Human Capital and Regional Growth in Switzerland

This paper develops a regional production function model for Swiss cantons that incorporates human capital together with spatial effects. Within a spatial panel framework we find that controlling for time effects the spatial spillover effect becomes insignificant. Our results are sensitive with respect to the human capital proxy. We find that the share of academics in the workforce is the main component of human capital driving productivity growth in Swiss cantons. This is in line with findings of previous studies suggesting that mostly highly skilled workers matter for productivity growth in technologically advanced economies.Production function with human capital, spatial panel, Regional Growth

EXISTENCE, UNIQUENESS AND SOME COMPARATIVE STATICS FOR RATIO- AND LINDAHL EQUILIBRIA: NEW WINE IN OLD BOTTLES

We present a rigorous, yet elementary, demonstration of the existence of a unique Lindahl equilibrium under the assumptions that characterize the standard n-player public good model. Indeed, our approach, which exploits the aggregative structure of the public good model, lends itself to a transparent geometric representation. Moreover, it can handle the more general concept of the cost-share or ratio equilibrium. Finally, we indicate how it may be ex-ploited to facilitate comparative static analysis of Lindahl and cost share equilibria.Public goods, Lindahl equilibrium, ratio equilibrium.

Aggregate and Regional Economic Effects of New Railway Infrastructure

Economists expect positive returns to investments in infrastructure. However a project with higher national returns might have less favorable effects on a regional level than the alternative. Therefore new infrastructure should also be assessed on a regional level, but econom(etr)ic evalua tion models are scarce, especially in regional science. This paper proposes new approaches to evaluate infrastructure by a dynamic spatial economet ric model that allows long-term predictions. We investigate the regional effects for 2 Austrian railway projects and show that infrastructure returns are positive on an aggregate and at a regional level but spatial variation can be large.Regional growth convergence, traffic accessibility, infrastructure evaluation, spatial econometrics

Human Capital and Regional Growth in Switzerland

This paper develops a regional production function model for Swiss cantons that incorporates human capital together with spatial effects. Within a spatial panel framework we find that controlling for time effects the spatial spillover effect becomes insignificant. Our results are sensitive with respect to the human capital proxy. We find that the share of academics in the workforce is the main component of human capital driving productivity growth in Swiss cantons. This is in line with findings of previous studies suggesting that mostly highly skilled workers matter for productivity growth in technologically advanced economies.Production function with human capital, spatial panel, regional growth

Long term regional forecasting with spatial equation systems

Long-term predictions with a system of dynamic panel models can have tricky properties since the time dimension in regional (cross) sectional models is usually short. This paper describes the possible approaches to make long-term-ahead forecast based on a dynamic panel set, where the dependent variable is a cross-sectional vector of growth rates. Since the variance of the forecasts will depend on number of updating steps, we compare the forecasts behavior of a aggregated and a disaggregated updating procedure. The cross section of the panel data can be modeled by a spatial AR (SAR) or Durbin model, including heteroscedasticity. Since the forecasts are non-linear functions of the model parameters we show what MCMC based approach will produce the best results. We demonstrate the approach by a example where we have to predict 20 years ahead of regional growth in 99 Austrian regions in a space-time dependent system of equations.

Existence, Uniqueness and Some Comparative Statics for Ratio- and Lindahl Equilibria: New Wine in Old Bottles

We present a rigorous, yet elementary, demonstration of the existence of a unique Lindahl equilibrium under the assumptions that characterize the standard n-player public good model. Indeed, our approach, which exploits the aggregative structure of the public good model, lends itself to a transparent geometric representation. Moreover, it can handle the more general concept of the cost-share or ratio equilibrium. Finally, we indicate how it may be ex-ploited to facilitate comparative static analysis of Lindahl and cost share equilibria.public goods, Lindahl equilibrium, ratio equilibrium