Regional Growth Patterns Research Articles

Ontogenetic relationships betweenin vivostrain environment, bone histomorphometry and growth in the goat radius

Vertebrate long bone form, at both the gross and the microstructural level, is the result of many interrelated influences. One factor that is considered to have a significant effect on bone form is the mechanical environment experienced by the bone during growth. The work presented here examines the possible relationships between in vivo bone strains, bone geometry and histomorphology in the radii of three age/size groups of domestic goats. In vivo bone strain data were collected from the radii of galloping goats, and the regional cortical distribution of peak axial strain magnitudes, radial and circumferential strain gradients, and longitudinal strain rates related to regional patterns in cortical growth, porosity, remodelling and collagen fibre orientation. Although porosity and remodelling decreased and increased with age, respectively, these features showed no significant regional differences and did not correspond to regional patterns in the mechanical environment. Thicker regions of the radius's cortex were significantly related to high strain levels and higher rates of periosteal, but not endosteal, growth. However, cortical growth and strain environment were not significantly related. Collagen fibre orientation varied regionally, with a higher percentage of transverse fibres in the caudal region of the radius and primarily longitudinal fibres elsewhere, and, although consistent through growth, also did not generally correspond to regional strain patterns. Although strain magnitudes increased during ontogeny and regional strain patterns were variable over the course of a stride, mean regional strain patterns were generally consistent with growth, suggesting that regional growth patterns and histomorphology, in combination with external loads, may play some role in producing a relatively 'predictable' strain environment within the radius. It is further hypothesized that the absence of correlation between regional histomorphometric patterns and the measured strain environments is the result of the variable mechanical environment. However, the potential effects of other physiological and mechanical factors, such as skeletal metabolism and adjacent muscle insertions, that can influence the gross and microstructural morphology of the radius during ontogeny, cannot be ignored.

Regional growth patterns and growth contagion

PurposeThis paper seeks to assess the importance of time‐varying regional patterns to countries' per capita growth rates, and their effect on the conclusions that can be drawn from growth regressions.Design/methodology/approachPooled ordinary least squares on a data set of five‐year average growth rates for 101 countries over the period 1960‐1999 are used.FindingsIt is shown that time‐varying regional dummies explain more of the variance of per capita growth rates than do commonly used independent variables. This may indicate a problem of omitted variables with a strong regional dimension, or alternatively that growth is highly “contagious” within a region, perhaps through trade. Variables such as the growth of neighbouring countries or trading partners appear to be highly statistically significant when time‐varying regional effects are ignored, but are much less so when they are properly controlled for, and may simply be capturing unobserved regional effects. There is evidence that these variables reflect international business cycle correlation rather than the advantages of trading with, or being close to, faster‐growing countries.Research limitations/implicationsThere are strong regional patterns to growth of which one is still far from a full understanding.Practical implicationsGrowth of neighbouring countries or trading partners may be much less important for a country's per capita growth than is sometimes claimed.Originality/valueThe findings show the importance of applying appropriate robustness checks to empirical results, and (in a two‐dimensional data set) of exploring whether variables explain the time‐series or the cross‐section dimension.

Human Capital, Economic Growth, and Regional Inequality in China

We study the dispersion in rates of provincial economic- and TFP growth in China. Our results show that regional growth patterns can be understood as a function of several interrelated factors, which include investment in physical capital, human capital, and infrastructure capital; the infusion of new technology and its regional spread; and market reforms, with a major step forward occurring following Deng Xiaoping???s ???South Trip??? in 1992. We find that FDI had much larger effect on TFP growth before 1994 than after, and we attribute this to emergence of other channels of technology transfer when marketization accelerated. We find that human capital positively affects output per worker and productivity growth. In particular, in terms of its direct contribution to production, educated labor has a much higher marginal product. Moreover, we estimate a positive, direct effect of human capital on TFP growth. This direct effect is hypothesized to come from domestic innovation activities. The estimated spillover effect of human capital on TFP growth is positive and statistically significant, which is very robust to model specifications and estimation methods. The spillover effect appears to be much stronger before 1994. We conduct cost-benefit analysis and a policy ???experiment,??? in which we project the impact increases in human capital and infrastructure capital on regional inequality. We conclude that investing in human capital will be an effective policy to reduce regional gaps in China as well as an efficient means to promote economic growth.

Longitudinal Brain Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study of the Alcohol‐Preferring Rat. Part I: Adult Brain Growth

The alcohol-preferring (P) rat, a Wistar strain selectively bred to consume large amounts of alcohol voluntarily, has been used as an animal model of human alcoholism for 3 decades. Heretofore, knowledge about brain morphology has been confined to postmortem examination. Quantitative neuroimaging procedures make it feasible to examine the potential longitudinal effects of alcohol exposure in vivo, while controlling modifying factors, such as age, nutrition, and exercise. To date, few imaging studies have considered what morphological changes occur with age in the rodent brain, and none has systematically applied quantitative neuroimaging approaches to measure volume changes in regional brain structures over extended periods in the adult rat. We used structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in a longitudinal design to examine 2 cohorts of adult P rats, never exposed to alcohol: Cohort A included 8 rats, 7 of which survived the entire study (578 days) and 4 MRI sessions; Cohort B included 9 rats, all of which survived the study (452 days) and 5 MRI sessions. Growth in whole-brain volume reached maximal levels by about 450 days of age, whereas body weight continued its gain without asymptote. Growth was not uniform across the brain structures measured. Over the initial 12 months of the study, the corpus callosum area expanded 36%, cerebellum 17%, and hippocampus 10%, whereas ventricle size was unchanged. Factors affecting growth rate estimates included litter effects, MR image signal-to-noise ratio, and measurement error. Unlike longitudinal human reports of regional volume declines in aging brain tissue, several brain structures in adult rats continued growing, and some growth patterns were litter-dependent. Determining normal regional growth patterns of brain and of the substantial variance exerted by litter differences, even in selectively bred rats, is essential for establishing baselines against which normal and aberrant dynamic changes can be detected in animal models of aging and disease.

Regional disparities in the European Union and the enlargement process: an exploratory spatial data analysis, 1995–2000

The aim of this paper is to study the space–time dynamics of European regional per capita gross domestic product (GDP) in the perspective of the enlargement of the European Union using exploratory spatial data analysis. We find strong evidence of global and local spatial autocorrelation as well as spatial heterogeneity in the distribution of regional per capita GDP in a sample of 258 European regions including regions from acceding and candidate European countries over the period 1995–2000. However, contrary to previous results obtained in the literature highlighting a North–South polarization scheme, the enlargement process leads to a new North–West–East polarization scheme. The economic dynamism of EU15 regions and acceding or candidate regions is also investigated by exploring the spatial pattern of regional growth. Implications for regional development and cohesion policies are finally suggested.

Gecekondu Settlements in Turkey: Rural—Urban Migration in the Developing European Periphery

Squatter settlements or “shanty towns” are often viewed as a problem confined to poorer countries of the developing world. Turkey is centered neither in the impoverished Third World nor the industrialized West, but has experienced rapid urban growth and related modernizing social tensions attendant with its headlong pitch into the European Union (E.U.) and European affairs. This article considers Turkey's urban poverty and unauthorized settlements within the broader agenda of United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-Habitat) and the wider region of Europe, and offers a regional study for geography educators focused on National Geography Standards for places, migration and settlement. The gecekondu, Turkey's version of a squatter town, offers a case study of the causes, effects, and regional patterns of urban growth in a country with European ambitions yet still shaped by developing rural-to-urban migration.

Innovation and Regional Growth in the Enlarged Europe: The Role of Local Innovative Capabilities, Peripherality, and Education

In this paper, a formal model for the relationship between innovation and growth in European Union regions is developed drawing upon the theoretical contribution of the systems of innovation approach. The model combines the analytical approach of the regional growth models with the insights of the systemic approach. The cross-sectional analysis, covering all the Enlarged Europe (EU-25) regions (for which data are available), shows that regional innovative activities (for which a specific measure is developed) play a significant role in determining differential regional growth patterns. Furthermore, the model sheds light on how geographical accessibility and human capital accumulation, by shaping the regional system of innovation, interact (in a statistically significant way) with local innovative activities, thus allowing them to be more (or less) effectively translated into economic growth. The paper shows that an increase in innovative effort is not necessarily likely to produce the same effect in all EU-25 regions. Indeed, the empirical analysis suggests that in order to allow innovative efforts in peripheral regions to be as productive as in core areas, they need to be complemented by huge investments in human capital.

Une convergence lente ? La nouvelle théorie de la croissance endogène et le développement régional

En economie, l’attention a ete renouvelee en croissance economique, tout particulierement en convergence a long-terme en revenue et rendement par tete entre les pays. Ce debat essentiellement empirique a promu le developpement de la theorie de la croissance endogene, qui cherche a aller au-dela de la theorie neoclassique conventionnelle, traitant comme endogenes les facteurs — particulierement le changement technologique et le capital humain — relegues comme exogenes par les modeles neoclassiques. Les premiers economistes de theorie de la croissance endogene et la nouvelle croissance empirique ont commence a utiliser des modeles de la croissance regionale a long-terme pour tester et developper leurs idees. Leurs analyses suggerent que la convergence regionale est un processus lent et discontinu. Dans cet article nous examinons si la croissance economique endogene peut aider a expliquer ces conclusions. Nous avancons que la theorie de la croissance endogene a des implications regionales importantes, mais egalement des limitations quand elle est appliquee au contexte regional.

Why Mexico's regional income convergence broke down

According to previous research, Mexico's trade reforms led to a divergent pattern in regional per-capita output levels. This research did not fully include Mexico's regional growth performance after 1994, when NAFTA started operating. In this paper, I extend the sample to include Mexico's regional growth patterns after this treaty was enacted and I explore what factors may account for this result. The findings suggest that the divergent pattern observed after 1985 was not reversed with NAFTA. The results also suggest that the winners from the reforms were those states initially endowed with, or able to attract, higher levels of human and physical capital and better infrastructure.

Regional Diversity and Sources of Economic Growth in China

Regional diversity in the process of economic growth is the major concern in this paper. We will try to identify its sources for growth and to specify production functions in each province by estimating translog production function. This paper clarifies the following four facts: First, capital accumulation was a major source for growth in the earlier stage of the Chinese economy, especially in the eastern coastal region. Unexpectedly, capital accumulation is losing its ground over the years. Second, the employment structure of the economy in the eastern region has changed significantly and the shares of workers in the secondary and tertiary industries increased until 1992. Since 1992, these figures have not changed significantly despite China's continuous economic high growth. Third, four distinguishable regional growth patterns have contributed to China's economic growth. Finally, production technologies in each province vary both in the direction of factor intensity and in the elasticity of substitution between inputs.

Threshold effects and regional economic growth—evidence from West Germany

We study an overlapping generations model of human capital accumulation with threshold effects using regional data for West Germany. Our basic goal is to shed light on what makes German regions grow. The paper finds that the relative income distribution appears to be stratifying into a trimodal distribution. The results of threshold estimates imply that there is no simple relationship between income growth and human capital. The process of regional growth is marked by thresholds, pointing to the existence of different growth equilibria. Thus, application of the threshold model to a real world case, here West Germany, shows that the model might help to explain regional growth patterns.

Simulating the time series of a selected gene expression profile in an agent-based tumor model

To elucidate the role of environmental conditions in molecular-level dynamics and to study their impact on macroscopic brain tumor growth patterns, the expression of the genes Tenascin C and PCNA in a 2D agent-based model for the migratory trait is calibrated using experimental data from the literature, while the expression of these genes for the proliferative trait is obtained as the model output. Numerical results confirm that the gene expression of Tenascin C is indeed consistently higher in the migratory glioma cell phenotype and show that the expression of PCNA is consistently higher among proliferating tumor cells. Intriguingly, the time series of the tumor cells’ gene expression exhibit a sudden change in behavior during the invasion of the tumor into a nutrient-abundant region, showing a robust positive correlation between the expression of Tenascin C and the tumor’s diameter, yet a strong negative correlation between the expression of PCNA and the diameter. These molecular-level dynamics correspond to the emergence of a structural asymmetry in the form of a bulging tumor rim in the nutrient-abundant region. The simulated time series thus supports the critical role of the migratory cell phenotype during both the tumor system’s overall macroscopic expansion and the evolvement of regional growth patterns, particularly in the later stages. Furthermore, detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) suggests that for prediction purposes, the simulated gene expression profiles of Tenascin C and PCNA that were determined separately for the migrating and proliferating phenotypes exhibit lesser predictability than those of the phenotypic mixture combining all viable tumor cells typically found in clinical biopsies. Finally, partitioning the tumor into distinct geographic regions of interest (ROI) reveals that the gene expression profile of tumor cells in the quadrant close to the nutrient-abundant region is representative for the entire tumor whereas the expression profile of tumor cells in the geographically opposite ROI is not. Potential implications of these modeling results for experimental and clinical cancer research are discussed.

Manufacturing agglomeration as incentives to Asian FDI in China after WTO

The economic reform in China represents a fundamental change and overhaul of her value system, law making, institutional infrastructure, and social-economic structure, which constitute a necessary step for mobilizing foreign direct investment (FDI). The significant spatial concentration of FDI is viewed as reflecting agglomeration effects generated in selected regions that are put forward as the main explanation for the observed spatial pattern of FDI. This object of this paper is: (1) to review the construction of a legal/institutional infrastructure to support FDI specific policies, along with the continuous reforms and market opening which have facilitated the current FDI growth in China; (2) to investigate the spatial distribution of China’s FDI at the greater regional level; (3) to empirically demonstrate the effects of agglomeration on FDI absorption at a less aggregate city-level; and (4) to discuss the implications of the foregoing on the volume of future FDI flows with special reference to Asian FDI in China. The research results indicate that the dynamics of FDI evolution are closely associated with the process of legal modernization and policy reforms via institutionalization that are required to move toward a market-oriented host country for global international capital. Further FDI absorption after WTO will follow the market power of agglomeration economies, which may further strengthen China’s current biased regional growth pattern.

The Timing of Marriage in China

This paper studies the marriage timing decisions of young men and women in China. The data set is a sample of Chinese couples with ample variations in marriage market features, personal characteristics, and regional patterns of growth. Exploiting the dierences in marriage timing among the couples in our data set, we find empirical results that are largely consistent with the notion that marriage gains, search costs, and job complexity determine the timing of marriage. In particular, marriage is likely to be delayed for urban (but not rural) men and women with higher wage. Regional economic growth appears to slow down the tendency to get married for both men and women and in both cities and the countryside. Access to network of young people (via the Communist Youth League) facilitates marriage for all young people. Better-educated young people tend to get married later in life. c 2003 Peking

Exploratory spatial data analysis of the distribution of regional per capita GDP in Europe, 1980–1995

Abstract. The aim of this paper is to study the space‐time dynamics of European regional per capital GDP. A sample of 138 European regions over the 1980–1995 period provides clear evidence of global and local spatial autocorrelation as well as spatial heterogeneity in the distribution of regional per capita GDP. The detection of spatial clusters of high and low per capita GDP throughout the period is an indication of the persistence of spatial disparities among European regions. The dynamism of European regions is investigated by exploring the spatial pattern of regional growth. Implications for applied econometric work on the convergence of European regions are then suggested.

Exploratory spatial data analysis of the distribution of regional per capita GDP in Europe, 1980-1995

The aim of this paper is to study the dynamics of European regional per capita product over time and space. This purpose is achieved by using the recently developed methods of Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis. Using a sample of European regions over the 1980-1995 period, we find strong evidence of global and local spatial autocorrelation in per capita GDP throughout the period. The detection of clusters of high and low per capita products during the period is an indication of the persistence of spatial disparities between European regions. This analysis is finally refined by the investigation of the spatial pattern of regional growth. Key words:exploratory spatial data analysis; distribution of regional per capita GDP; European Union; spatial autocorrelation; regional inequalities

Austrian Border Regions and Eastern Integration. A Low Competitiveness - High Growth Paradoxon

Many regions on the EU Eastern borders have developed favourably after the opening up of the border and the implementation of association agreements with the CEECs. This was often seen as a positive sign for the further perspectives of these regions after EU enlargement. In this paper we take a closer look at the mechanisms involved in a case study for Austria. Based on a very disaggregated data set at a regional as well as sectoral level we find that neither sectoral preconditions nor locational advantages can explain the good performance of (rural) border regions after 1989. Using multivariate cluster analyses we group 3-digit-industries to theoretically founded typologies indicating different sector characteristics and find that (fast growing) rural border regions are dominated by industries that show disadvantageous characteristics for eastwest trade. Furthermore, we identify locational factors relevant for regional growth in a traditional Barro-style growth regression and find a regional distribution of these factors in Austria, which also places rural border regions at a disadvantage. Rather than these factors or advantages from proximity to the new markets, impacts internal to the Austrian markets seem to determine regional growth patterns in the 1990s. Therefore it would be misleading to take a stable development of rural border regions after EU enlargement for granted due to past experiences.

Measuring self-sustainability of economic development at the county level

Factors that affect self-sustainability of regional economic development are defined and analyzed in this paper. Extensive empirical testing shows that at the county level, the size of the regional economy and agglomeration effects are less important than its regional multiplier and its export base. Because the classic export-base model fails specification tests when estimated at the county level, a modified export-base model accounting for spatial effects is developed and analyzed. To validate the proposed spatial export-base model, a practical procedure for estimating parameters of the model is also developed and utilized in an empirical study. The paper concludes with a brief review of the applicability of the modified export-base model to the analysis of the self-sustainability of regional economies, its limitations, and its policy implications. In particular, it is suggested that regional economic development policies should focus on promoting patterns of self-reinforcing regional growth rather than on maintaining unsustainable economic initiatives. It is also demonstrated that the size of a county's economy is not directly related to its self-sustainability and growth rates.

Geographic Factors and China's Regional Development Under Market Reforms, 1978-98

This study investigates the geographic effects on regional economic growth in China under market reforms. We develop a model for the regional growth pattern of the Chinese economy during the period, characterized by foreign direct investment (FDI) and mobilization of rural surplus labor. The FDI and labor migration are directed by the differentials in the expected returns from the capital investment and in the wage rate. The differentials are, to a large extent, explained by geographic factors. In the context of market reforms and the open door policy, the spatial and topographic advantages of the coastal provinces are realized. As a result, the returns to the capital investment in the coastal provinces are higher than in the rest of the country, thus attracting more FDI and migrant labor into the region and causing the growth disparity. Our empirical test supports this hypothesis. It finds that geographic factors are statistically significant in explaining the regional disparity in China. This disparity is mainly a coast versus non-coast gap.

Threshold Effects and Regional Economic Growth - Evidence from West Germany

We study an overlapping generations model of human capital accumulation with threshold effects using regional data for West Germany. Our basic goal is to shed light on what makes German regions grow. The paper finds that the relative income distribution appears to be stratifying into a trimodal distribution. Thus, application of the threshold model to a real world case, here West Germany, shows that the model might help to explain regional growth patterns.