Spatial Economic Analysis
ISSN: 1742-1772 (Print) 1742-1780 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rsea20
Raising the bar (10)
Paul Elhorst, Maria Abreu, Pedro Amaral, Arnab Bhattacharjee, Luisa
Corrado, Justin Doran, Franz Fuerst, Julie Le Gallo, Philip McCann, Vassilis
Monastiriotis, Francesco Quatraro & Jihai Yu
To cite this article: Paul Elhorst, Maria Abreu, Pedro Amaral, Arnab Bhattacharjee, Luisa Corrado,
Justin Doran, Franz Fuerst, Julie Le Gallo, Philip McCann, Vassilis Monastiriotis, Francesco
Quatraro & Jihai Yu (2019) Raising the bar (10), Spatial Economic Analysis, 14:1, 1-4, DOI:
10.1080/17421772.2019.1553658
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17421772.2019.1553658
Published online: 18 Jan 2019.
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SPATIAL ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
2019, VOL. 14, NO. 1, 1–4
https://doi.org/10.1080/17421772.2019.1553658
EDITORIAL
Raising the bar (10)
Paul Elhorst, Maria Abreu, Pedro Amaral, Arnab Bhattacharjee,
Luisa Corrado, Justin Doran, Franz Fuerst, Julie Le Gallo, Philip McCann,
Vassilis Monastiriotis, Francesco Quatraro and Jihai Yu
ABSTRACT
This editorial summarizes the papers published in issue 14(1) so as to raise the bar in applied spatial economic
research and highlight new trends. The first paper applies the Shapley-based decomposition approach to
determine the impact of firm-, linkage- and location-specific factors to the survival probability of
enterprises. The second paper applies Bayesian comparison methods to identify simultaneously the most
likely spatial econometric model and spatial weight matrix explaining new business creation. The third
paper compares the performance of continuous and discrete approaches to explain subjective well-being
across space. The fourth paper applies a multiple imputation approach to determine regional purchasing
power parities at the NUTS-3 level using data available at the NUTS-2 level. Finally, the last paper
constructs a regional input–output table for Japan from its national counterpart using and comparing the
performance of four non-survey techniques.
KEYWORDS
survival, well-being, purchasing power, input–output, spatial econometrics
JEL C21, C67, I31, O18, M13
Spatial Economic Analysis is a pioneering journal dedicated to the development of theory and
methods in spatial economic analysis. This issue contains five papers contributing to these developments. All are methodological in nature, illustrate their innovative findings by focusing on an
empirical application and discuss the implications of their findings from a policy point of view
and/or the perspective of further research.
The first paper by Sohns and Revilla Diez (2018, in this issue), explains the survival probability of 309 micro-enterprises in three rural Vietnamese provinces over the period 2010–13,
using a three-level mixed-effects parametric model. In addition, a distinction is made between
opportunity-driven (n = 174) and necessity-driven (n = 135) enterprises. The first group is willing to hire non-family employees and to invest more if they observe or are challenged by new
opportunities in the market. The second group is more reserved since the main focus is to guarantee a sufficient level of income. The authors attempt to determine the impact of enterprisespecific factors (first level), production and consumption linkage-related factors (second level)
and location-specific factors (third level). The latter factors consist of market institutional variables, including state- versus non-state-owned firms, pro- and anti-cyclical external effects,
proximity of customers and markets, and access to financial services. To determine the impact
CONTACT
(Corresponding author)
j.p.elhorst@rug.nl
© 2018 Regional Studies Association
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Paul Elhorst et al.
of each set of factors, the authors employ the Shapley-based decomposition approach applied to
R 2. The enterprise-specific factors appear to be the most important: their contribution to the
survival probability amounts to 64.3% of the opportunity-driven and to 64.5% of the
necessity-driven enterprises. This is followed by, respectively, 23.0% and 15.4% for the linkage-related factors and 12.6% and 20.1% of the location-specific factors. Based on these numbers, the authors make several policy recommendations to foster the survival and growth of
micro-enterprises.
The second paper by Credit (2018, in this issue) does not deal with business survival but with
the related topic of business creation. It studies the relationship between rail transit proximity and
the creation of new high-technology businesses and finds that transit proximity has a significant
positive impact, given that the region has a relatively mature and extensive transit system, such as
those in Boston and Philadelphia. The paper also finds that the exposure variable area provides the
most consistent and stable foundation for calculating the expected rates of new business activity
compared with other variables, such as population and existing business activities. Finally, the
paper argues for the crucial role of spatial dependence when studying the impact of transit proximity on the creation of new high-technology business. To investigate this role, the author applies
the most advanced techniques currently available.
In the latest version of the Encyclopedia of GIS [Geographical Information Systems], Elhorst
(2017) points out that revision is needed to the way of thinking about, and the model selection
strategies that are used in, most empirical studies to determine the structure of spatial processes,
and identifies two promising new approaches. The first, developed by LeSage (2014, 2015), is
based on Bayesian comparison methods; and the second, developed by Halleck Vega and Elhorst
(2015), is based on taking the spatial lag of X (SLX) model as a point of departure.
The Bayesian comparison method of Credit (2018, in this issue) is used to test whether the
SLX model needs to be extended to a spatial Durbin model (SDM) with a spatial lag in the dependent variable or to a spatial Durbin error model (SDEM) with a spatial lag in the error term. The
first model implies that spillover effects are global and the second that they are local. The first
occurs when a change in one of the explanatory variables at any location is transmitted to all
other locations, even if two locations are unconnected according to the spatial weight matrix
describing the spatial arrangement between the units in the sample. By contrast, local spillovers
occur at other locations only if two locations are connected to each other according to the spatial
weight matrix. Generally, global spillovers are more difficult to justify than local spillovers. Nevertheless, Credit does find evidence in favour of this type of spillovers, which he explains by the
specific nature of knowledge transfers, information exchange and other agglomeration factors.
This result is achieved by comparing 54 possible model specifications: 18 weights matrices, ranging from three to 20 nearest neighbours, and three model specifications: SLX, SDM and
SDEM. This contribution is one of the few examples that successfully identifies the most likely
candidate for both the spatial econometric type of model and the spatial weight matrix. Previous
examples appeared in Spatial Economic Analysis by Rios, Pascual, and Cabases (2017) and in
Regional Studies by Da Silva, Elhorst, and Neto (2017).
The third paper by Sarrias (2018, in this issue) endeavours to provide enhanced methodologies
to examine subjective well-being (SWB), measured by a binary indicator, and how the relationship
between this indicator and individual characteristics vary over space. Two reasons for this spatial
variation are statistical in nature: sampling variation and variables omitted from the model that
follow a spatial non-stationary process, but the third and most relevant reason is that people’s preferences for some attributes are intrinsically different across space. Ignoring spatial heterogeneity
in consumer preferences and compensation schemes is an acknowledged weakness of many
studies, and this paper attempts to address that concern. The author compares two main specifications: (1) a random parameter specification where estimates associated with each covariate are
allowed to vary across municipalities according to a normal distribution – this method has
SPATIAL ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
Raising the bar (10)
3
similarities with the random coefficient model originally developed by Swamy (1970), and
extended with cross-sectional dependence by Pesaran (2006); and (2) a latent class specification
with a prespecified number of groups, which provides a discrete alternative to parameter heterogeneity. Most of the discussion in the paper focuses on which approach, continuous versus discrete, is better suited to quantify compensating variation for a number of local amenities. The
analysis is based on a micro-economic data set of 16,008 individuals between 15 and 64 years
of age living in 324 different communes across Chile. The reviewers of this paper especially
liked its positioning in a policy context, that is, the paper explains how policies to compensate
for welfare changes as a result of, for example, environmental changes may not compensate appropriately if an averaging approach is taken to such relationships.
Spatial heterogeneity is also the topic of the fourth paper by Rokicki and Hewings (2018, in
this issue). It constructs regional prices for Poland at NUTS-2 and NUTS-3 levels. Unique raw
price data for 300 goods and services are used to calculate annual regional purchasing power parity
(PPP) deflators for 16 NUTS-2 regions over the 2000–12 period, following previous approaches
developed by EUROSTAT and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD). Based on these indices, similar deflators are estimated for the 66 NUTS-3 regions by a
multiple imputation approach: a Bayesian Monte Carlo technique. Regions with the highest
prices appear to be located in and around large agglomerations (especially Warsaw) and adjacent
to the border with Germany. Lower prices are found in the central and eastern parts of the country
in which the agricultural sector plays a dominant role. Over the period 2000–11, regional price
levels do not show a clear tendency to convergence, although when employing their data imputed
at the NUTS-3 level the authors find that price disparities increased in the first years following
European Union accession in 2004. When using data at the NUTS-2 level, they are unable to
find this pattern.
Given the lack of information on regional price levels within European Union countries, the
paper offers a number of interesting policy implications. The main one is that the allocation of
Structural Funding in the European Union based on per capita income levels might be biased,
as the purchasing power might differ across regions much more than has been accounted for.
Notably, rural regions might be overvalued.
The last paper by Fujimoto (2018, in this issue) is part of a series of contributions to Spatial
Economic Analysis on input–output models, including, for example, those by Hermannsson (2016),
Hermannsson, Lecca, and Swales (2017), and Oosterhaven and Többen (2017). This paper constructs a regional input–output table for Japan from its national counterpart using and comparing
the performance of four non-survey techniques, each based on different assumptions regarding
cross-hauling to estimate export and imports. The cross-hauling-adjusted regionalization method
developed by Többen and Kronenberg (2015), and modified by Fujimoto (2015) in a previous
study published in Japanese, comes out as the best.
Hopefully, all five methodological contributions to the literature will reach a broad audience.
REFERENCES
Credit, K. (2018). Transitive properties: A spatial econometric analysis of new business creation around transit.
Spatial Economic Analysis, 1–27. doi:10.1080/17421772.2019.1523548
Da Silva, D. F. C., Elhorst, J. P., & Neto, R. D. M. S. (2017). Urban and rural population growth in a spatial panel
of municipalities. Regional Studies, 51(6), 894–908. doi:10.1080/00343404.2016.1144922
Elhorst, J. P. (2017). Spatial panel data analysis. In S. Shekhar, H. Xiong, & X. Zhou (Eds.), Encyclopedia of GIS,
2nd ed. (pp. 2050–2058). Cham: Springer.
Fujimoto, T. (2015). Quantitative analysis of the regional income determinant factors in the remote island economy:
Generation and application of regional input–output table. Journal of Rural Economics, 86(4), 257–272. [in Japanese]
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1111/jors.12188
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