High-level consumer services in polycentric urban regions - hospital care and higher education between duplication and complementarity

In many European countries, territorial development strategies identify the development potential of so-called polycentric urban regions: regions in which a multitude of more or less similar-sized, formerly independent and distinct cities are located close to each other and among which functional relationships seem to be on the increase. Often, such polycentric urban regions are referred to using metaphors as city networks or urban networks. Well-known examples are the Randstad and Brabantstad in the Netherlands and the Flemish Diamond in Belgium. Taken together, the cities of such a region would provide for more critical mass and more agglomeration economies so that the region can compete on a higher level. In order to exploit the potentialities of such regions, often co-operation links have been forged between the cities. From a geographical perspective, applying the network metaphor to such a regional collection of cities seems only appropriate when the regional spatial structure corresponds to what has been labelled as the ‘Network Model’ (Batten, 1995; Van der Knaap, 2002). It could be argued that the presence of a networked spatial structure is necessary for a polycentric urban region to be more than just a collection of cities. One of the defining characteristics of the network model is that the cities, or the activities and places within them, should complement each other. The paper addresses this issue of complementarity in polycentric urban regions, focussing on the regional structure of urban facilities such as hospital care, higher education and the cultural sector in Dutch polycentric urban regions. The paper will demonstrate how spatially relevant decisions taken within these micro-sectors alter, on a macro-level, the spatial structure of the polycentric urban region. The question is whether these lead to less duplication and, through differentiation, to a higher extent of complementarity. In other words, are polycentric urban regions as the Randstad turning into urban networks?

Polycentric Development to Combat Regional Disparities? the Relation Between Polycentricity and Regional Disparities in European Countries

Trends in regional disparities have been a major issue in regional science for many decades and knowledge of ways to overcome such disparities has great importance for regional policy-making. Strong initial differences between regions affect the capacity of each region to grow and their ability to respond to challenges imposed externally, for instance globalisation and growing international competition and trade (Cuadrado-Roura, 2001). Initial differences can relate to a wide variety of factors, for instance the availability of human resources, the accessibility of a region and the presence of advanced production services. A factor that gets increasing attention is the city system. Flourishing regions can often count on a large, well-accessible and internationally known city or regional clusters of cities. Concentration of support to dynamic growth poles would be an engine for growth of the whole country (or regions) through regional spillovers (Perroux 1955 and Kaldor 1970) Particularly also in regional and spatial policies addressing regional disparities attention is paid to the city system. It has been suggested that polycentric development can be instrumental to reducing regional disparities, see for instance in the European Spatial Development Perspective (CEC, 1999) and the Second Cohesion Report (CEC, 2001). In the Third Cohesion Report the main emphasis is territorial cohesion, which is placed on an equal footing as economic and social cohesion in the (unratified) Constitutional Treaty. Within the discussion on territorial cohesion polycentricity gets much emphasis (Faludi, 2005). Also many European countries pursue a polycentric development, often addressing the dominance of their prime city to diminish regional disparities. Apparently, policy makers assume a strong relationship between the urban system and the persistence of regional disparities. However, this assumption lacks empirical justification. The aim of this paper is to test the hypothesis that a polycentric city system leads to less regional disparities. The paper presents measures of the extent of polycentricity of the national urban systems of 26 European countries. This data is linked with calculations of regional disparities within these 26 countries. Are countries with a relatively polycentric urban system characterised by less regional disparities than more monocentric countries? And, what are the consequences of our findings for regional development policies?

On trickling chimneys and other unemployment misery

Abstract not availablelabour economics ;

The Role of Noncognitive Skills in Explaining Cognitive Test Scores

This paper examines whether noncognitive skills - measured both by personality traits and economic preference parameters - influence cognitive tests performance. The basic idea is that noncognitive skills might affect the effort people put into a test to obtain good results. We experimentally varied the rewards for questions in a cognitive test to measure to what extent people are sensitive to financial incentives. To distinguish increased mental effort from extra time investments we also varied the questions' time constraints. Subjects with favorable personality traits such as high performance-motivation and an internal locus of control perform relatively well in the absence of rewards; consistent with a model in which trying as hard as you can is the best strategy. In contrast, favorable economic preference parameters (low discount rate, low risk aversion) are associated with increases in time investments when incentives are introduced, consistent with a rational economic model in which people only invest when there are monetary returns. The main conclusion is that individual behavior at cognitive tests depends on noncognitive skills.cognitive test scores, noncognitive skills

Determinants Of the Prevalence of Diarrhoea in Adolescents Attending School: A Case Study of an Indian Village School

In developing countries, including India, diarrhoea is a leading killer throughout the age pyramid. However, most of the medical literature on the determinants of diarrhoea focuses only on young children or the elderly, with health policy mainly targeting the former. Thus, the present article attempts to contribute to a better understanding of the determinants of diarrhoea in adolescents -- the understudied population. The paper develops a model using the medical literature, refines it to fit an Indian village context and tests the hypotheses identified through administering a questionnaire to 114 adolescents in an Indian village school. Results confirm the well known importance of household sanitation. In addition, the contribution of the present study is to assert that access to school toilets and usage of school toilets are also crucial. Furthermore, usage of toilets at school varies as a function of gender and the existence of a toilet in the student's household. Finally, the installation of toilets in schools is not enough, sustainable financial models must be found to maintain toilets and induce students to use them

Gender Differences in Risk Aversion and Ambiguity Aversion

This paper demonstrates gender differences in risk aversion and ambiguityaversion. It also contributes to a growing literature relating economic preferenceparameters to psychological measures by asking whether variations in preferenceparameters among persons, and in particular across genders, can be accounted forby differences in personality traits and traits of cognition. Women are more riskaverse than men. Over an initial range, women require no further compensationfor the introduction of ambiguity but men do. At greater levels of ambiguity,women have the same marginal distaste for increased ambiguity as men.Psychological variables account for some of the interpersonal variation in riskaversion. They explain none of the differences in ambiguity.education, training and the labour market;