Growth and Stagnation of Economies with Public Goods - A Neoclassical Analysis

The work in the Regional Development Task is oriented to problems of long-term development of regions and systems of regions. The understanding of long-term regional development problems is closely related to an understanding of the interdependency of factors determining economic growth. This paper is devoted to growth economics and its application to regional development. Much of my work on growth problems has been oriented to the use of dynamic input-output theory and its application to transportation networks with regions as the nodes of the network. The public goods issues have not been addressed in those studies, because of the fundamental theoretical problems associated with the inclusion of public goods in the input-output framework. This paper presents a first tentative approach to an inclusion of public goods in a growth framework with many regions. A neoclassical economic paradigm is chosen as the starting point and it is shown that an interregional model with public goods possesses equilibrium properties and also relative stability under certain conditions. It is the intention to use the theoretical framework presented in this paper as a starting point for an analysis of technological research and development as an endogenous public good in a regional growth process

Some Factors Determining International Dependence of National Economies

The work on regional development at IIASA is oriented to problems of long term development of regions and systems of regions. For this purpose models of growth and development at the interregional level have been designed and implemented in a number of economies open to international trade, among others in Bulgaria and Sweden. The design of such models as well as economic policies has to take into account the susceptibility to international trade and growth cycles. It has generally been assumed that openness is closely related to the size of the national economy. This casts serious doubts on this hypothesis. It claims that most economies, whether small or large, must incorporate the influence of international trade and factor relations in their models of planning and forecasting. The paper has been presented at the IIASA Task Force Meeting on "Problems in Long-Term Macroeconomic Planning and Forecasting in Small, Open Economies," 19-21 September, 1979

Regional Systems Analysis: From Theory to Application

Regional policy problems are universal. This means that all countries need good methods for analyzing and solving their regional problems. Models for regional policymaking and planning have also been worked out in scientific institutions. It is obvious that these abstract models are often not specific enough to be used in policymaking but have to be adapted to the institutional, historical and natural conditions of the specific models within a comprehensive system analytical framework. It is one of the ambitions with the approach to regional case studies reported in this paper, to test the possibility of applying regional policy models to the solution of regional development problems and to regional planning issues. This paper describes briefly the work on this topic undertaken by scholars within the Regional Development Task and elsewhere at IIASA

Creativity and Regional Development

In this paper, research and development, knowledge and creativity are analyzed within the context of economic development theory. It is demonstrated that size and spatial structure play an important part in the creative process. Furthermore, it is argued that only a very limited set of policy conclusions can be drawn from non-spatial theories of R&D. A vital concept is the "creative region", of which very few examples are encountered in each historical period. Historically, Vienna stands out as an interesting example. Today, regions such as the San Francisco Bay Area, Shinkansen, and Milano would be of potential interest for closer scrutiny as possible creative regions

Knowledge Intensity and Product Cycles in Metropolitan Regions

This paper by Andersson and Johansson is based on an earlier study of product cycle phenomena by the same authors (Andersson and Johansson 1984). It presents a theoretical framework which aims at understanding the role that metropolitan regions play in a global economic system in a dynamic context. This framework is used for analyzing how metropolitan regions may achieve, retain and lose their comparative advantages over time in a product cycle process. Certain hypotheses, derived from the product cycle analysis, are evaluated against empirical observations

Industrial Dynamics, Product Cycles, and Employment Structure

The key elements of structural change in the forest industry are related to the changing pattern of demand, supply capacity and trade. It is obvious that technological change, to a large extent triggered off by evolving Research and Development strategies, plays a major role in this process of structural change at the global level. Conclusions from this article are as follows: -- The forest sector is developing into an integrated systems industry in the same way as large parts of chemical and other process industries, with similar requirements on coordinative capacities and support from logistical infrastructure. This makes location to highly developed economies an advantage for the integrative parts of the sector. -- It is a low R & D industry, however measured, in a comparison with other manufacturing industries. This may cause problems for the sector in inter-industrial competition for labor and capital resources. For the non-integrative forest industry, like mechanical wood processing, it means a long-term process of relocation from the OECD region to less developed regions of the world. -- Within the OECD region the forest sector will continue to be located primarily in sparsely populated areas. Continued location outside the major densely populated knowledge centres of the world can accentuate the technological development problems of the sector, unless properly counteracted by new R & D strategies. This paper, which is based on product cycle theory, has been written in collaboration between the Regional Issues Project and the Forest Sector Project at IIAS

An Interdependent Framework for Integrated Sectoral and Regional Development

In most countries there is a need for a technique to develop consistent sectoral and regional scenarios for long-term planning or forecasting purposes. This paper presents a set of models designed to satisfy this requirement. The models are based on dynamic input-output theory, without the linearity constraint. The focus of these models is on long-term problems and we have therefore concentrated the analysis on scenarios of the general equilibrium type. The models have been constructed so as to be applicable also in situations of limited statistical information in terms of capital trade flow measurements. The method has been applied to market and planned economies. Numerical problems are discussed in the paper

Migration and Settlement: 3. Sweden

The purpose of this report is to give a detailed overview of the internal migration patterns and regional policies in Sweden. This report is organized as follows. Sections 1.2 and 1.3 discuss the administrative subdivisions of Sweden and the organization of the population statistics, respectively. Section 1.4 describes the settlement pattern of Sweden in a historical perspective. Chapter 2 deals with current patterns of spatial population growth and of its components (fertility, mortality and migration). The problem of regional aggregation is also discussed, to some extent, and various regional systems are proposed. In Chapter 3 the results of the multiregional population analysis are presented: life tables, population projections, and fertility and migration analysis. Chapter 4 presents an outline of population policies in Sweden, with special emphasis on the regional labor market and internal migration policies

Estimation of Parameters of Dynamic Input-Output Models with Limited Information

This paper deals with the problems of the estimation of capital coefficients of dynamic (closed with respect to investment) input-output models when the information available is limited

A Mathematical Programming Approach to Land Allocation in Regional Planning

This paper deals with the land allocation problem of finding a good locational pattern over time for various activities (such as different types of industries, agriculture, housing, `and recreation) within a region. A mathematical programming model is formulated to support long-range regional development studies at IIASA concerning the Malmo area (Sweden) and the Silistra region (Bulgaria). Estimates for the total volume of different activities within the region is assumed to be available (e.g., as econometric forecasts or in the framework of central planning). The problem is then to determine subregional development plans in order to meet the estimated volume for the activities, taking into account the initial situation as well as land available in the subregions. As criteria for evaluating alternative development paths we consider investment and operating costs, transportation and other communication costs, as well as some environmental aspects. While determining the investment and operating costs, economies of scale play an important role for certain activities. Formally, our model is a dynamic multicriteria optimization problem with integer variables and quadratic objective functions (which may be neither convex nor concave). A solution technique is proposed for this problem. The method, which relies heavily on the network flow structure of the set of constraints, is illustrated using a numerical example. Finally, the implementation of a plan is briefly discussed