scholarly journals Evaluating The Relationship Between Transportation Infrastructure and Economic Activity: Evidence from Washington State

2011 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven K. Peterson ◽  
Eric L. Jessup
Keyword(s):  
Economic Activity ◽  
Public Investment ◽  
State Level ◽  
Directed Acyclic Graphs ◽  
Washington State ◽  
Transportation Infrastructure ◽  
Vector Autoregressions ◽  
State Highway ◽  
Industrial Sectors ◽  
Treat All

Prior analysis regarding transportation infrastructure has often focused on the aggregate effects of public investment on economic growth or activity, usually at a national or state level. Modeling efforts that attempt to treat all counties as equivalent units, while assuming a homogeneous modeling structure for all the units, may miss important information regarding the statistical and causal relationships between economic activity and transportation infrastructure. This study examines the interrelationships between infrastructure and activity using two Washington State highway infrastructure datasets in combination with county-level employment, wages, and establishment numbers for several industrial sectors for a subset of counties from 1990 to 2004. Estimates using vector autoregressions, error correction models, and directed acyclic graphs are made. The results show that the relationships between infrastructure investment and economic activity are often weak and are not uniform in effect.

Work-from-home during COVID-19: Accounting for the care economy to build back better

2021 ◽  
pp. 103530462098360
Author(s):  
Fiona Jenkins ◽  
Julie Smith
Keyword(s):  
Economic Activity ◽  
Public Investment ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Rapid Adaptation ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Jel Codes ◽  
Work From Home ◽  
Adaptive Capabilities ◽  
Care Economy ◽  
A Site

In the COVID-19 pandemic, people’s dwellings suddenly became a predominant site of economic activity. We argue that, predictably, policy-makers and employers took the home for granted as a background support of economic life. Acting as if home is a cost-less resource that is free for appropriation in an emergency, ignoring how home functions as a site of gendered relations of care and labour, and assuming home is a largely harmonious site, all shaped the invisibility of the imposition. Taking employee flexibility for granted and presenting work-from-home as a privilege offered by generous employers assumed rapid adaptation. As Australia emerges from lockdown, ‘building back better’ to meet future shocks entails better supporting adaptive capabilities of workers in the care economy, and of homes that have likewise played an unacknowledged role as buffer and shelter for the economy. Investing in infrastructure capable of providing a more equitable basis for future resilience is urgent to reap the benefits that work-from-home offers. This article points to the need for rethinking public investment and infrastructure priorities for economic recovery and reconstruction in the light of a gender perspective on COVID-19 ‘lockdown’ experience. JEL Codes: E01, E22, J24

scholarly journals The Persistent Effects of Place-Based Policy: Evidence from the West-German Zonenrandgebiet

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 344-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maximilian v. Ehrlich ◽  
Tobias Seidel
Keyword(s):  
Economic Activity ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Public Investment ◽  
Spatial Regression ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Tax Base ◽  
Agglomeration Externalities ◽  
Land Rents ◽  
Economic Density

Using a natural experiment, we show that temporary place-based subsidies generate persistent effects on economic density. The spatial regression discontinuity design controls for continuous local agglomeration externalities, so we attribute an important role to capital formation in explaining persistent spatial patterns of economic activity. This persistence is driven by higher local public investment levels, which local governments could maintain after the end of the program because of a persistently higher tax base. We also find evidence for significant local relocation of economic activity, which raises doubts that the net effect of the policy is positive. Finally, we show that transfers have capitalized in land rents such that pretreatment landowners have benefited from the program. (JEL H71, H76, O18, R11, R12, R51, R58)

Building entrepreneurial capacity in rural areas

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 903-918
Author(s):  
Anna Krakowiak-Bal ◽  
Urszula Ziemianczyk ◽  
Andrzej Wozniak
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Local Development ◽  
Practical Implication ◽  
Public Investment ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Important Criterion ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Ahp Method ◽  
Content Type

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to verify the development of economic activities in rural areas in terms of their public infrastructural equipment. Design/methodology/approach As a case study, the Polish rural areas were selected. A two-stage survey was conducted in 2015. The first stage involved entrepreneurs from rural areas. The second stage of survey was data collection for rural areas regarding economic activity and infrastructural equipment. In total, 121 objects (communes) were selected. The multicriteria analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method was used for the analysis. Findings The results demonstrate that for each kind of business, communication accessibility is the most important criterion. By contrast, environmental awareness and concern for the environment is the least important element for pursuit of the economic activity in rural areas. Research limitations/implications Limitations are connected mainly with the applied AHP method. The number of the comparable elements at the same hierarchy level is limited due to practical purposes. In addition, an assumption of full comparability of elements (criteria and alternatives) in the hierarchy model can be discussed. Furthermore, data quality and availability limit the scope of the empirical work. This study is a major simplification of reality modeling, but it gives practical benefits by simplifying the decision support procedure. Practical implications The findings of this paper contribute to the advancing theory of local development, with public infrastructure being one of its basic elements (factor of production). This paper explores the importance of physical infrastructure for different economic activities, and thus offers theoretical insights in two areas. First, this paper indicates the uneven weight of each infrastructure element for the various business sectors. Second, based on the collected data, this study also contributes to the literature, by using the AHP method to explore the relationships between infrastructural equipment and economic activity in rural areas. As the practical implication for local and regional development policies, this study indicates, that the most important criterion for each kind of economic activity is communication accessibility. This kind of public investment should be undertaken primarily to support entrepreneurship, especially in rural areas. Originality/value The uniqueness of the method lies in assumption about the uneven weights of infrastructure elements and therefore their impact on the process of ranking the objects (rural areas). The weight of individual infrastructure elements will vary depending on the kind of economic activity; therefore, the way of ordering will also be different for each economic activity.

Public Investments and Class Gaps in Parents’ Developmental Expenditures

2022 ◽  
pp. 000312242110699
Author(s):  
Margot I. Jackson ◽  
Daniel Schneider
Keyword(s):  
Family Income ◽  
Public Investment ◽  
State Level ◽  
Income Support ◽  
Consumer Expenditure ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Household Level ◽  
Parental Investments ◽  
Public Investments ◽  
Investments In Children

Families and governments are the primary sources of investment in children, providing access to basic resources and other developmental opportunities. Recent research identifies significant class gaps in parental investments that contribute to high levels of inequality by family income and education. State-level public investments in children and families have the potential to reduce class inequality in children’s developmental environments by affecting parents’ behavior. Using newly assembled administrative data from 1998 to 2014, linked to household-level data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey, we examine how public-sector investment in income support, health, and education is associated with the private expenditures of low- and high-SES parents on developmental items for children. Are class gaps in parental investments in children narrower in contexts of higher public investment for children and families? We find that more generous public spending for children and families is associated with significantly narrower class gaps in private parental investments. Furthermore, we find that equalization is driven by bottom-up increases in low-SES households’ developmental spending in response to progressive state investments of income support and health, and by top-down decreases in high-SES households’ developmental spending in response to universal state investment in public education.

Linking Economic Development to Highway Improvements: Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota

2003 ◽  
Vol 1848 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sakina Khan ◽  
David Levy
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
South Dakota ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Transportation Network ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Transportation Infrastructure ◽  
Pine Ridge ◽  
Tourism Sector ◽  
Transportation Improvements

Much of the literature on the economic benefits associated with investments in transportation infrastructure focuses on locations with at least some measure of private-sector economic activity. The focus here is on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, an area with extremely limited private economic activity and a transportation network with limited connectivity and accessibility. The study was one of a series sponsored by FHWA to examine linkages between transportation improvements and economic development in rural areas. The Pine Ridge study established a framework for analyzing these linkages and focused the analysis on tourism, a key sector that both offers great potential for economic development and is dependent on improvements in transportation infrastructure. The analysis estimated the potential benefits of the tourism sector and identified the transportation improvements that would be needed to support this sector. It was found that, assuming implementation of a suite of supportive initiatives, a mature tourism sector at Pine Ridge could attract more than 1 million visitors each year, which would have an estimated total economic impact of $153 million during a 15-year period. By the end of the analysis period, these tourists would generate more than 1 million automobile trips per year, with a peak average daily traffic of 5,200 vehicles. The local enhancements in transportation infrastructure that would be needed to provide adequate levels of service include both upgrading the functional class of key roads and performing adequate maintenance throughout the life cycle of the improved roads. The costs of these transportation investments are estimated at $73.3 million.

Indian federalism push may deepen regional disparities

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Regional Growth ◽  
State Level ◽  
Social Spending ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Industrial Sectors ◽  
Self Development ◽  
Equal Capacity ◽  
Competitive Federalism

Subject 'Competitive federalism'. Significance Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in May 2014, India's drive for economic development has placed renewed emphasis on 'competitive federalism' in which the states, rather than the federal centre, play the leading roles. Yet not all states have an equal capacity for self-development. There are risks that growth will become more skewed and social inequalities deepen. Impacts Growth driven by non-industrial sectors is essential for some states, but out of favour with the centre. Institutional protections on social spending are being eroded, despite vast demographic needs -- and risks. Regional growth -- and deprivation -- may come to hinge increasingly on state-level political leadership with declining central mediation.

scholarly journals Comparative analysis of state-level concussion legislation and review of current practices in concussion

2012 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. E11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krystal L. Tomei ◽  
Christopher Doe ◽  
Charles J. Prestigiacomo ◽  
Chirag D. Gandhi
Keyword(s):  
Formal Education ◽  
District Of Columbia ◽  
State Level ◽  
Signs And Symptoms ◽  
Washington State ◽  
Return To Play ◽  
Young Athletes ◽  
Evaluation Parameters ◽  
Concussion Education

Object Forty-two states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation based on the Lystedt law of Washington state, enacted in 2009 to protect young athletes who have sustained a concussion. The aim of this study was to note the several similarities and differences among the various laws. Methods Concussion legislation was compared for 50 states and the District of Columbia. Evaluation parameters of this study included stipulations of concussion education, criteria for removal from play, requirements for evaluation and return to play after concussion, and individuals required to assess young athletes. Other parameters that were not consistent across states were also noted. Results Forty-three states and the District of Columbia have passed concussion legislation, and an additional 4 states have pending legislation. All states with existing legislation support concussion education for coaches; however, only 48% require coaches to undergo formal education. Athletes must be educated on concussion in 86% of states and parents in 88.7%. Suspicion of concussion is a criterion for removal from play in 75% of states; signs and symptoms of concussion are criteria for removal from play in 16% of states. The individuals allowed to evaluate and clear an athlete for return to play differ greatly among states. Conclusions Injury prevention legislation holds historical precedent, and given the increasing attention to long-term sequelae of repeated head trauma and concussion, concussion legislation has been rapidly passed in 43 states and the District of Columbia. Although the exact stipulations of these laws vary among states, the overall theme is to increase recognition of concussion in young athletes and ensure that they are appropriately cleared for return to play after concussion.

scholarly journals Hidden clusters: the articulation of agglomeration in City Regions

2016 ◽  
Vol 34 (8) ◽  
pp. 1776-1792 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Williams ◽  
Chay Brooks ◽  
Tim Vorley
Keyword(s):  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Local Economic Development ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Place Marketing ◽  
City Region ◽  
Industrial Sectors ◽  
City Regions ◽  
Alternative Approaches

For many years, local economic development has been driven by the desire to maintain, attract and nurture clusters of economic activity in targeted industrial sectors. However, where clusters are not conventionally sector-based, public policy needs to develop alternative approaches to leverage the economic benefits and realise competitive advantage. Drawing on a study of the Sheffield City Region (SCR), the paper explores the challenge of leveraging ‘hidden’ cross-sectoral clusters, which do not fit dominant discourses of agglomeration-led growth. We posit that it is the cross-sectoral connections and networks in the SCR which represent its key strength, yet these are only partially reflected by current place marketing and policy considerations, and, in many ways, are overlooked and thus remain ‘hidden’. The paper argues that the competitive advantage of the SCR is undermined when it characterises clusters in terms of industrial sectors, and instead needs to articulate its strengths as a strategically important industrial centre. The paper concludes by drawing out a number of implications for academic theory and policy development.

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