Trade and Spatial Economic Interdependence: U.S. Interregional Trade and Regional Economic Structure

Lee, Jee-Sun

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Description

Title

Trade and Spatial Economic Interdependence: U.S. Interregional Trade and Regional Economic Structure

Author(s)

Lee, Jee-Sun

Issue Date

2011-01-14T22:47:20Z

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 L.
• Kim, Tschangho John
• Hannon, Bruce M.

Department of Study

Geography

Discipline

Geography

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• commodity flow
• interregional input-output analysis
• spatial economic interdependence
• role of interregional trade
• trade GINI index
• flow matrix factor analysis
• explanatory spatial trade data analysis
• decomposition
• hypothetical extraction method
• hollowing-out
• fragmentation of production

Abstract

This dissertation was motivated by the changing nature and structure of interregional trade within a country. Each region’s economic structural changes and new spatial organization of production generated by the fragmented production process made possible by an open economy with significantly lower transportation costs have resulted in complex and changing patterns of interregional trade. For this reason, more attention has been directed to the relationship between trade and spatial economic interdependence across diverse regions. Such changes in the interregional or interstate trade pattern have raised several questions as follows: where are the main sources of inputs and markets for each region and how have they changed over time?; to what extent is interregional trade beneficial to the regions?; and what, if any, related public policies might be considered to enhance the region’s economic well being? This dissertation comprises three main essays to explore the U.S. interregional trade and regional economic structure in order to seek for the answers to the research questions presented above. The focus is three aspects: (1) the spatial pattern of the U.S. interstate commodity flows, (2) the role of interregional trade in the U.S. economy, and (3) spatial economic interdependence in the U.S. regional economy. The first analysis explores the spatial or geographical patterns of U.S. interstate commodity flows by employing two main exploratory spatial data analyses using U.S. CFS data. The analyses reveals trends that highlight the expanding interregional trading regions for each U.S. state between 1993 and 2007 even though there is significant spatial and temporal stability in the interstate commodity flow patterns. The second analysis focuses on investigating the role of interregional trade in regional economic growth. In order to assess the interregional trade coefficient change effects to the changes in the regional output level, a regional output decomposition method is introduced. The decomposition method is based on the interregional input-output model, and separates the interregional input-output coefficients for the intermediate transaction into pure technical coefficient and interregional trade coefficients. This decomposition approach highlights the significant role of trade among regions in generating and distributing the regional output across the regions. The final analysis explores the spatial economic interdependence among regions within an interregional economic system. The hypothetical extraction methods are applied to reveal that there is a clear hierarchical spatial linkage among regions. This dissertation provides the basis for understanding the relationship between interregional trade and spatial economic interdependence within the entire U.S. regional economy. It presents the changing structure of interregional trade and detects the significance of interregional trade. More regional “spillover” effects through the interregional interaction could be expected over time and the increasing interregional or interstate trade will continue to enhance each region’s complementarity as well change the nature of its competitiveness. There is a clear implication for the importance of transportation infrastructure investment in developing and promoting the growth and development of the entire regional economy. Future assessment of the regional economic impact of transportation infrastructure development would require the creation of an integrated model linking interregional input-output systems with a transportation network model. Given concerns about climate change and the environmental implications of future development, such a model would be able to explore the nature and extent of negative externalities associated with the growth of interregional trade as well as the implications for energy demands to move greater volumes of goods and services over longer distances.

Graduation Semester

2010-12

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/18356

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Copyright 2010 Jee-Sun Lee

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