Looking across Borders: A Test of Spatial Policy Interdependence using Local Government Efficiency Ratings
By Benny Geys, 2006
Spatial patterns in (local) government taxation and spending decisions have received a lot of scholarly attention recently. Still, the focus on taxation or expenditure levels in previous studies is incomplete. In fact, (rational) individuals are likely to consider the level of spending on (or taxation for) public goods provision simultaneously with how much public goods they actually receive – thus assessing the ‘price/quantity’ of government policy (in relation to that of neighbouring jurisdictions) rather than concentrating on spending (or taxation) levels alone. Therefore, the present paper argues that incumbents may want their ‘price/quantity’ ratio to be close to that in neighbouring regions. Using Flemish local governments’ efficiency ratings for the year 2000 (which relate tax revenues to the quantity of locally provided public goods), we confirm the existence of such neighbourhood effects in local government policies.
 Geys (2006) Looking across Borders | [ ] |
Regional Unemployment Forecasts with Spatial Interdependencies
By Norbert Schanne, Rüdiger Wapler and Antje Weyh, 2008
We forecast unemployment for the 176 German labour-market districts on a monthly basis. Because of their small size, strong spatial interdependencies exist between these regional units. To account for these as well as for the heterogeneity in the regional development over time, we apply different versions of an univariate spatial GVAR model. When comparing the forecast precision with univariate time-series methods, we find that the spatial model does indeed perform better or at least as well. Hence, the GVAR model provides an alternative or complementary approach to commonly used methods in regional forecasting which do not consider regional interdependencies.
| Regional Unemployment Forecasts with Spatial Interdependencies | [ ] |
Globalisation or ‘glocalisation’? Networks, territories and rescaling
By Erik Swyngedouw, 2004
This paper argues that the alleged process of globalisation should be recast as a process of ‘glocalisation’. ‘Glocalisation’ refers to the twin process whereby, firstly, institutional/regulatory arrangements shift from the national scale both upwards to supra-national or global scales and downwards to the scale of the individual body or to local, urban or regional configurations and, secondly, economic activities and inter-firm networks are becoming simultaneously more localised/regionalised and transnational. In particular, attention will be paid to the political and economic dynamics of this
geographical rescaling and its implications. The scales of economic networks and institutional arrangements are recast in ways that alter social power geometries in important ways. This contribution, therefore, argues, first, that an important discursive shift took place over the last decade or so which is an integral part of an intensifying ideological, political, socioeconomic and cultural struggle over the organisation of society and the position of the citizen. Secondly, the pre-eminence of the ‘global’ in much of the literature and political rhetoric obfuscates, marginalizes and silences an intense and
ongoing socio-spatial struggle in which the reconfiguration of spatial scale is a key arena. Third, both the scales of economic flows and networks and those of territorial governance are rescaled through a process of ‘glocalisation’, and, finally, the proliferation of new modes and forms of resistance to the restless process of de-territorialisation/re-territorialisation of capital requires greater attention to engaging a ‘politics of scale’. In the final part, attention will be paid to the potentially empowering possibilities of a politics that is sensitive to these scale issues.
Empirical Models of Spatial Interdependence
By Robert J. Franzese, Jr. and Jude C. Hays, 2008
Until recently, empirical analyses of spatial interdependence in the social sciences remained largely confined to specialized areas of applied economics (e.g., environmental, urban/regional, real-estate economics) and sociology (i.e., network analysis). However, social-scientific interest in and applications of spatial modeling have burgeoned lately, due partly to advances in theory that imply interdependence and in methodology for addressing it, partly to global substantive changes that have raised at least the perception of and attention to interconnectivity, and likely the actual degree and extent of it, at all levels, from micro/personal to macro/international, and partly to advances in technology for obtaining and working with spatial data. In political science, too, spatial empirical analyses have grown increasingly common: a very welcome development as many phenomena that political scientists study entail substantively important spatial interdependence.
| Empirical Models of Spatial Interdependence | [ ] |
