Three papers in economic geography

Escobedo Paredes, Luis Alfonso

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Description

Title

Three papers in economic geography

Author(s)

Escobedo Paredes, Luis Alfonso

Issue Date

2020-05-04

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Hewings, Geoffrey J. D.

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Hewings, Geoffrey J. D.

Committee Member(s)

• McLafferty, Sara
• Dall'Erba, Sandy
• Wu, Maryalice

Department of Study

Geography & Geographic InfoSci

Discipline

Geography

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Latin America
• Spatial Econometrics
• Spatial Statistics
• Location Theory
• Retail Location
• Manufacturing Location
• Clustering

Abstract

For the past 30 years, Lima has been experiencing a drastic transformation due to an ongoing restructuring of its economy. While Lima aspires to become an attractive city for investment, its productive sector is still facing a series of obstacles that limit its long-term economic sustainability. In addition, population is experiencing a lag in accessibility to public services since national and local governments are unable to match the ever-growing demands. The resulting spatial mismatches present a major policy challenge and the dissertation explores some recent innovations in the identification of these mismatches. This research centers on the current developments in the manufacturing and retail sector, and their impact on society. Chapter 1 identifies and explains the locational patterns of the retail trade in Lima by focusing on two different measures: concentration and co-location. Using various methods of spatial analysis that the retail sector in Lima was found to be both clustered and scattered, depending on the specific economic sector evaluated. In addition, using a negative binomial regression, it turned out that location decisions of retailers in Lima are also influenced by other retail locations. Global and local measures of concentration indicate that Lima’s retail market is clustering, especially in the center of Metropolitan Lima. Co-location results suggest that co-location is class dependent. In addition, evidence shows that different retail activities of the same class repel each other. Results are in line of previous studies indicating that Lima’s retail activity is dispersed polycentric. Chapter 2 investigates the spatial distribution of manufacturing activities in Lima. In particular, the emphasis was directed towards the analysis of the localization patterns of three-digit industries, industry size, as well as the co-localization patterns of two-digit vertically linked industries. Using distance-based methods of spatial concentration, results confirm that three-digit industries can be 50% more concentrated at distances smaller than 4 kilometers than in the entire metropolitan area. Likewise, this chapter determined that manufacturing establishments concentrate in terms of size and regardless of the activity. Finally, manufacturing co-localization exist between vertically linked industries. In particular, co-localization is stronger at medium and large distances. Co-dispersion exists at short distances in every industry evaluated. Finally, Chapter 3 investigates the influence of neighboring medicine retailers on the prices charged by their competitors. Using a spatial lag model and evaluating identical products, competing medicine retailers’ prices were determined to be spatially dependent. My results show that consumers could benefit from improvements in the public supply of both medicines retailers and health care infrastructure. For instance, nearby public medicine retailers have a direct impact of around 3% decrease in the average price of medications. Likewise, the presence of public hospitals in the surroundings of medicine retailers, dampen average medicine prices by approximately 2%. I focused on manufacturing and retail sectors because of the impact they have on society. Location decisions of economic activities can affect the livelihood of thousands of people in terms of jobs, consumption and access to basic services. As of today, manufacturing in Lima is unproductive, retail location is scattered, and the promised universal access of medicine is blocked. It is my hope that results from this dissertation influence policy efforts to improve well-being of millions of Peruvians living in these conditions. I firmly believe this dissertation could be used as a vehicle that fosters a mindset change on policy makers.

Graduation Semester

2020-05

Type of Resource

Thesis

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/108357

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2020 Luis Escobedo

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