IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v45y2013i12p2919-2938.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do History and Geography Matter? Regional Unemployment Dynamics in a Resource-Dependent Economy: Evidence from Western Australia, 1984–2011

Author

Listed:
  • Paul Plummer
  • Matthew Tonts

Abstract

Conceptual and methodological differences notwithstanding, both the ‘new’ economic geography and evolutionary economic geography insist that both history and geography matter when accounting for the changing spatial distribution of economic activities. To date, discourse has been conducted largely at a theoretical level, with few attempts to evaluate the empirical validity of either of these competing claims about the dynamics of the capitalist space economy. In this paper we contribute to this evolving discourse by utilizing a dynamic econometric perspective to empirically test the key notions of path dependence, place dependence, and equilibrium dependence in the context of a ‘peripheral’ resource dependent and export-oriented economy: Western Australia, 1984–2011. We find evidence of ‘weak’ path dependence in the evolution of local unemployment rates, with a small number of local labor markets exhibiting ‘strong’ equilibrium dependence. Furthermore, we find evidence of ‘place’ dependence, particularly between metropolitan and nonmetropolitan labor markets, suggesting the existence of a ‘patchwork economy’.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Plummer & Matthew Tonts, 2013. "Do History and Geography Matter? Regional Unemployment Dynamics in a Resource-Dependent Economy: Evidence from Western Australia, 1984–2011," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 45(12), pages 2919-2938, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:45:y:2013:i:12:p:2919-2938
    DOI: 10.1068/a45417
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a45417
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/a45417?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Steven N. Durlauf & Paul A. Johnson & Jonathan R. W. Temple, 2009. "The Econometrics of Convergence," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Terence C. Mills & Kerry Patterson (ed.), Palgrave Handbook of Econometrics, chapter 23, pages 1087-1118, Palgrave Macmillan.
    2. Ron Martin & Peter Sunley, 2010. "The Place of Path Dependence in an Evolutionary Perspective on the Economic Landscape," Chapters, in: Ron Boschma & Ron Martin (ed.), The Handbook of Evolutionary Economic Geography, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Ron Boschma & Ron Martin (ed.), 2010. "The Handbook of Evolutionary Economic Geography," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12864.
    4. Ron Martin, 1997. "Regional Unemployment Disparities and their Dynamics," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(3), pages 237-252.
    5. Layard, Richard & Nickell, Stephen & Jackman, Richard, 2005. "Unemployment: Macroeconomic Performance and the Labour Market," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199279173.
    6. A. Stegman & T. Stegman, 2004. "Labour market reform and the macroeconomic efficiency of the labour market in Australia," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 28(5), pages 743-766, September.
    7. Christopher S. Fowler, 2011. "Finding equilibrium: how important is general equilibrium to the results of geographical economics?," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 11(3), pages 457-480, May.
    8. Mark Setterfield, 1997. "Should Economists Dispense with the Notion of Equilibrium?," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(1), pages 47-76, September.
    9. David Shepherd & Robert Dixon, 2002. "The Relationship Between Regional and National Unemployment," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(5), pages 469-480.
    10. Engle, R. F. & Granger, C. W. J. (ed.), 1991. "Long-Run Economic Relationships: Readings in Cointegration," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198283393.
    11. Dopfer,Kurt (ed.), 2005. "The Evolutionary Foundations of Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521621991, January.
    12. Ron Martin & Peter Sunley, 2006. "Path dependence and regional economic evolution," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 6(4), pages 395-437, August.
    13. repec:bla:ecorec:v:77:y:2001:i:238:p:252-69 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Setterfield, Mark, 1998. "Adjustment Asymmetries and Hysteresis in Simple Dynamic Models," The Manchester School of Economic & Social Studies, University of Manchester, vol. 66(3), pages 283-301, June.
    15. Brakman,Steven & Garretsen,Harry & van Marrewijk,Charles, 2009. "The New Introduction to Geographical Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521698030, December.
    16. Cross, Rod, 1993. "On the Foundations of Hysteresis in Economic Systems," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(1), pages 53-74, April.
    17. Cross,Rod Preface by-Name:Blanchard,Olivier (ed.), 1995. "The Natural Rate of Unemployment," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521483308, January.
    18. Robert Dixon & David Shepherd, 2001. "Trends and Cycles in Australian State and Territory Unemployment Rates," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 77(238), pages 252-269, September.
    19. Donald W. Katzner, 1993. "Some Notes on the Role of History and the Definition of Hysteresis and Related Concepts in Economic Analysis," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(3), pages 323-345, March.
    20. Bernard Fingleton (ed.), 2003. "European Regional Growth," Advances in Spatial Science, Springer, number 978-3-662-07136-6, december.
    21. Paul Plummer & Michael Taylor, 2011. "Enterprise and Competitive Advantage in the Australian Context: A Spatial Econometric Perspective," Spatial Economic Analysis, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(3), pages 311-330, January.
    22. Ron Martin & Peter Sunley, 1998. "Slow Convergence? The New Endogenous Growth Theory and Regional Development," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 74(3), pages 201-227, July.
    23. Clements, Kenneth W. & Johnson, Peter L., 2000. "The minerals industry and employment in Western Australia: assessing its impacts in federal electorates," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 77-89, June.
    24. Paul Plummer, 2003. "Modelling Economic Landscapes: A Geographical Perspective," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(6-7), pages 687-695.
    25. Frank Brechling, 1967. "Trends And Cycles In British Regional Unemployment," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(1), pages 1-21.
    26. David Hendry & Grayham E. Mizon, 2010. "Econometric Modelling of Changing Time Series," Economics Series Working Papers 475, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    27. Harry Garretsen & Ron Martin, 2010. "Rethinking (New) Economic Geography Models: Taking Geography and History More Seriously," Spatial Economic Analysis, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(2), pages 127-160.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Paul Plummer & Daisaku Yamamoto, 2019. "Economic resilience of Japanese nuclear host communities: A quasi-experimental modeling approach," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 51(7), pages 1586-1608, October.
    2. Nicholas, Christopher & Murphy, Laurie & Blackman, Anna, 2019. "Exploring the dimensions of social capital that are effective mediators of long distance commuting impacts on wellbeing," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 185-197.
    3. Choi, Chang Gyu & Lee, Sugie & Kim, Heungsoon & Seong, Eun Yeong, 2019. "Critical junctures and path dependence in urban planning and housing policy: A review of greenbelts and New Towns in Korea’s Seoul metropolitan area," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 195-204.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ron Martin & Peter Sunley, 2010. "The Place of Path Dependence in an Evolutionary Perspective on the Economic Landscape," Chapters, in: Ron Boschma & Ron Martin (ed.), The Handbook of Evolutionary Economic Geography, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Matteo Lanzafame, 2010. "The nature of regional unemployment in Italy," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 39(3), pages 877-895, December.
    3. Werner, Daniel, 2013. "New insights into the development of regional unemployment disparities," IAB-Discussion Paper 201311, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    4. David Gray, 2004. "Persistent Regional Unemployment Differentials Revisited," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(2), pages 167-176.
    5. Martin, Ron & Sunley, Peter, 2012. "Forms of emergence and the evolution of economic landscapes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 338-351.
    6. Ron Martin & Peter Sunley, 2015. "On the notion of regional economic resilience: conceptualization and explanation," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 1-42.
    7. José M. Gaspar, 2018. "A prospective review on New Economic Geography," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 61(2), pages 237-272, September.
    8. Paul Plummer & Eric Sheppard & Robert Haining, 2012. "Rationality, Stability, and Endogenous Price Formation in Spatially Interdependent Markets," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 44(3), pages 538-559, March.
    9. Cahoon, Stephen & Pateman, Hilary & Chen, Shu-Ling, 2013. "Regional port authorities: leading players in innovation networks?," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 66-75.
    10. Ron Martin & Peter Sunley, 2015. "Towards a Developmental Turn in Evolutionary Economic Geography?," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(5), pages 712-732, May.
    11. Aarstad, Jarle & Kvitastein, Olav A. & Jakobsen, Stig-Erik, 2016. "Related and unrelated variety as regional drivers of enterprise productivity and innovation: A multilevel study," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(4), pages 844-856.
    12. Seyed Peyman Asadi & Ahmad Jafari Samimi, 2019. "Lagging-behind Areas as a Challenge to the Regional Development Strategy: What Insights can New and Evolutionary Economic Geography Offer?," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1923, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Jul 2019.
    13. Rod Cross, 2014. "Unemployment: natural rate epicycles or hysteresis?," European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 11(2), pages 136-148, September.
    14. Natalia PRESSMAN & Vadim KLEPFISH, 2008. "Regional Unemployment Rate Convergence in Israel," EcoMod2008 23800110, EcoMod.
    15. Franz Tödtling & Alexander Auer & Tanja Sinozic, 2014. "Driving factors for cluster development - Which kind of spatial rootedness and change?," SRE-Disc sre-disc-2014_06, Institute for Multilevel Governance and Development, Department of Socioeconomics, Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    16. Rod Cross & Douglas Strachan, 2001. "Three Pillars of Conventional Wisdom," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2), pages 181-200.
    17. Robert Dixon & David Shepherd, 2013. "Regional Dimensions of the Australian Business Cycle," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(2), pages 264-281, February.
    18. Maria Francesca Cracolici & Miranda Cuffaro & Peter Nijkamp, 2007. "Geographical Distribution of Unemployment: An Analysis of Provincial Differences in Italy," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(4), pages 649-670, December.
    19. Höglinger, Christoph & Sinozic, Tanja & Tödtling, Franz, 2012. "Emergence, growth and transformation in local clusters - Environmental industries in the region of Upper Austria," SRE-Discussion Papers 2012/07, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    20. Yu-Fu Chen & Gylfi Zoega, 2010. "Strong Hysteresis due to Age Effects," Dundee Discussion Papers in Economics 230, Economic Studies, University of Dundee.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:45:y:2013:i:12:p:2919-2938. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.