, focusing on the issue of local economic development. Adopting a third-generation approach, regulation theory is recognised as having varied success at theorising local governance. More advanced third-generation approaches offer some useful concepts that require integration through mid-level concepts. This is to be contrasted to approaches which ‘read off’ local transformation from broader macroeconomic change. Both approaches are, however, trapped in the regulationist enigma, defined in the paper as the difficulty of employing regulation theory to theorise local transformations in local governance. In order to solve the enigma, I utilise concepts from Jessop's strategic-relational state theory. This approach stresses, amongst other things, the political nature of state intervention. Jessop's approach is, however, not sufficiently sensitive to space and I introduce the notion of spatial selectivity to understand adequately the dynamics of local change. Spatial selectivity implies that the state has a tendency to privilege certain places through accumulation strategies, state projects, and hegemonic projects. The process of geographical privileging, which is implied by the notion of spatial selectivity, takes on both material and ideological forms. This tentative concept is explored through a reworking of theoretical approaches to Thatcherism. I conclude by highlighting issues that spatial selectivity needs to address, namely uneven development and structure—strategy—agency dialectics.
Polycentrism, Commuting, and Residential Location in the San Francisco Bay Area
Authors: Cervero R , Wu K-L
Published: October 2006

The San Francisco Bay Area has taken on a distinct polycentric metropolitan form, with three tiers of hierarchical employment centers encircling downtown San Francisco, the region's primary center. In this paper it is found that polycentric development is associated with differentials in suburban and urban commute trip times: commute trips made by employees of suburban centers are shorter in duration than commute trips made by their counterparts in larger and denser urban centers. Differentials were even greater, however, with respect to commuting modal splits. Lower density, outlying employment centers averaged far higher rates of drive-alone automobile commuting and insignificant levels of transit commuting. Smaller, outlying centers were also the least self-contained, with a large number averaging twenty or more times as many external as internal commutes. The effects of housing availability and prices on the residential locational choices of those working both in urban and in suburban employment centers are also investigated in this paper. Locational choices are stratified by occupational class and type of center. High housing prices in and around employment centers were found to displace workers to residences in other subregions, except in the case of professional workers in fast-growing, outlying centers. These workers were attracted to higher-priced nearby housing. In the empirical analysis, significant segmentation in housing choices among workers in fast-growing suburban centers was found. This could be partly due to selective land-use policies implemented by local governments in these areas.
Disaggregate Economic Base Multipliers in Small Communities
Authors: Vias A C , Mulligan G F
Published: October 2006

Economic base analysis is frequently used to describe employment profiles and to predict project-related impacts in small communities. Considerable evidence suggests, however, that economic base multipliers should be estimated from survey data and not from shortcut methods. In this paper two competing versions of the economic base model are developed and then these two models are estimated by use of the Arizona community data set. In both cases, marginal multiplier estimates, controlled for transfer payments, are generated for ten individual sectors in five different types of communities. Results from these two disaggregate economic base models are assessed and then compared with results provided earlier by more aggregate models. The better of these two new models closely resembles the popular input—output model.
Labour-Market Search and Urban Residential Structure
Authors: Crampton G R
Published: October 2006

The application of labour market matching theory to the context of urban spatial variations in vacancies, unemployment, and job search has recently begun to receive research attention. Empirical analysis is very difficult because of the virtual unobservability of job search. Various forms of theoretical study of spatial labour markets are summarised in this paper, together with macroeconomic empirical evidence on labour matching technology. The Cobb—Douglas form of the matching function is applied to a simple linear city model, and theoretical relationships are derived which would be necessary for a static urban labour market equilibrium. A start is made on the theoretical implications of calculating an optimal job search area for individual workers, and a complex integral form of a present value function is obtained.
Integrating Regional Econometric and Input—Output Models: An Evaluation of Embedding Strategies
Authors: Rey S J
Published: October 2006

A number of integration strategies that embed input-output relations within dynamic econometric models of regional employment determination are examined. By viewing the alternative approaches in the literature as specific cases of restricted estimation a number of important methodological issues associated with model misspecification are identified and examined analytically. Additional insight as to the importance of these issues is provided by means of a series of Monte Carlo simulations. The results suggest that the relative performances of the various approaches towards integration are sensitive to errors associated with the form of the intersectoral linkages, labor-productivity coefficients, and regional purchase coefficients. The previous finding that the embedding strategies provide indicators of the strength of regional intersectoral linkages is shown to be potentially misleading.
Modelling the Effects of Shopping Centre Size and Store Variety on Consumer Choice Behaviour
Authors: Oppewal H , Timmermans H J P , Louviere J J
Published: October 2006

In this paper it is argued that models of consumer choice of shopping destination have included few attributes related to the selection of stores available in a shopping centre. The authors seek to develop and illustrate empirically a way to define the selection of stores in shopping centres, such that effects of various modifications to the available selection can be modelled by conjoint analysis (or stated preference of decompositional choice) methods. Profiles of hypothetical shopping centres are developed that describe the total size of centres as well as the marketing mix positionings of the individual stores within these centres. The approach is implemented in choice experiments, one on food shopping and one on shopping for clothing and shoes. Logit models are estimated and compared for these two product categories and for large versus small centres.
Large-Small Firm Networks: A Foundation of the New Globalizing Economy in South Korea
Authors: Cho M-R
Published: October 2006

In this paper the author examines how Korea's export-oriented economy has laid its new foundation for global competitiveness by deepening interfirm linkages. Korea's interfirm linkages refer mainly to the relationship between large and small firms. Recent corporate restructuring in the large and small firm sectors has caused denser and highly dynamic intercorporate networks to arise. The author argues that the globalizing of economy in Korea is encouraged by efficacious global—local transactions via large—small firm networks, a matter ignored by most analysts. Major foci are on analyzing the forms, structures, governing mechanisms, and function of large—small firm networks.
Software for Qualitative Research: 2. Some Thoughts on ‘Aiding’ Analysis
Authors: Hinchliffe S J , Crang M A , Reimer S M , Hudson A C
Published: October 2006

In this paper we reject accounts which portray computer aided qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS) as neutral and benign. We argue that applying computer software to qualitative projects raises a number of important issues that go to the heart of ethnography. Although we initially work with a distinction between tactile and digital ethnographics, the issues that we raise are not unique to computer-aided analyses. Indeed, we argue that the adoption of computers marks a useful moment in which to think critically about the means and ends of qualitative analysis. In this paper we urge qualitative researchers to avoid both an outright rejection and an unquestioning adoption of computer software packages. Rather, we work towards a ‘crafty’ approach to ethnography where computers are incorporated into the body of research in a critically reflexive and creative manner. We end the paper with some thoughts on the potential of such incorporation.
At the End of Nature: Cyborgs, ‘Humachines’, and Environments in Postmodernity
Authors: Luke T W
Published: October 2006

In this paper I rethink some of the premises in industrial-era social ontologies by rethinking how hybridized agencies, like cyborgs, actor networks, or humachines, decenter anthropocentric modernist conceptions of ‘man and the environment’. By using postmodernist claims that we now operate after ‘the end of Nature’ or ‘the death of Nature’, I build this paper from such conceptual hyperbole to explore how cyborg life-forms or humachinic social formations are reshaping the natural and social environments of contemporary fast capitalism on a global scale. These terms of analysis, in turn, could improve our understandings of the built and yet to be built environments in advanced technological economies and societies.
Child-Care Services and the Urban Labour Market. Part 1: The Urban Child-Care Market
Authors: Webster C J , White S D
Published: October 2006

In this two-part paper we examine some of the market characteristics of urban child-care services. Part 1 is concerned with theory. In it we review the contemporary child-care and preschool education service issue; consider questions of market efficiency and equity, and formulate these in a general equilibrium model which generates testable household labour-supply and service-supply functions. In part 2 we report on an empirical study in which aggregate versions of these functions are calibrated for the supply of labour from mothers with young children and for the supply of childminding services. We focus on the childminder sector, which is of interest as a personal social service that has traditionally been left to the private sector and as a private service with relatively easy entry and exit. These models yield interesting results which indicate on the one hand that access to child-care services is a binding constraint on female labour-market participation and on the other, that the supply of child-care services is quite unresponsive to demand.
Multinationals and European Integration: The Prospects for Welsh Manufacturing Industry
Authors: Phelps N A
Published: October 2006

Arguably, the potential impact of the Single European Market on industry restructuring has been overstated. Nevertheless such processes of restructuring are likely to be at their most apparent among multinationals and in the peripheral region setting. In this paper I explore the possible impact of market integration on manufacturing industry in a peripheral European Union ‘region’; Wales. I consider the character of, and prospects for, multinational manufacturing investment in Wales in relation to processes of European integration.
Strategies for Assessing the Impact of Survey Lags on the Analysis and Interpretation of Land Use Change Statistics
Authors: Bibby P , Shepherd J
Published: October 2006

The Department of the Environment's Land Use Change Statistics (LUCS) represent a major new data series in the field of town and regional planning. They begin to fill a long-standing and, given the land management aims of planning, rather basic gap in the planning data record and have the potential to change the way in which we approach land-use studies and policy monitoring. LUCS data are derived from the process of updating Ordnance Survey mapping and, as a consequence, are recorded with a time lag between date of change and date of survey that varies according to survey regime and land-use type. In the analysis of LUCS data it is essential that an appropriate allowance is made for both the temporal and the spatial incidence of survey lags. In this paper we will discuss three approaches to reducing the impact of recording lags on particular types of substantive research: use of LUCS data based on analysis by survey year, the construction of robust indicators of land-use change, and the fitting of modelled lag descriptions. We conclude with a brief discussion of the implications for land-use theory in general.
Housebuilding in a Recession: A Regional Case Study
Authors: Gibb K , McGregor A , Munro M
Published: October 2006

In this paper we examine recently completed research in the Scottish housebuilding industry as it emerges from recession. A regionally differentiated downturn in construction activity has hit Scotland less severely than parts of England but the Scottish experience may nonetheless be able to shed light on prospects for the future. In the paper we use a structure-conduct-performance paradigm to classify the industry and to see where and by how much it departs from competitive market behaviour. It is clear from the evidence that the industry is restructuring and experiencing problems in a number of areas. With this in mind we discuss a range of short-run and medium-term policy directions that might change the future path of the sector. We conclude with a call for further industrial organisation research in this area, utilising the neoinstitutional economics insights of transactions costs, etc.
‘Archaic’ Relations of Production in Modern Agricultural Systems: The Example of Sharemilking in New Zealand
Authors: Blunden G , Moran W , Bradly A
Published: October 2006

Sharecropping is neglected in the analysis of land use and rural change in modern western economies. Notwithstanding the Marxist classification of sharecropping as a form of wage labor, it is conceptualized in this paper as simple commodity production, based on the unity of household and enterprise. The organization of sharecropping is examined with the use of this conceptualization, although the review incorporates economic and other perspectives. Sharemilking in New Zealand is used to evaluate this framework at two scales, on representative dairy farms of average size and on large dairy farms owned by corporations. It is found to be a mutually beneficial relationship that promotes efficient production and high output. It also facilitates intergenerational transfer, provides a rung on the dairying ladder, and contributes to the reproduction of family-based dairying in New Zealand. Sharemilking is also the preferred means for recent corporate entrants to the industry to operate their large dairy farms. Currently, sharemilking is playing a role in the penetration of agriculture by capital.
A Conjoint-Based Simulation Model of Housing-Market Clearing Processes: Theory and Illustration
Authors: Schellekens M P G , Timmermans H J P
Published: October 2006

Conjoint models of housing preferences typically derive preference functions from consumer responses to profiles of housing attributes generated experimentally. It is not readily evident how such housing preferences can be used to simulate actual housing choice. In this paper we provide conceptual considerations to link conjoint preferences to actual behaviour and discuss the principles of a simulation model. We illustrate the approach using as our example the effects of a rental subsidy on potential mobility.