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The objective of this chapter is to introduce the reader to Spatial Health Econometrics (SHE). In both micro and macro health economics there are phenomena that are characterised by a strong spatial dimension, from hospitals engaging in local competitions in the delivery of health care services, to the regional concentration of health risk factors and needs. SHE allows health economists to incorporate these spatial effects using simple econometric models that take into account these spillover effects. This improves our understanding of issues such as hospital quality, efficiency and productivity and the sustainability of health expenditure of regional and national health care systems, to mention a few.

In “An Austrian Theory of Spatial Land,” Fred E. Foldvary addresses the disregard of spatial issues in basic Austrian economic theory as formulated by Carl Menger (1871) and elaborated upon by Ludwig von Mises (1940). Foldvary shows that Johann Heinrich von Thünen (1826) and Henry George (1879/1884), in particular, serve to fill these gaps in the classical Austrian theory of the market process. Moreover, a theory that incorporates spatial land leads to the conclusion that Austrian business cycle theory is incomplete: The “malspeculation” that accompanies urbanization whenever capital and labor rather than land are the main sources of tax revenue will have to be added to the malinvestment that is caused by expansionary monetary policies.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis and an optimization model of the spatial impact for the externalities derived from urban regeneration and rehabilitation of degraded and segregated historic heritage areas.

From the amount invested and state intervention locations, an impact index is put forward. The spatial distribution of these impact indexes in the interventions' area of influence will be the basis for the analysis. Hence, by setting some specific objectives of the decision agent about this distribution homogeneity, and with the aim of avoiding inner segregation and to facilitate the sustainable urban development and cohesion of the neighborhood as a whole, a model which will allow the allocation of the budget available among the different locations fixed a priori is proposed.

It is found that by comparing the spatial distributions of impact indexes obtained in both situations, a measure of the urban regeneration and rehabilitation process and its impact can be obtained.

In order to favour the neighborhoods' internal cohesion and to avoid inner segregation, the model enables one to better address priority areas of intervention inside a historic heritage urban area and to better achieve sustainable urbanization by providing a more equitable and efficient managing of resources.

This article examines the links between average city size, fiscal decentralisation, and national economic growth in 33 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.

The data in this paper comprise an unbalanced panel dataset which contains economic growth indicators, average city size, fiscal decentralisation indicators and control variables in 33 OECD member countries from 1975 to 2015 in five-year intervals. Fixed-effects (FE) estimators are used for the analysis.

This research finds i) countries with larger weighted average city sizes have higher economic growth, ii) countries with greater fiscal decentralisation have higher economic growth, but iii) countries with larger weighted average city sizes with greater decentralisation have lower rates of economic growth.

The research highlights the importance of agglomerations and decentralised governance and management for economic growth. While the findings are consistent with previous evidence that larger city sizes and fiscal decentralisation are separately associated with higher rates of economic growth, the authors find countries which have larger cities and greater fiscal decentralisation experience lower rates of economic growth highlighting a need for caution on decentralisation agendas in such cases. The implications of this suggest policymakers should proceed with caution on decentralisation agendas in countries with large cities.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between an individual's social capital context and entrepreneurship using a multi-level modelling framework.

This paper uses data from 87,007 individual level observations across 428 regions in 37 countries. The data comes from the 2010 and 2016 Life in Transition Surveys. The paper uses a principal component analysis to identify the different dimensions of an individual's social capital context. Subsequently, a multi-level model is employed examining the relationship between the components of an individual's social capital context and entrepreneurship (which is proxied by an individual's attempt to set up a business), whilst controlling for both country and regional effects.

Greater levels of networking, informal connections and tolerance of others have a significant positive relationship with entrepreneurial activity. Trust of institutions and others have a negative relationship with entrepreneurial activity. Regional and country differences are also important for entrepreneurship, demonstrating the importance of the multi-level and social contextual environment for business development.

Firstly, the authors present a broad, but comprehensive social contextual framework incorporating many measures of social capital when examining the importance of social capital for business development. Secondly, the work provides interesting results on the “bright and dark sides of trust” for entrepreneurship, answering calls for improved understandings on the positive and negative relationships between social capital and entrepreneurial activity. Thirdly, the paper extends the burgeoning but limited number of studies that examine the multi-level contextual environment of entrepreneurial activities.

The current paper seeks to analyze to what degree theories from different fields of social science are able to explain the home‐region orientation of MNCs. This is necessary since there has been only a relatively narrow, economics‐oriented explanation for such an orientation.

The analysis is based on a thorough review of the literature that refers to a MNC's home‐region orientation and on different theories from the social sciences.

The paper shows that several theories from economics, psychology, and sociology are able to explain an MNC's home‐region orientation.

The paper contributes to the development of a more multi‐faceted explanation of why MNCs generally prefer a home‐region orientation. The paper derives propositions that are consistent with each theory. These propositions can be tested empirically in subsequent research studies.

The paper discusses a number of different theories and streams of research that can be used to conceptually explain and gain insight into the phenomenon of a home‐region orientation for MNCs