International Regional Science Review current issue

Understanding Place and the Economics of Space: The Contributions of Roger Bolton

Sheppard, S. — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 03:28:10 PDT

Social Capital and Urban Growth

Glaeser, E. L., Redlick, C. — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 03:28:10 PDT

Social capital is often place-specific while schooling is portable, so the prospect of migration may reduce the returns to social capital and increase the returns to schooling. If social capital matters for urban success, it is possible that an area can get caught in a bad equilibrium where the prospect of out-migration reduces social capital investment and a lack of social capital investment makes out-migration more appealing. We present a simple model of that process and then test its implications. We find little evidence to suggest that social capital is correlated with either area growth or rates of out-migration. We do, however, find significant differences in the returns to human capital across space, and a significant pattern of skilled people disproportionately leaving declining areas. For people in declining areas, the prospect of out-migration may increase the returns to investment in human capital, but it does not seem to impact investment in social capital.

Why Some Rural Places Prosper and Others Do Not

Isserman, A. M., Feser, E., Warren, D. E. — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 03:28:10 PDT

More than 300 rural counties are more prosperous than the nation. Each has lower unemployment rates, lower poverty rates, lower school dropout rates, and better housing conditions than the nation. Prosperous counties tend to have more educated populations, more diverse economies, more private non-farm jobs, more farmers and government farm payments, more creative class occupations, and more equal income distributions. They have fewer African-American, American Indian, or Hispanic residents and fewer recent immigrants. Some findings support what many rural people believe to be true: civically engaged religious groups and other identities that bind people together can really matter. Other results contradict conventional wisdom. For instance, climate and distances to cities and major airports, are relatively unimportant. Focusing on prosperity, instead of growth or competitiveness, provides new insights into rural conditions and prospects.

Policies for Mixed Communities: Faith-Based Displacement Activity?

Cheshire, P. — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 03:28:10 PDT

The belief that it is fairer if communities are ``mixed'' can be traced at least to the late nineteenth century and the founders of the Garden City Movement. The idea is now firmly established in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and national policies. This article reviews the evidence and argues that this is essentially a faith-based policy because there is scant real evidence that making communities more mixed makes the life chances of the poor any better. There is overwhelming evidence that the attributes that make neighborhoods attractive are capitalized into house prices/rents. The result is that poor people cannot afford to buy into nicer neighborhoods, which anyway have amenities of no value to them. Moreover, ``specialized neighborhoods'' are an important element in agglomeration economies and seem to be welfare enhancing. Thus, policies for mixed neighborhoods treat the symptoms rather than the causes of poverty. Efforts to improve social equity would be more effectively directed toward people themselves rather than moving people around to mix neighborhoods.

A Meta-Analysis of Cost of Community Service Studies

Kotchen, M. J., Schulte, S. L. — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 03:28:10 PDT

Understanding Spatial Variation in Tax Sheltering: The Role of Demographics, Ideology, and Taxes

Gentry, W. M., Kahn, M. E. — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 03:28:10 PDT

Taxpayers shelter income from taxation both through illegal evasion and legal avoidance. This tax sheltering creates a difference between a household's actual income and what it reports to the tax authorities. While tax sheltering is a central concern for designing a tax system, the private nature of this behavior complicates evaluating the magnitude and determinants of such behavior. In this article, we combine zip-code level data on reported income from the Internal Revenue Service and the Census Bureau to examine three types of determinants of tax sheltering: (1) tax policy variables, including tax rates (2) political attitudes toward taxation; and (3) demographics. Our estimates suggest that higher tax rates increase the amount of tax sheltering. In terms of political support, our results suggest that places with voters who are either more conservative or less supportive of tax increases actually shelter less income.