PhD defense: "Regional labour markets and spatial interaction mechanisms"

On Tuesday 25 May David McArthur will hold a trial lecture on a prescribed topic, and defend his thesis for the PhD degree at NHH.

21.05.2010 - Ed.

The thesis consists of nine papers looking at how regional labour markets interact with one another, and how they respond to exogenous shocks. An understanding of these processes is important both for the development of effective regional policy and to understand how other policies will impact upon the distribution of people or jobs.

A good example of such a policy is a major change to transport infrastructure. Indeed, this has been particularly relevant in the south western region of Norway, where most of the data utilised in the thesis is taken from.

In this region, numerous topographical barriers, such as fjords and mountains, inhibit spatial interaction between proximate regions. Some of these barriers are effectively removed through the use of bridges or tunnels.

Such large changes to the spatial structure of a region can be expected to have an effect on the distribution of the population, housing markets, spatial interaction and economic activity in general. These are the issues which are the central focus of the thesis.

Modelling such complex interactions poses significant methodological challenges. An important contribution of the thesis is the use of innovative and novel methods.

A key model developed and utilised is a micro-simulation model of a two-region economy. The main feature of this model is that it allows the simultaneous analysis of commuting and migration. The ability to achieve this in a convincing manner is something which was lacking in the literature. The model was used to explore the effect of congestion and road pricing on the interaction between two labour markets.

Other methods utilised include formal concept analysis, fuzzy reasoning, panel data with fixed effect vector decomposition, hedonic analysis, equivalence testing, and gravity models.

All of these methods contribute to a better understanding of the functioning of regional labour markets, and of how to model such problems.

David McArthur is Master of Science in Economics from the University of Edinburgh in 2006 and Master of Research (Business & Management) from Glasgow Caledonian University in 2007. He has been a Research Fellow at Stord/Haugesund University College in 2008.

Prescribed topic for the trial lecture: "Models for Discrete Choice"
Time of the trial lecture: 10:15 in Karl Borchs Auditorium, NHH

Title of the thesis: "Regional labour markets and spatial interaction mechanisms"
Time and place for the defense: 12:15 in Karl Borchs Auditorium, NHH

Principal supervisor: Professor Jan Ubøe, NHH

Members of the evaluation committee:
Professor Kurt Jörnsten, NHH (Chairperson)
Professor Aura Reggiani, University of Bologna, Italy
Professor Lars-Göran Mattsson, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm