Pereira, Nadalin, Monasterio & Albuquerque "Urban Centrality: a simple index"

Pereira, R. H. M., Nadalin, V., Monasterio, L. and Albuquerque, P. H. M. (2012), Urban Centrality: A Simple Index. Geographical Analysis. doi: 10.1111/gean.12002

 This study introduces a new measure of urban centrality. The proposed urban centrality index (UCI) constitutes an extension to the spatial separation index. Urban structure should be more accurately analyzed when considering a centrality scale (varying from extreme monocentricity to extreme polycentricity) than when considering a binary variable (monocentric or polycentric). The proposed index controls for differences in size and shape of the geographic areas for which data are available, and can be calculated using different variables such as employment and population densities, or trip generation rates. The properties of the index are illustrated with simulated artificial data sets and are compared with other similar measures proposed in the existing literature. The index is then applied to the urban structure of four metropolitan areas: Pittsburgh and Los Angeles in the United States; São Paulo, Brazil; and Paris, France. The index is compared with other traditional spatial agglomeration measures, such as global and local Moran's I, and density gradient estimations.

“Immigration and the origins of regional inequality: Government-sponsored European migration to Southern Brazil before World War I”.

Here goes the link to the new paper written by Irineu de Carvalho Filho (IMF) and I. Comments are welcome!

(Yep... vacations are over and I am blogging again...)

Self-promotion

They are talking about the book that contains, among many very interesting papers, the one that Shikida, Nogueról, and I have written on the stature of Brazilians.

10th and 11th of September : 3rd International Conference Migration & Development (Paris)

Yep, I am in Paris. I've just presented the paper "How Bodo became Brazilian" written by Irineu de Carvalho Filho and myself. (I must admit that his contribution to the paper was much larger than mine). Soon you will learn more about the paper.

ERSA 2010

I am on my way to the 50th ERSA meeting ERSA in Sweden. The keynote speakers are amazing: Saxenian, Strange, Krugman, Fujita, Thisse, Venables e McCann.
I am going present my paper "Regional Inequality Frontier: Brazil (1872-2000)" and I hope to keep on posting here.

Brazilian spatial dynamics in the long term (1872–2000): “path dependency” or “reversal of fortune”?

The Journal of Geographical Systems has just published my paper . (In the same issue there is a very interesting study "From locational fundamentals to increasing returns: the spatial concentration of population in Spain, 1787–2000" )

"It is the economy, companheiro!": an empirical analysis of Lula's re-election based on municipal data

by Araújo Jr, Carraro, Damé, Shikida and me in the Economics Bulletin

This paper discusses the reasons that led to the Lula's 2006 re-election. Spatial analysis methods revealed that,contrary to 2002, the President had more votes in less developed municipalities of Brazil. The econometric results cast doubt on the analyses that attribute to Bolsa Família Programme total responsibility for the re-election. Lula''s electoral success results from changes in the labor market, low inflation and an export boom that have reduced inequality and
improved the real wages of the Brazilian poor.

Moving II

By the end of the month, I am leaving UFABC and I will join IPEA, the Brazilian Institute of Applied Economics, in Brasília.

Latin American Economies: History and Globalization

Conference sponsored by the Center for Economic History da UCLA. I am going to LA in a few hours and I'll back on Monday. The conference papers are available for download.

News...

- I would like to apologize to my three and a half readers for not posting. It is almost the end of the term and things are really busy. So the blog will be on hold for a while.
-Ubuntu is doing fine. Compiz is running full throttle and I am able to do 99% of the things that I used to, but much faster. I think that I will never go back to Windows.
- Today I am going to the 1er Congreso Latinoamericano de Historia Económica in Montevideo. My expectations are quite high. Many dear friends will be there giving papers. Moreover, I will be the first time that I will meet researchers like Roberto Cortés Conde, James Robinson and others.
- Otávio Damé, my former undergrad student and research assistant at UFPel, has won the Controladoria Geral da União monographs prize. Congratulations to him and his advisor, André Carraro!
- See you soon!

Economic History Association Meeting

I am alive, but really busy. Now I am on the way to Austin to presentthis paper. Comments are welcome!

Hello, I must be going

Next Sunday I will return to Brazil. But before taking the plane, I am going to the European Regional Science Association Conference in Paris. The abstracts and some full papers are available , including the one that Martin Brauch and I have written.
I am quite busy packing and writing the final report, but I will try to post daily. Meanwhile I leave my readers with Groucho Marx:

Hello, I must be going.
I cannot stay,
I came to say
I must be going.
I'm glad I came
but just the same
I must be going.

Wages and Industrial Clusters in Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil)

The Review of Regional Studies has published my paper (gated pdf file). The abstract goes like this:

The purpose of this paper is to test whether the New Economic Geography hypothesis concerning the existence of a spatial wage structure applies to the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The first part of the study applies several spatial analysis techniques in order to locate industrial clusters and calculate the market potential of the municipalities studied. The second part uses this information together with demographic data to run wage regressions aimed at capturing the effects of agglomeration and urban economies on individual wages. The results do not falsify the hypothesis that nominal wages, using the proper controls, are higher in municipalities with higher market potential and lower in the economically disadvantaged hinterland of the state.

If you wish to read the paper, I can e-mail you a previous version.

My presentation at the Spatial Econometrics Conference 2007

The powerpoint presentation of the paper "SPATIAL DYNAMICS OF ECONOMIC
GROWTH IN BRAZIL (1970-2000):AN EMPIRICAL APPROACH" (with Martin Brauch) is available here. (Just drop me an e-mail if you want the full version of the paper).

Honey, I misinterpreted the coefficients

Last Saturday, at the Spatial Econometrics Conference 2007, James Lesage presented a paper showing that everybody misunderstood the meaning of coefficients in spatial regressions. And sometimes the difference is huge. It was an excellent presentation and you could almost hear the audience thinking: "Ay caramba, I have to rewrite everything...".
Only the abstract of the paper is available on-line. Stay tuned.
(Luckily, there were no spatial regressions in the paper (co-authored with Martin Brauch) that I presented there.)

Spatial Econometrics Association Conference

The programme of the SEA 2007 (Cambridge UK) and several papers are on-line. I'll be there!

The roots of regional inequalities in Brazil(1872-1920)

Quite a busy week. Fixing merged files, debugging R code and preparing the yesterday's presentation at the LSE cliometrics seminar. There is still a lot of work to be done, but the preliminary results are stimulating.

Why did Lula win?

"It is the economy, companheiro!": an empirical analysis of Lula’s re-election based on municipal data

André Carraro – UFPel
Ari Francisco de Araújo Junior- IBMEC/MG
Otávio Menezes Damé – UFPel
Leonardo Monteiro Monasterio – UFPel
Cláudio Djissey Shikida – IBMEC/MG

Comments are welcome! (a Portuguese version of the paper is available here).
UPDATE: The English version has been removed due to restrictions imposed by the journal that we submitted the paper. Sorry.

Cliometrics at LSE

Fêlipe Tâmega Fernandes e Neil Cummings, graduate students at the LSE Department of Economic History, organize a seminar on Cliometrics. On May 25th I am going to present the results of the research that I am doing with Eustáquio Reis (IPEA) about location in Brazil (1872-1920).
Felipe, by the way, is a young and an outstanding Brazilian researcher. I am sure that you will see his papers soon in the pages of the Journal of Economic History.