This paper identifies and quantifies the effects of better transport accessibility on student performance measured by mathematics test scores. A 27 km new subway line and the extension of an existing line in Santiago (Chile) in the mid-2000s reduced the distance between some schools and their...

We analyze the economic impact of the German high-speed rail (HSR) connecting Cologne and Frankfurt, which provides plausibly exogenous variation in access to surrounding economic mass. We find a causal effect of about 8.5% on average of the HSR on the GDP of three counties with intermediate...

Air networks are normal examples of transportation systems among ubiquitous big data networks in the dynamic nature. This is particularly the case in developing countries with rapid airport network expansions. This paper explores the structure and evolution of the trunk airport network of China...

While it is now accepted that the 2008-09 recession accentuated regional differences in Britain, it is more difficult to identify the role of major cities, especially over a longer time scale. Using previously established methods focussed on employment, this paper assesses the record of nine...

We investigate the causal relationship between judicial efficiency and firm size across Italian municipalities, exploiting spatial discontinuities in tribunals' jurisdiction for identification. Results show that halving the length of civil proceedings, average firm size would increase by around...

This study examines how far and in what way 'Our cities are back', as claimed by England's Core Cities Group. It focuses on 1984-2007 employment changes for the eight Core Cities and their city regions: Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield. City...

Prediction is difficult. In this paper we use panel data methods to make reasonably accurate shortterm ex-post predictions of house prices across 353 local authority areas in England. The issue of prediction over the longer term is also addressed, and a simple method that makes use of the...

This paper estimates individual wage equations in order to test two rival non-nested theories of economic agglomeration, namely New Economic Geography (NEG), as represented by the NEG wage equation and urban economic (UE) theory, in which wages relate to employment density. The paper makes an...

This paper provides a survey and critique of how spatial links are taken into account inempirical analysis by applied economists/regional scientists. Spatial spillovers and spatialinterrelationships between economic variables (e.g. unemployment, GDP, etc) are likely to beimportant, especially...

This paper provides an empirical study of the determinants of income inequality across regions of the EU. Using the European Community Household Panel dataset for 102 regions over the period 1995-2000, it analyses how microeconomic changes in human capital distribution affect income inequality...