The paper examines the debates regarding place-neutral versus place-based policies for economic development. The analysis is set in the context of how development policy thinking on the part of both scholars and international organizations has evolved over several decades. Many of the previously accepted arguments have been called into question by the impacts of globalization and a new response to these issues has emerged, a response both to these global changes and also to nonspatial development approaches. The debates are highlighted in the context of a series of major reports recently published on the topic. The cases of the developing world and the European Union are used as examples of how in this changing context development intervention should increasingly focus on efficiency and social inclusion at the expense of an emphasis on territorial convergence and how strategies should consider economic, social, political, and institutional diversity in order to maximize both the local and the aggregate potential for economic development.

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The case for regional development intervention: place-based versus place-neutral approaches*

In this paper, I give a personal view on the development of the field of spatial econometrics during the past 30 years. I argue that it has moved from the margins to the mainstream of applied econometrics and social science methodology. I distinguish three broad phases in the development, which I refer to as preconditions, take off and maturity. For each of these phases I describe the main methodological focus and list major contributions. I conclude with some speculations about future directions.

Resumen
En este articulo, expongo mi opinion personal sobre el avance en el campo de la econometria espacial durante los ultimos 30 anos. Mi argumento es que ha pasado de estar en la periferia de la econometria espacial y la metodologia de ciencias sociales a ser algo corriente. Hago la distincion entre tres fases principales en el avance, a las que denomino precondiciones, arranque y madurez. Para cada una de estas fases describo el objetivo metodologico principal y proporciono un listado con las contribuciones principales. Concluyo con especulaciones sobre posibles direcciones en el futuro.

Thirty years of spatial econometrics

There has been a growing debate in recent decades about the range and substance of urban theory. The debate has been marked by many different claims about the nature of cities, including declarations that the urban is an incoherent concept, that urban society is nothing less than modern society as a whole, that the urban scale can no longer be separated from the global scale, and that urban theory hitherto has been deeply vitiated by its almost exclusive concentration on the cities of the global North. This article offers some points of clarification of claims like these. All cities can be understood in terms of a theoretical framework that combines two main processes, namely, the dynamics of agglomeration/polarization, and the unfolding of an associated nexus of locations, land uses and human interactions. This same framework can be used to identify many different varieties of cities, and to distinguish intrinsically urban phenomena from the rest of social reality. The discussion thus identifies the common dimensions of all cities without, on the one hand, exaggerating the scope of urban theory, or on the other hand, asserting that every individual city is an irreducible special case.

/pdf/the-nature-of-cities-the-scope-and-limits-of-urban-theory-3u2s9cwbd6.pdf

The Nature of Cities: The Scope and Limits of Urban Theory

The role of agriculture in development remains much debated. This paper takes an empirical perspective and focuses on poverty, as opposed to growth alone. The contribution of a sector to poverty reduction is shown to depend on its own growth performance, its indirect impact on growth in other sectors, the extent to which poor people participate in the sector, and the size of the sector in the overall economy. Bringing together these different effects using cross-country econometric evidence indicates that agriculture is significantly more effective than nonagriculture in reducing poverty among the poorest of the poor (as reflected in the $1-day squared poverty gap). It is also up to 3.2 times better at reducing $1-day headcount poverty in low-income and resource-rich countries (including those in sub-Saharan Africa), at least when societies are not fundamentally unequal. However, when it comes to the better-off poor (reflected in the $2-day measure), non-agriculture has the edge. These results are driven by the much larger participation of poorer households in growth from agriculture and the lower poverty-reducing effect of non-agriculture in the presence of extractive industries.

The (Evolving) Role of Agriculture in Poverty Reduction

The spatial distribution of populations and settlements across a country and their interconnectivity and accessibility from urban areas are important for delivering healthcare, distributing resources and economic development. However, existing spatially explicit population data across Africa are generally based on outdated, low resolution input demographic data, and provide insufficient detail to quantify rural settlement patterns and, thus, accurately measure population concentration and accessibility. Here we outline approaches to developing a new high resolution population distribution dataset for Africa and analyse rural accessibility to population centers. Contemporary population count data were combined with detailed satellite-derived settlement extents to map population distributions across Africa at a finer spatial resolution than ever before. Substantial heterogeneity in settlement patterns, population concentration and spatial accessibility to major population centres is exhibited across the continent. In Africa, 90% of the population is concentrated in less than 21% of the land surface and the average per-person travel time to settlements of more than 50,000 inhabitants is around 3.5 hours, with Central and East Africa displaying the longest average travel times. The analyses highlight large inequities in access, the isolation of many rural populations and the challenges that exist between countries and regions in providing access to services. The datasets presented are freely available as part of the AfriPop project, providing an evidence base for guiding strategic decisions.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0031743&type=printable

Filippo Celata

Papers

World Bank, "Reshaping Economic Geography: World Development Report 2009"; B. Fingleton (a cura di), "New Directions in Economic Geography".