Raymond Florax - Böcker

This book was written on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Regional Science Association International (RSAI). It is the central commemorative memento of the Associations first 50 years. The book was coauthored by a team of a number of the leading scholars in the global regional science community. It documents the progress that has been made to date in interdisciplinary regional science research and represents a self-critical assessment of research priorities for the future. It contains a wealth of factual information about the development of the Regional Science Association International and of the Associations flagship journal "Papers in Regional Science". At the end of the volume, Walter Isard, the founder of the multidisciplinary field of Regional Science, looks ahead to some possible new developments.

This book provides theoretical and methodological advances in specification and estimation of spatial econometric models, state-of-the-art information on the development of tools and software, and various applications. It introduces new tests and estimators for spatial regression models, including discrete choice and simultaneous equation models. The performance of techniques is demonstrated through simulation results and a wide array of applications related to economic growth, international trade, knowledge externalities, population-employment dynamics, urban crime, land use, and environmental issues. Newly developed software and programming tools are introduced. World-renowned experts in spatial statistics and spatial econometrics present the cutting edge of this field of research. The volume is relevant for academics with a theoretical interest in spatial statistics and econometrics and for practitioners looking for modern, up-to-date techniques to analyse spatial data.

This book was written on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Regional Science Association International (RSAI). It is the central commemorative memento of the Association's first 50 years. The book was coauthored by a team of a number of the leading scholars in the global regional science community. It documents the progress that has been made to date in interdisciplinary regional science research and represents a self-critical assessment of research priorities for the future. It contains a wealth of factual information about the development of the Regional Science Association International and of the Association's flagship journal "Papers in Regional Science". At the end of the volume, Walter Isard, the founder of the multidisciplinary field of Regional Science, looks ahead to some possible new developments.

The volume on New Directions in Spatial Econometrics appeared in 1995 as one of the first in the then new Springer series on Advances in Spatial Sciences. It very quickly became evident that the book satisfied a pent up demand for a collection of advanced papers dealing with the methodology and application of spatial economet­ rics. This emerging subfield of applied econometrics focuses on the incorporation of location and spatial interaction in the specification, estimation and diagnostic testing of regression models. The current effort is a follow up to the New Directions volume. Even though the number of empirical and theoretical journal articles dealing with various as­ pects of spatial econometrics has grown tremendously in the recent past, the need remained to bring together an advanced collection on methodology, tools and appli­ cations. This volume contains several papers that were presented at special sessions on spatial econometrics organized as part of a number of conferences of the Re­ gional Science Association International. In addition, a few papers were invited for submission. All papers were refereed. The focus in the volume reflects the advances made in the field in recent years.

The field of spatial econometrics, which is concerned with statistical and econo­ metric techniques to be used to handle spatial effects in multiregional models, was first touched upon in the 1950s. It was given its name in the early 70s by Jean Paelinck and has expanded since. Its development can be monitored in various monographs that have been published since, starting with the seminal work by Andrew Cliff and Keith Ord. Also, the wide array of journals in which contributions to spatial econometrics have been published, shows that the relevance of the field is not restricted to regional science, but extends to geography, spatial statistics, biology, psychology, political science and other social sciences. This volume contains a collection of papers that were presented at special sessions on spatial econometrics organized in the context of the European and North American conferences of the Regional Science Association International, that took place in Louvain la Neuve (August 25-28,1992) and in Houston (November 11-14, 1993), respectively. Apart from these conference papers some contributions were written especially for this volume. The central idea of this book is to communicate the state of the art of spatial econometrics and to offer a number of new directions for future research. In order to do so, the editors sought contributions of leading scholars currently active in this field.