Spatial inequality, geography and economic activity
Spatial inequality, geography and economic activity
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DOI：
10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105114
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发表时间：
2020-12-01
影响因子：
6.9
通讯作者：
Lessmann, Christian
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Achten, Sandra;Lessmann, Christian
我们研究了空间不平等对经济活动的影响。考虑到这种关系在本质上是高度同步的，我们使用地理特征的外生变化来构建一个独立于任何人为因素的空间不平等工具。我们的工具是基于现有国家和人工国家的网格级数据的不平等测量。在工具变量的构建中，我们使用了参数回归分析和随机森林分类算法。我们的IV回归显示空间不平等与经济活动之间存在显著的负相关关系。如果我们控制不同地理变量的国家平均水平，这个结果是成立的。因此，我们得出结论，地理异质性是经济活动的重要决定因素。(C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd.版权所有。
We study the effect of spatial inequality on economic activity. Given that the relationship is highly simultaneous in nature, we use exogenous variation in geographic features to construct an instrument for spatial inequality, which is independent from any man-made factors. Our instruments are inequality measures based on grid-level data for existing countries as well as for artificial countries. In the construction of the instrumental variable, we use both a parametric regression analysis as well as a random forest classification algorithm. Our IV regressions show a significant negative relationship between spatial inequality and economic activity. This result holds if we control for country-level averages of different geographic variables. Therefore, we conclude that geographic heterogeneity is an important determinant of economic activity. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.