| Description |
Agenda |
Papers & Participants
Spatial
and Social Interactions in Economics - Description
Upham Hotel, Santa Barbara, CA
April 4-5, 2003
Empirical analysis of spatial and social interactions by
economists was quite limited until about a decade ago, when
interest and activity grew on a number of fronts simultaneously.
These include the study of peer effects within schools and
classrooms, a rebirth of urban economics, the "new"
growth theory in macroeconomics based on education externalities,
the development of theoretical models of social learning and
information cascades, and the application of the techniques
of "labor-metrics" – a research style developed
in labor economics – to empirical questions in epidemiology
and environmental economics.
Despite this resurgence of interest in spatial and social
interactions within economics, GIS and related advances in
geography have to date made relatively few inroads into the
economics profession. The goal of this workshop is to assess
the possible contributions of these advances to economic research.
This will be accomplished by bringing together cutting-edge
researchers on spatial and social interactions in the economics
profession, having them present examples of their current
research, exposing them to information on new developments
in GIS and new spatial econometric software, and starting
a discussion on possible uses of these tools, as well as further
development of these tools, within economics.
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