Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space

This study is an attempt to produce a theoretically informed econometric analysis of dynamic regional economic performance. The first paper in this two-part study highlighted the problems and possibilities of translating the propositions contained in six ‘soft’ theories of local economic growth into measurable dimensions and sets of proxy variables that are hypothesized to determine local economic growth. This second paper focuses on issues of econometric-model design and empirical validation. Given the practical limitations imposed by data availability, the ‘soft’ theories of local economic growth are modeled by a simple conditional ‘gap’ convergence model in which prevailing regional unemployment relativities are determined by a common trend in unemployment and a set of regionally specific variables. The empirical validity of the competing ‘soft’ theories of local economic growth is evaluated by applying test restrictions imposed by the ‘soft’ theories to a general model specification containing eight regionally specific variables that have been identified as potential drivers of local economic growth. The econometric modeling of Australian data suggests that the processes of regional economic performance might be somewhat different from those specified in individual theoretical models. Significantly, the role of local ‘enterprise culture’ is revealed—built on specialization, technological leadership, human resources, and the local integration of firms—though significant caveats are attached to the roles of access to information, institutional support, and interregional trade as promoters of local economic growth.

Since most census data are released for spatial aggregates, the microscale of people and the macroscale of places are confounded in analyses. Although regrettable, this situation is usually tolerated owing to the other obvious attractions of census data. In this paper, we consider how multilevel statistical procedures offer a solution to this problem. Importantly, we show how they allow places to be considered in terms of several different scales simultaneously. As we demonstrate, this provides important connections with recent moves towards performance review in several areas of public policy. An analysis of data on illiteracy from the 1991 Indian Census provides an illustration of multilevel approach and its usefulness.

Numerous studies demonstrate that married women sacrifice their own careers in order to support their husbands' careers by following them as tied migrants, largely independent of their own occupational status. Thus, it appears as if family migration is shaped by the dominant gender roles and gender identities which configure the lives of women and men in married couple families. The motivation for this paper stems from a concern that family migration research has failed to consider that the effects of family migration on the labor-market participation of married women may be contingent on parental status. This research is designed to uncover the individual and joint effects of migration and parental status on married women's labor-market participation. The approach taken in this research is to begin with a very specific type of married couple family—married couple families without children—and to trace how the birth of the first child and migration events independently and jointly determine women's labor-market participation over a 5-year time span. The data for the analysis are drawn from the 1987 through 1992 Family File of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Random effects probit models of labor-force participation and employment indicate a small, short-lived, impact of migration on the employment of married women without children—but for married women with children the negative effects of family migration on both labor force participation and employment are large and endure for many years.

In this paper we evaluate the experience of public participation in local transport planning in the United Kingdom. In the context of a new emphasis on participation in central government policy rhetoric and planning guidance, we examine the rationales, methods, and outcomes of recent public participation initiatives. Through drawing on a questionnaire survey distributed to all English highway authorities and a content analysis of provisional local transport policy documents, we explore not only the extent of activity and innovation in public participation, but identify and reflect upon the failures of current practice and the barriers which constrain further development. We conclude that, although examples of at least partial success in developing carefully conceptualised, inclusive, and meaningful participation programmes can be identified, most have been grounded in political expediency. Motivations for seeking public involvement have been instrumental in nature rather than drawing on wider substantive and normative arguments. It is suggested that issues relating to both the supply of opportunities and the level of demand have a role to play in understanding and potentially resolving current barriers to involvement. However, we also stress the need to step back from this dualistic analytical framework and instead to consider the significance of the broader political context and motivations for public participation. It is concluded that future developments in public participation will need to move beyond innovation in terms of technique alone, increasingly to engage with issues relating to the purpose of participation, the management of process and outcomes, and structural conditions which influence individual decisions about ‘taking part’.

The authors examine the nature and significance of ownership constraints within the urban redevelopment process. They suggest that such constraints derive from the distinctiveness of land as a commodity, the imperfect nature of the land market, the behavioural characteristics of landowners, and the institutional context for land ownership, exchange, and development. From this, they propose a common definition of ownership constraints as a basis for their practical classification. This divides ownership constraints between those that concern deficiencies in, or limitations to, the extent of ownership rights in potential development land and those that relate specifically to the strategies, interests, and actions of those who hold such rights. The various types of ownership constraints that fall under these headings are then explored, with research presented into the extent to which they each disrupted plans to use, market, develop, or purchase eighty large redevelopment sites in four British cities between 1991 and 1995.

The transitional process in China is marked by prominent roles of state institutions, which are a key determinant of the opportunity and reward structure in the newly developing labor market. Migrant labor and the occupational and sectoral changes in the urban economy have further shaped the evolution of the labor market in Chinese cities. In this paper, I argue that labor-market returns are not only functions of human capital but are heavily influenced by state-controlled institutional status. Specifically, I examine the variations in income and benefits returns among nonmigrant urban residents, permanent migrants who possess urban residence, and temporary migrants who are denied permanent residence rights in cities. The empirical analysis employs data from a recent survey conducted in Guangzhou, one of the largest and most rapidly changing cities and one of the most popular destinations of migrant workers in China. The findings show that permanent migrants' income returns are especially high and that temporary migrants' benefits returns are especially inferior. Furthermore, they suggest that permanent migrants' advantaged positions are conducive to their continued success in the labor market when they shift to more profitable occupations and sectors such as commerce and self-employment. The findings of this paper support the notion that in China resident status functions like ascribed attributes that have effects on labor-market returns independent of achieved attributes, and that migration and labor-market segmentation are intricately related to the reward structure in the urban labor market.

It is assumed here that planning style and the organisational properties of the agency are loosely coupled. A number of such properties are discussed in order to construct four agency profiles corresponding to the values and basic ideas of synoptic, incremental, communicative, and advocacy planning. The four identified configurations of style and structure can (1) be theoretical reference points when analysing constellations of planning style and agency characteristics found in practice, and (2) be used for forming hypotheses about such empirical constellations. The analysis responds to the critique raised against procedural planning theories for being abstract and context free and thus unfit to guide planning in real societies where public planning is embedded in particular organisations and institutions. Most of the organisational features dealt with here have been studied in the economic theory of organisation, and this facilitates the construction of consistent and coherent agency profiles.

In this paper I document and analyse the evolving firm size structure of the housebuilding industry in North America since World War 2, and place it in a wider context of industrial organisation. This is done first by synthesising the literature on housebuilding, particularly secondary data, to outline the industry's firm size and market share distributions. Second, the literature is extended with new and original data on the housebuilding industry for the province of Ontario, supplied by the Ontario New Home Warranty Program. The data are a complete annual census of builders in the province from 1978 through 1998. Using standard measures of industrial concentration and firm size classifications common to the housebuilding literature, Ontario is placed in the Canadian and North American contexts, to outline how housebuilding has evolved since World War 2. The main findings are that housebuilding shows no long-term trend toward rising market concentration. Rather, the industry's structure appears to change in cycles, while the largest firms have neither the growth rates nor the longevity to produce high levels of concentration common in other industries. On the basis of these findings, I suggest how insights into the firm size structure of housebuilding may benefit from, and contribute to, our understanding of social systems of production and discuss directions for future research.

In the 1960s and early 1970s growth center policies were included in the regional policies of countries throughout much of the world. However, by the mid-1970s, many academics and government agencies believed that growth center policies were not successful in encouraging regional development, and since that time growth center theory has remained, in general, poorly regarded. In the 1960s, the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) implemented a growth center policy. Though much has been written about the ARC, there is little research on the Commission's experience in implementing its growth center policy. The author uses historical documentation from the ARC to assess the Commission's growth center policy, particularly in the context of growth center theory. He then utilizes ARC expenditure data to determine the extent to which the ARC was able to implement what is best termed a ‘modified growth center strategy’. It is concluded that the ARC did not implement a policy that was particularly akin to growth center policy as presented in the theoretical literature; however, it is also concluded that the ARC did implement a modified version of a growth center strategy with some success.