Origins
Regional economics has shared many traditions with regional science, whose earlier development was propelled by Walter Isard and some economists' dissatisfaction with the existing regional economic analysis. Despite such a rather critical view of regional economics, however, it is hard to be denied that the "economic" approach to regional problems was and has been the most significant one throughout the development of regional science. As a sub-discipline of economics, it has also developed its independent traditions and approaches that conform with the subject matter or perspective of economics.
Location theory, that had been separately developed in Germany and North America in the early 20th century, and the theory of external economies from "localized industries" (as described in Alfred Marshall's Principles of Economics (1890)) formed the theoretical basis of regional economics, which has played a central role in regional science. As the preface and the contents of August Lösch's Die räumliche Ordnung der Wirtschaft (Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1940; 2nd ed., 1944), whose English translation was made in 1954 by W. H. Woglom under the title of The Economics of Location, consistently showed, economic approach to (industrial and consumer) locations has been central in both regional economics and regional science. Harold Hotelling's spatial approach to economic competition, which was introduced in The Economic Journal in 1929 under the title of "Stability in Competition," and Edgar M. Hoover's Location Theory and the Shoe and Leather Industries (1937) and The Location of Economic Activity (1948) were United States scholars' representative contribution to theorizing and empirically verifying the regional problems from the viewpoint of economics. In his seminal paper, "Increasing Returns and Economic Geography," Journal of Political Economy, Paul Krugman (1991: 498) emphasized the importance of economic geography and regional economics for enriching economics concluding it with his statement of scholarly hope as follows: "Thus I hope that this paper will be a stimulus to a revival of research into regional economics and economic geography."
Definition
Vinod Dubey (1964) summarized the following four approaches to define regional economics. The first approach is "to deny the possibility of isolating such a discipline." According to Vinod Dubey (1964), Harvey Stephen Perloff, who co-authored State and Local Finance in the National Economy (with Alvin Harvey Hansen) and Regions, Resources, and Economic Growth (with Edgar S. Dunn, Jr., Eric E. Lampard, and Richard F. Muth), denied the possibility for any break-up of regional studies or regional science into "parts parallel to the disciplines employed." The second approach is to conform with the definition of Lionel Charles Robbins (1932: 15), stated as "Economics is the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses," for the economic problems occurring in regions. The third approach is to define regional economics as a sub-discipline of economics that addresses spatial general equilibrium. This approach was emphasized by L. Lefeber and H. O. Nourse. The fourth approach is to define it as a sub-discipline of economics that addresses immobile resources. This view was supported by G. H. Borts (1960), J. L. Stein (1961), and J. R. Meyer (1963).
In his Regional Economic Growth (1969), Horst Siebert viewed regional economics as the study of humans' economic behavior in space. Drawing from the definition of regional economics as the system of the scholarly answers to the question "What is where, and why--and so what?" in An Introduction to Regional Economics (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971; 3rd ed., 1984) by Edgar M. Hoover and Frank Giarratanai, and from Dubey's (1964: 29) definition of regional economics as "the study of differentiation and interrelationships of areas in a universe of unevenly distributed and imperfectly mobile resources with particular emphasis in application on the planning of the social overhead capital investments to mitigate the social problems by these circumstances," it is definable as the study of the systems of how (much) and where to produce and redistribute what using scarce resources or public goods.
Human geography or anthropogeography is the branch of geography that studies spatial relationships between human communities, cultures, economies, and their interactions with the environment, examples of which include urban sprawl and urban redevelopment. It analyzes spatial interdependencies between social interactions and the environment through qualitative and quantitative methods.
Regional science is a field of the social sciences concerned with analytical approaches to problems that are specifically urban, rural, or regional. Topics in regional science include, but are not limited to location theory or spatial economics, location modeling, transportation, migration analysis, land use and urban development, interindustry analysis, environmental and ecological analysis, resource management, urban and regional policy analysis, geographical information systems, and spatial data analysis. In the broadest sense, any social science analysis that has a spatial dimension is embraced by regional scientists.
Economic geography is the subfield of human geography which studies economic activity and factors affecting it. It can also be considered a subfield or method in economics. There are four branches of economic geography.
In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry typically are described as rural. Different countries have varying definitions of rural for statistical and administrative purposes.
One of the major subfields of urban economics, economies of agglomeration explains, in broad terms, how urban agglomeration occurs in locations where cost savings can naturally arise. This term is most often discussed in terms of economic firm productivity. However, agglomeration effects also explain some social phenomenon, such as large proportions of the population being clustered in cities and major urban centres. Similar to economies of scale, the costs and benefits of agglomerating increase the larger the agglomerated urban cluster becomes. Several prominent examples of where agglomeration has brought together firms of a specific industry are: Silicon Valley and Los Angeles being hubs of technology and entertainment, respectively, in California, United States; and London, United Kingdom, being a hub of finance.
Urban geography is the subdiscipline of geography that derives from a study of cities and urban processes. Urban geographers and urbanists examine various aspects of urban life and the built environment. Scholars, activists, and the public have participated in, studied, and critiqued flows of economic and natural resources, human and non-human bodies, patterns of development and infrastructure, political and institutional activities, governance, decay and renewal, and notions of socio-spatial inclusions, exclusions, and everyday life. Urban geography includes different other fields in geography such as the physical, social, and economic aspects of urban geography. The physical geography of urban environments is essential to understand why a town is placed in a specific area, and how the conditions in the environment play an important role with regards to whether or not the city successfully develops. Social geography examines societal and cultural values, diversity, and other conditions that relate to people in the cities. Economic geography is important to examine the economic and job flow within the urban population. These various aspects involved in studying urban geography are necessary to better understand the layout and planning involved in the development of urban environments worldwide.
Urban economics is broadly the economic study of urban areas; as such, it involves using the tools of economics to analyze urban issues such as crime, education, public transit, housing, and local government finance. More specifically, it is a branch of microeconomics that studies the urban spatial structure and the location of households and firms.
Land-use forecasting undertakes to project the distribution and intensity of trip generating activities in the urban area. In practice, land-use models are demand-driven, using as inputs the aggregate information on growth produced by an aggregate economic forecasting activity. Land-use estimates are inputs to the transportation planning process.
Masahisa Fujita is a Japanese economist who has studied regional science and Urban economics and International Trade, Spatial Economy. He is a professor at Konan University and an adjunct professor at Institute of Economic Research, Kyoto University.
Articles in economics journals are usually classified according to JEL classification codes, which derive from the Journal of Economic Literature. The JEL is published quarterly by the American Economic Association (AEA) and contains survey articles and information on recently published books and dissertations. The AEA maintains EconLit, a searchable data base of citations for articles, books, reviews, dissertations, and working papers classified by JEL codes for the years from 1969. A recent addition to EconLit is indexing of economics journal articles from 1886 to 1968 parallel to the print series Index of Economic Articles.
Spatial inequality refers to the unequal distribution of income and resources across geographical regions. Attributable to local differences in infrastructure, geographical features and economies of agglomeration, such inequality remains central to public policy discussions regarding economic inequality more broadly.
Rural economics is the study of rural economies. Rural economies include both agricultural and non-agricultural industries, so rural economics has broader concerns than agricultural economics which focus more on food systems. Rural development and finance attempt to solve larger challenges within rural economics. These economic issues are often connected to the migration from rural areas due to lack of economic activities and rural poverty. Some interventions have been very successful in some parts of the world, with rural electrification and rural tourism providing anchors for transforming economies in some rural areas. These challenges often create rural-urban income disparities.
Local Economic Development (LED) is an approach to economic development, of note in the developing world that, as its name implies, places importance on activities in and by cities, districts and regions. Local economic development combines economic development activities, urban planning, infrastructure development and social development activities to improve local conditions. LED encompasses a range of disciplines including physical planning, economics and marketing, all with the goal of building up the economic capacity of a local area to improve its economic future and the quality of life for all.
Franklin "Frank" J.B. Stilwell is an Australian political economist and Professor Emeritus. He is known for establishing, with Evan Jones, Gavan Butler, Margaret Power, Debesh Bhattacharya, Geelum Simpson-Lee and Ted Wheelwright, an independent political economy department at the University of Sydney. His research interests include theories of political economy, inequality, urbanization, and regional development, Australian economic policy and the nature of work. His textbooks on the subject are standard teaching material for all university students in Australia studying the field of Political Economy. Stilwell's contribution to heterodox economics makes him a noteworthy figure of the Australian New Left.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to social science:
Julian Wolpert is Bryant Professor Emeritus of Geography, Public Affairs, and Urban Planning at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, where he taught from 1973 to 2005 and chaired the Program in Urban and Regional Planning. He was previously a member of the Regional Science Department at the University of Pennsylvania (1963–73).
Luc-Normand Tellier is a Professor Emeritus in spatial economics of the University of Quebec at Montreal.
Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas, such as transportation, communications, and distribution networks and their accessibility. Traditionally, urban planning followed a top-down approach in master planning the physical layout of human settlements. The primary concern was the public welfare, which included considerations of efficiency, sanitation, protection and use of the environment, as well as effects of the master plans on the social and economic activities. Over time, urban planning has adopted a focus on the social and environmental bottom-lines that focus on planning as a tool to improve the health and well-being of people while maintaining sustainability standards. Sustainable development was added as one of the main goals of all planning endeavors in the late 20th century when the detrimental economic and the environmental impacts of the previous models of planning had become apparent. Similarly, in the early 21st century, Jane Jacobs's writings on legal and political perspectives to emphasize the interests of residents, businesses and communities effectively influenced urban planners to take into broader consideration of resident experiences and needs while planning.
The Regional Studies Association is a learned society with an international network of academics, policy makers and practitioner members. It was founded in 1965, following the foundation of the Regional Science Association in the USA and International Centre for Regional Planning and Development in the UK. Regional studies is a field of interdisciplinary research focusing on the sub-national, such as city and regional development, urbanisation, economic inequalities and migration issues. The research not only crosses the boundaries of countries, but also the disciplines of geography, economics, sociology and planning. The Association is registered with the UK Charity Commission and Companies House. The Association organises international events and various micro-grant awards.
