Business Commons^™

Symposium Report: Findings From The Research Roundtable On The Economic And Community Impact Of Broadband, Edward Feser, John Horrigan, William Lehr

Edward J Feser

In December 2012, a group of experts spanning disciplines and practice in the field of broadband policy met to discuss how the research community can better serve state and local policymakers and other stakeholders. This group of subject matter experts was convened to examine how best to measure the economic impact of state and national broadband deployment and capacity/adoption building efforts. The impetus for the symposium stemmed from the widespread view that there is a deficit of research, standards, and measurements to adequately inform the widely acknowledged view that broadband Internet is a driver of sustainable economic and community development. …

Entrepreneurship Education In The Research-Intensive Entrepreneurial University, Edward Feser

Edward J Feser

Knowledge commercialisation and commodification are important components of universities’ “Third Mission” to contribute to the development of their home regions by strengthening their engagement with the public, private, and third sectors. Entrepreneurship education programmes have tended to develop in parallel to such “entrepreneurial university” initiatives, rather than in intentional alignment with them. This is reflected in the research literature as well, where the analysis of the “entrepreneurial university” and studies of entrepreneurship education have little overlap. This paper examines the evolution of the entrepreneurship education initiative of a single research-intensive institution—the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom—and the ways …

Isserman's Impact: Quasi-Experimental Comparison Group Designs In Regional Research, Edward Feser

Edward J Feser

Applications using quasi-experimental comparison group designs in regional science and geography have increased substantially over the last three decades, inspired by the work of Andrew Isserman and colleagues in the 1980s and 1990s, robust literatures on quasi-experimental design in fields like education and psychology, a vast program evaluation literature, observational studies methodology in statistics, and the growing interest in experimental and non-experimental (natural) designs in empirical economics. This paper discusses the state of quasi-experimental comparison group research today, with a primary focus on studies in which regions—Census tracts, counties, cities, metropolitan areas, provinces, or states—are the units of analysis. There …

Regional Industrial Structure And Agglomeration Economies: An Analysis Of Productivity In Three Manufacturing Industries, Joshua Drucker, Edward Feser

Edward J Feser

We investigate whether a more concentrated regional industrial structure – the dominance of a few large firms in a given industry in a region – limits agglomeration economies and ultimately diminishes the economic performance of firms in that industry, especially small ones. In an application to three industries using establishment-level production functions and a combination of confidential and publicly available data sources, we find a consistently negative and substantial direct productivity effect associated with regional industrial structure concentration and only mixed and relatively weak evidence that agglomeration economies are a mediating factor in that effect.

Collective Choice, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

This short nontechnical article reviews the Arrow Impossibility Theorem and its implications for rational democratic decisionmaking. In the 1950s, economist Kenneth J. Arrow proved that no method for producing a unique social choice involving at least three choices and three actors could satisfy four seemingly obvious constraints that are practically constitutive of democratic decisionmaking. Any such method must violate such a constraint and risks leading to disturbingly irrational results such and Condorcet cycling. I explain the theorem in plain, nonmathematical language, and discuss the history, range, and prospects of avoiding what seems like a fundamental theoretical challenge to the possibility …

Clusters And Strategy In Regional Economic Development, Edward Feser

Edward J Feser

Many economic development practitioners view cluster theory and analysis as constituting a general approach to strategy making in economic development, which may lead them to prioritize policy and planning interventions that cannot address the actual development challenges in their cities and regions. This paper discusses the distinction between strategy formation and strategic planning, where the latter is the programming of development strategies that are identified through a blend of experience, intuition, and analysis. Cluster theories and analytical tools can provide useful informational inputs into a strategy making effort and they can also be helpful for programming specific interventions (i.e., strategic …

On Building Clusters Versus Leveraging Synergies In The Design Of Innovation Policy For Developing Economies, Edward J. Feser

Edward J Feser

This paper argues there are two broad ways policymakers might use industry cluster concepts to inform the design of regional innovation policy. The first, and clearly dominant approach, is to view identified technology-based clusters as targets for growth strategies, i.e., to nurture the growth of selected groups of innovative industries and research strengths in a limited set of regions as a means of increasing levels of innovation economy-wide (termed the cluster building approach). The second is to use cluster ideas to reorient development strategies so that they leverage synergies among businesses and non-market institutions, thus improving innovation rates (termed the …

Globalization, Regional Economic Policy And Research, Edward Feser

Edward J Feser

This paper considers two questions. First, are there unique implications of growing global economic integration for development planning and policy making at the city and regional level? Key issues include whether globalization is appreciably different today than it used to be and whether it means anything more, from the perspective of a given city or region, than heightened competition for resident industries and related challenges of more rapid macro-regional structural change and adjustment. Second, what kinds of spatial empirical research and model building would be most valuable to regional policy makers faced with designing programs and making specific allocative investment …

U.S. Regional Economic Fragmentation & Integration: Selected Empirical Evidence And Implications, Edward J. Feser, Geoffrey Hewings

Edward J Feser

The emergence of ten U.S. megaregions—increasingly contiguous spaces of high density development and population capturing a high share of U.S. economic activity—raises the question of appropriate scales for local, state and federal policy and how regional planning as a practice can adapt to an extended and, in some cases, almost continuous economic integration over space (RPA, 2006). Notions of cities as functional economic areas, more or less distinct spaces that operate as independent economic units, are less and less tenable as the basis for planning and policy making. At the same time, the megaregion phenomenon does not necessarily imply that …

Encouraging Broadband Deployment From The Bottom Up, Edward J. Feser

Edward J Feser

State governments that have elected to make investments to increase the availability of affordable broadband service in rural areas and low income urban neighborhoods should organize their efforts around a strategy that encourages and leverages locally-driven initiatives, rather than follow a top-down approach that seeks to identify and close all broadband service gaps in a comprehensive fashion. A bottom-up approach to state broadband policy has three major advantages. First, it is a conservative policy response in an economic arena in which the appropriate role of the public sector is highly contested and in which private sector deployment is proceeding rapidly, …

Harnessing Growth Spillovers For Rural Development: The Effects Of Regional Spatial Structure, Edward Feser, Andrew Isserman

Edward J Feser

Many rural development strategies seek to leverage urban to-rural growth spillovers. This paper concludes that their success depends on the spatial structure surrounding the target rural counties. We develop a county-level spatial growth model to identify the positive spread and negative backwash effects of urban to rural spillovers in the lower 48 states over the 1990-2000 period. Instead of the conventional, fallacious substitution of metropolitan and nonmetropolitan for urban and rural, we consider the urban and rural character of each county. Mostcounties have both urban and rural populations, and we classify each as urban, mixed urban, or rural depending on …

Industry Clusters And Economic Development: A Learning Resource, Edward J. Feser

Edward J Feser

One of the most widely discussed issues in community and economic development today is the role of industry clusters as engines of regional growth and development. Many communities are undertaking cluster studies or initiating cluster planning exercises as a way to organize development strategies to promote key local economic strengths or to shore up identified weaknesses. A large consulting industry has emerged to serve governments’ interest in clusters and the research literature on the topic is growing rapidly. At the same time, some analysts have likened clusters to another economic development fad that will eventually be supplanted by the next …

Regional Technology Assets And Opportunities: The Geographic Clustering Of High-Tech Industry, Science And Innovation In Appalachia, Edward Feser, Harvey Goldstein, Henry Renski, Catherine Renault

Edward J Feser

This study constitutes a systematic location analysis of the technology assets of Appalachia. The report identifies and documents sub-regional concentrations of technology-related employment, R&D, and applied innovation within and immediately adjacent to the 406-county service area of the Appalachian Regional Commission. By assembling and analyzing an extensive set of data at high levels of functional and spatial detail, the study reveals localized technology strengths that might be nurtured through focused economic development policy.

Agglomeration, Enterprise Size, And Productivity, Edward J. Feser

Edward J Feser

Much research on agglomeration economies, and particularly recent work that builds on Marshall's concept of the industrial district, postulates that benefits derived from proximity between businesses are strongest for small enterprises. This paper investigates this hypothesis, examining the degree to which local business externalities differ in magnitude and type among large and small enterprises in two U.S. manufacturing sectors. A four factor micro-level production function with oft-cited sources of agglomeration economies (local input supply, labor pools, knowledge spillovers) modeled as technology parameters and dummy variables representing varying definitions of plant size (and type, i.e., single or multi establishment unit) are …

On The Ellison–Glaeser Geographic Concentration Index, Edward J. Feser

Edward J Feser

I use confidential employment data to investigate the empirical properties of a recent industry geographic concentration index (and related index of industry co-agglomeration) proposed by Ellison and Glaeser (1997). The results show that Ellison and Glaeser’s theoretical finding that their concentration measures are robust to differences in the level of spatial aggregation in the underlying employment data does not generally hold in practice. This implies that sensitivity testing for alternative spatial units should accompany any analysis with the concentration measures.

Old And New Theories Of Industry Clusters, Edward J. Feser

Edward J Feser

The paper reviews the broad range of theories and ideas that constitute, often implicitly, the logic behind strategic cluster policies. The title of the paper notwithstanding, there is no theory of industry clusters, per se. Even Porter’s (1990) seminal contribution is more a theory of firm competitiveness than clusters. There is, instead, a variety of older and newer theories of 1) the interrelationships between economic actors that clusters describe, and 2) the implications of such interrelationships for economic growth and development. Industry clusters have proven a useful way of characterizing webs of relationships between and among firms and other institutions. …

Relativism, Reflective Equilibrium, And Justice, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

THIS PAPER IS THE CO-WINNER OF THE FRED BERGER PRIZE IN PHILOSOPHY OF LAW FOR THE 1999 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE BEST PUBLISHED PAPER IN THE PREVIOUS TWO YEARS.

The conflict between liberal legal theory and critical legal studies (CLS) is often framed as a matter of whether there is a theory of justice that the law should embody which all rational people could or must accept. In a divided society, the CLS critique of this view is overwhelming: there is no such justice that can command universal assent. But the liberal critique of CLS, that it degenerates into …

Ozgur 1993 Turkiye'nin Ozel Cevre Koruma Bolgeleri Politikasi (Specially Protected Areas Policy Of Turkey) Türkiye'nin Özel Çevre Koruma Bölgeleri Politikası: Foça Örneği, Huseyin Ozgur Prof.Dr.

Huseyin Ozgur Prof.Dr.

Specially protected areas (SPAs) in Turkey were initiated in 1990 with the special interest of Prime Minister Turgut Özal and pressure from international agreements signed by Turkish Government. As of 1992, there were 12 SPAs in 5 provinces, most of them were on shorelines of lakes or seas. The decision making of SPAs policy in Turkey fit to muddling through. It helped to protect special and sensitive areas to be protected. All these SPAs had several small settlements and controversial usages of the land and water areas. The policy helped to control dense and uncontrolled settlements however created issues on …

Strategic Planning Of Seaport Development In A Global Economy: Observations Of An Executive Port Director, Herman L. Boschken

Herman L. Boschken

Seaport management is central both to the use of coastal resources and to the needs of a global economy. As a major point of supply-chain activity along the coast and as a source of pollution, ports need to be administered strategically to provide the greatest benefit according to economic and environmental demands. This article is an annotated conversation that provides a practitioner's insight into the management of change along the coastal zone. To address the problem, we probe organization theory for new insight and attempt to apply concepts to practice.