Level Of Spatial Disaggregation Research Articles

An annual estimate of spatially disaggregated populations: Spain, 1900–2011

Long-term population estimates are usually based on decennial (or roughly decennial), census-type data, especially those that go beyond the aggregate or national level. The lack of annual population datasets, however, restricts the range of analysis and therefore our knowledge of populations’ behaviour over time. This paper contributes to this scant literature by providing two new long-term, annually and spatially disaggregated population estimates for Spain, a key case study. We use a set of official sources and propose a straightforward method to estimate Spanish annual populations at two levels of spatial disaggregation, the provinces (NUTS III) and their capital cities (a selection of LAU II/NUTS V), between 1900 and 2011. For the cities, our estimates account for changes in boundaries. Our proposed method is especially suitable for countries with a lack of long-term, systematic, historical migration statistics, a common issue. To test the robustness of our estimates, some comparisons are made with previous more aggregated-level or decennial census-based estimates, and a preliminary analysis of the evolution of disaggregated Spanish population is presented.

New Approach to Economic Convergence in the EU: A Multilevel Analysis from the Spatial Effects Perspective

The β-convergence model is based on the neoclassical framework in which the spatial level of analysis is not relevant. These levels will result in decreasing returns. However, local processes of agglomeration, spillover effects, or other forces could operate differently depending on the level of spatial disaggregation. The primary objective of this article is to observe whether different local, regional, and national convergence behaviors are possible in the European Union (EU). To capture the differences among spatial scales, a multilevel and spatial effects extension of the Solow–Swan theoretical growth model is proposed. The estimations of this model are made using consistent information from Eurostat and Cambridge Econometrics for the period of 2000–2014. A multilevel spatial Durbin model estimator is applied to evaluate the spatial interactions of the regions. The results indicate that a general process of convergence in the EU coexists with intranational processes of divergence, highlighting the relevance of the spatial level of analysis. A final analysis of the impact of the economic crisis over the general behavior has been included verifying that the economic crisis strongly reinforce the weakness of the EU convergence.

Labor Density and Wages in Spain: Evidence from Geographically Disaggregated Data

AbstractIn this paper, Ciccone's () approach is applied to the Spanish case in 2011 but by estimating it using local labor markets (LLMs) instead of NUTS‐2 or NUTS‐3 regions. It is especially relevant in the case of Spain because the NUTS‐3 (provinces) are large regions in comparison with other cases in Europe. From a sample of income taxpayers published by the Spanish Fiscal Studies Institute, we derive figures on average wages by worker on the scale of LLMs. We argue that working at this level of spatial disaggregation is more in line with the idea of externalities from agglomerations, which are generated on a local scale. We can also observe intra‐regional heterogeneity and how the urban wage premium changes along the entire distribution of cities, including small‐medium size urban areas or rural areas. The empirical analysis is based on several estimation strategies, namely, ordinary least squares, two‐stages least squares, quantile regressions (QR), and instrumental variable quantile regressions (IVQR) estimators; they all find a significantly positive effect of agglomeration in the conditional mean of wages. This result can be estimated along the conditional distribution of wages. According to the QR and IVQR estimates, important variations are found along the distribution.

Constructing a Synthetic City for Estimating Spatially Disaggregated Heat Demand

We present a procedure for creating a spatially referenced building stock with population living therein ?a synthetic city? for the case of Germany. The level of spatial disaggregation is the European NUTS?3 level for which data from the newest census (2011) exist. Our application is on the estimation of heat demand. We use the German microcensus (2010) which contains both: (a) detailed sociodemographic characteristics of individuals and (b) detailed information on the type of buildings in which these individuals live. With this data we can generate not only a synthetic population but also a synthetic building stock. The microcensus records the construction year and number of dwelling units of buildings. This allow us to classify the buildings for the estimation of heat demand. This procedure has two major advantages: (1) there exist many models for the estimation of heat demand at building level, we can make use of these models, and (2) with the microcensus as the only required data source we are able to estimate heat demand at a spatially disaggregated level for the entire country. We conclude our paper with an internal validation of the microsimulation model by means of the Total Absolute Error T AE and present the first results from this model aggregated at the NUTS?3 level for the entire country. We briefly discuss the observed patters of the results and attempt to hypothesize on the reasons behind this patterns. We also discuss the difficulties of an external validation of this model and how we can address them in the future.

Landscape gene flow, coexistence and threshold effect: The case of genetically modified herbicide tolerant oilseed rape ( Brassica napus)

Globally there have been a number of concerns about the development of genetically modified crops many of which relate to the implications of gene flow at various levels. In Europe these concerns have led the European Union (EU) to promote the concept of ‘coexistence’ to allow the freedom to plant conventional and genetically modified (GM) varieties but to minimise the presence of transgenic material within conventional crops. Should a premium for non-GM varieties emerge on the market, the presence of transgenes would generate a ‘negative externality’ to conventional growers. The establishment of maximum tolerance level for the adventitious presence of GM material in conventional crops produces a threshold effect in the external costs. The existing literature suggests that apart from the biological characteristics of the plant under consideration (e.g. self-pollination rates, entomophilous species, anemophilous species, etc.), gene flow at the landscape level is affected by the relative size of the source and sink populations and the spatial arrangement of the fields in the landscape. In this paper, we take genetically modified herbicide tolerant oilseed rape (GM HT OSR) as a model crop. Starting from an individual pollen dispersal function, we develop a spatially explicit numerical model in order to assess the effect of the size of the source/sink populations and the degree of spatial aggregation on the extent of gene flow into conventional OSR varieties under two alternative settings. We find that when the transgene presence in conventional produce is detected at the field level, the external cost will increase with the size of the source area and with the level of spatial disaggregation. On the other hand when the transgene presence is averaged among all conventional fields in the landscape (e.g. because of grain mixing before detection), the external cost will only depend on the relative size of the source area. The model could readily be incorporated into an economic evaluation of policies to regulate adoption of GM HT OSR.

A methodological approach to the comparison of municipal balance-sheet figures

In the comparison of municipalities balance sheets figures, the per-resident ratios lose some of their relevance as indicators of municipal expenditure or taxation behaviour. At this level of spatial disaggregation, the resident population is generally not in a direct relationship with balance sheets figures; the problem is evident especially for those municipalities with significant flows of non-residents, demanding and paying for services. The paper provides a frame of reference within which the measurement of municipal behaviour is conditioned to the approximation of the unobserved “real” size of each individual municipality. The joint use of several types of information about the structure of municipalities yields composite indicators of greater statistical relevance than the usual indicators based on the residential population alone.

Combining Census and Survey Data to Trace the Spatial Dimensions of Poverty: A Case Study of Ecuador

Poverty maps provide information on the spatial distribution of living standards. They are an important tool for policymakers, who rely on them to allocate transfers and inform policy design. Poverty maps art also an important tool for researchers, who use them to investigate the relationship between distribution within a country and growth or other economic, environmental, or social outcomes. A major impediment to the development of poverty maps has been that needed data on income or consumption typically are available only from relatively small surveys. Census data have the required sample size but generally do not have the required information. This article uses the case of Ecuador to demonstrate how sample survey data can be combined with census data to yield predicted poverty rates for the population covered by the census. This poverty rates are found to be precisely measured, even at fairly disaggregated levels. However, beyond a certain level of spatial disaggregation, standard errors rise rapidly.

Snowmelt runoff models

Models that predict meltwater runoff at a daily timescale are important in water resource management, flood hazard assessment and climate-change impact studies. This article identifies four basic components of such models: meteorological extrapolation, snowmelt estimation at a point, snow-cover depletion and runoff routing. Alternative ways of handling these are discussed, with emphasis on the contrasting treatments in two widely used models: HBV and SRM. Many of the issues in meltwater modelling reflect wider debates in hydrological and environmental modelling, including problems of complexity vs. simplicity, the appropriate level of spatial disaggregation, parameter identification and calibration, and internal validation. In reviewing current trends emphasis is placed on the potential and limitations of fully distributed models, problems in using energy-balance rather than temperature-index melt models at basin scale, ways to deal with spatial variability in snow cover, and the value and limitations of earth observation data.

A Tale of Two Cities: Sociotenurial Polarisation in London and the South East, 1966–1981

The late 1960s saw the reemergence of concern over the growth of social polarisation in London. Much of the evidence produced subsequently has been fragmentary and inconclusive, the results depending on the geographical extent of the analyses, the time periods, and levels of spatial disaggregation utilised. Using head of household data for 1966 and 1981, it is shown that the level of social polarisation between London and the rest of the South East increased over this period. There was also a slight tendency towards greater polarisation between inner and outer London. It is also shown that these changes were strongly associated with changes in the tenure structure of the region over this period. In particular, the large increases in the number of professional and managerial household heads in the South East outside London were strongly associated with the growth of owner occupation, whereas the relative increases in the less skilled and economically inactive in London were associated with the growth of council tenure. It is concluded that the period 1966–1981 saw an increasing degree of sociotenurial polarisation within the region and that the structure of housing opportunities by tenure played a major role in this process.