Investigaciones Regionales - Journal of Regional Research has published the 65^rd Issue, the second volume corresponding to 2026.

Below you will find the summaries of the papers published in this volume, which can be accessed at https://investigacionesregionales.org/en/revista/spatial-econometrics-and-regional-science-in-memoriam-of-jesus-mur-and-ana-angulo/

We invite authors to submit papers at https://investigacionesregionales.org/en/envio-de-articulos/submission-of-papers-and-others-contributions/

Issue 65

Special Issue 2026 Spatial econometrics and regional science

Editorial

Fernando A. López, M. Luz Maté, Manuel Ruiz

Spatial econometrics and regional science. In memoriam of Jesús Mur and Ana Angulo

This special issue of Investigaciones Regionales is published in memory of Professors Jesús Mur and Ana Angulo, both faculty members of the Department of Economic Analysis at the University of Zaragoza. Their research made a decisive contribution to consolidating spatial econometrics within regional science, with a sustained emphasis—both methodological and empirical—on the importance of model specification and selection when incorporating spatial structure. As a tribute, the issue includes the re-publication (with permission) of their paper “Model selection strategies in a spatial setting: Some additional results”, originally published in Regional Science and Urban Economics (2009), which remains an indispensable reference in the literature. The remaining articles extend this legacy from complementary perspectives. Taken as a whole, the monograph highlights the continued relevance of Mur and Angulo’s central message: when space is part of the data-generating mechanism, reliable inference requires taking specification strategy seriously.

Keywords: Spatial econometrics; specification; model selection; regional science; spatiotemporal dependence

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Jesús Mur, Ana Angulo

Model selection strategies in a spatial setting: Some additional results

This paper continues from the discussion of Florax et al. (Florax, R., H. Folmer and S. Rey, 2003. Specification searches in spatial econometrics: the relevance of Hendry’s methodology. Regional Science and Urban Economics, 33, 557–579.), regarding the properties of various specification strategies for spatial econometric models. Habitual practise has popularised a technique based on the well-known Lagrange Multipliers, characterized as a Specific- to-General approach, and which seems to give good results. In our work, we contemplate other alternatives, some of which may be seen as slight variations of this proposal, including the selection tests of Vuong (Vuong, Q., 1989. Likelihood ratio-tests for model selection and non-nested hypotheses. Econometrica, 57, 307–333.) and of Clarke (Clarke, K., 2003. Nonparametric model discrimination in international relations. Journal of Conflict Resolutions, 47, 72–93.). We also examine an approach of the General-to-Specific type, as clearly opposite to the others. The comparison of the two strategies is carried out through a Monte Carlo experiment, the results of which are quite diffuse, in the sense that we do not find conclusive evidence in favour of either of these two approaches. However, it should be recognized that the General-to-Specific strategy seems to be more robust to the existence of anomalies in the Data Generating Process.

Keywords: Spatial econometrics; specification strategy; model selection techniques

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Francesca Centofanti, Roberto Basile, Francesca Licari, Jacopo Pitari

The effect of internal migration on regional growth in Italy: a dynamic spatial panel data analysis

This study assesses the effect of internal migration on regional growth in Italy at the NUTS-3 level over the period 2002-2019. The composition of the internal migration flows of the working-age population in Italy during the sample period appears substantially heterogeneous in nationality and labor skills. The analysis considers this heterogeneity, estimating various specifications of the dynamic spatial model and controlling for the endogeneity of migration variables through a control function approach. The evidence suggests that the internal migration of Italian citizens has a positive direct and spillover impact on regional growth, slowing down the convergence process. On the contrary, there is no evidence of a significant effect of internal migration of foreign citizens. Taking the skill composition of internal movements of Italian citizens into account, the adverse impact on convergence is magnified, thus corroborating the skill-selective hypothesis. Finally, the diverging impact of internal migration increases with the distance of migration flows.

Keywords: Regional growth; convergence; migration; spatial dynamic models

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Marcos Herrera-Gómez, Sadit Ruano, Manuel Salvador Figueras

Regional Economic Growth in Colombia: the role of Fiscal corruption and the Armed conflict

This research explores the impact of armed violence and corruption on the economic growth of Colombia’s departments from 1991 to 2017. Using models of spatial panels, statics and dynamics, we detect positive space-time indirect effects on departmental growth, including evidence of beta-convergence. Specifically, fiscal corruption exhibited a significant negative impact on short-term economic growth. Moreover, corruption primarily affected growth at the local level, with limited spillover effects observed from neighboring regions. Interestingly, our analysis did not yield statistically significant evidence regarding the impact of armed violence on economic growth.

Keywords: Economic growth; spatial dynamic model; fiscal corruption; armed conflict; beta convergence

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Virgilio Pérez, Jose M. Pavía

Automating the Transfer of Data between Census Sections and Postal Codes Areas Over Time. An application to Spain

Cross-section and longitudinal spatial statistics and econometric models rely on spatially and temporally referenced data. Administrative units like cities, counties, and provinces provide stable data sources, enabling models to combine statistics collected at different times. In Spain, census sections serve as the smallest territorial units in which official statistics are delivered. These areas offer valuable statistics, such as population and housing censuses. Providing these statistics at the postcode level is also pertinent for conducting local analyses and surveys. The issue is that boundaries of census sections undergo regular updates, sometimes involving significant reorganization. The R-package sc2sc automates the transfer of variables between different census sections and postal codes. This paper introduces the package and outlines its methodology, which employs areal weighting to transfer counts and rates.

Keywords: Spatial statistics; longitudinal data; census sections; R-stats; sc2sc; geospatial analysis

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Maryna Makeienko, Mariano Matilla-García

Spatial Trends and Spatial Econometric Structures: practical application to a different context data

Spatial trend concept was proved to be useful to depict the systematic variations of the phenomenon concerned over a region based on geographical locations. We use three different geographical datasets to check if there exist potential leading deterministic spatial components and whether we can econometrically model spatial economic relations that might contain unobserved spatial structure of unknown form. Hypothesis testing is conducted with a symbolic-entropy based non-parametric statistical procedure, proposed in Garcia-Cordoba et al. (2019), which does not rely on prior weight matrices assumptions. Geographically restricted semiparametric spatial models are taken to perform a modeling strategy for cross-sectional data sets. The main question to be responded is whether the models that merely incorporate space coordinates might be sufficient to capture space dependence when applied to different types of data. Moreover, it is important to study what intrinsic characteristics of the economic problem or the dependent variable itself make feasible (and optimal) to use the specific methodological approach.

Keywords: Symbolic entropy; spatial trends; applied analysis

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David Garnés-Galindo, Manuel Ruiz-Marín, María Luz Maté-Sánchez-Val

Unveiling the pandemic's impact: Did COVID-19 drive business failures? A Cutting-Edge Analysis with Spatial Autoregressive Modelling

The objective of this study is to estimate the impact of Covid-19 on business behavior and its spatial effect among companies. Four specifications have been developed to analyze the pandemic’s influence on key variables determining business behavior: liquidity, indebtedness, profitability, and efficiency. This study has focused on the province of Barcelona, Spain, from which a database of failed and non-failed companies has been compiled, both before and after the pandemic. The models have been estimated using the spatial Seemingly Unrelated Regressions (SUR) methodology, and each equation was estimated following a spatial Differences-in-Differences model. The results confirm that the emergence of Covid-19 has had a significant impact on companies’ financial ratios, worsening their positions in terms of liquidity, indebtedness, and efficiency, with the existence of a spatial contagion pattern.

Keywords: Business failure; covid; Differences-in-Differences; current ratio; debt ratio; profitability; efficiency; spatial dependence

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Julián Ramajo, Alejandro Ricci-Risquete, Geoffrey J.D. Hewings

Spatio-temporal dynamics of regional economic growth: An empirical model for the Spanish Autonomous Communities

This paper analyzes the evolution of the aggregate production in the Spanish regional economic system between 2000Q1 and 2023Q4 proposing a spatiotemporal growth model for the Autonomous Communities in Spain that simultaneously accounts for the presence of time-series dynamics, cross-sectional spatial dependence, common factors, and regional heterogeneity. The econometric specification used in the empirical application includes time-lagged variables, spatial and spatiotemporal lagged variables, a dynamic common factor (the national growth), and some parameters varying regionally, so we consider all the key stylized facts that complex regional economic growth processes exhibit over time.

Keywords: Temporal dynamics; spatial dependence; spatio-temporal models; regional production; Spain

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Artícles

European Regional Policy

Juan R. Cuadrado-Roura

Four decades of the european regional & cohesion policy. An overview

The paper addresses two research questions: first, what factors explain the continuity of the Cohesion Policy (CP); and second, to what extent such policy has contributed to reducing territorial disparities across the EU and to achieve other objectives. The article advances some hypotheses, and the analysis highlights the core pillars of the CP: its ‘philosophy’, evolving objectives, financial resources, and institutional architecture. It further evaluates outcomes in some key areas: convergence trends, infrastructure investment, human capital formation, and support for SMEs.  The findings suggest that while CP has contributed to reducing territorial disparities and other positive achievements linked to the European economic and welfare growth, its effectiveness varies across regions, and some policy domains face persistent challenges such as effectiveness, bureaucratization, and regional/sectoral policy conflicts which give support to important criticisms.

Keywords: Regional Policy; Cohesion Policy; Principles and philosophy; sectoral policies; convergence; problems and criticisms

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Books reviews

Fernando Rubiera Morollón

Are we in a golden age of regional science? Reflections based on the review and critique of the Thematic Encyclopedia of Regional Science (Edward Elgar)

Recently, in 2025, Edward Elgar published the Thematic Encyclopedia of Regional Science. This massive work, over 800 pages long, contains more than 300 entries and features contributions from nearly one hundred researchers worldwide, coordinated by the editors: Peter Nijkamp, ​​Karima Kourtit, Kingsley E. Haynes, and Zeynep Elburz.

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Request for Proposals for the 2028 RSAI World Congress

The Regional Science Association International (RSAI) aims to hold a world congress at least once every two years, as it is an essential instrument for networking and the global advancement of research on Regional Science.

The last edition 2026 has recently been held in Quito, Ecuador, with a vast representation of many countries and all RSAI supranational sections. RSAI considers world congresses. Now, the RSAI calls for proposals to host the 2028 RSAI World Congress.

Potential hosts are RSAI Supra-Regionals, RSAI Sections, or RSAI members that have a proven track record of hosting conferences and related events. It is worth noting that the RSAI World Congress may be held as a standalone event or concurrently with another event (such as the supranational or the national RSAI conference).

Proposals must be submitted by email to RSAI Executive Director (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; cc: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by Monday, July 16th, 2026, 23:59 CET

Proposals will be evaluated by the RSAI Council, that will take a decision at the RSAI Council meeting to be held during the annual ERSA meeting (Sofia 2026). Depending on the quality of the proposals received, the RSAI reserves the right not to organize a congress in 2028 or to postpone the decision, so that a potentially interesting proposal can be fine-tuned.

The following document outlines the application process and explains in detail the main points that the proposal sent should cover when applying to host the 2028 World Congress.

 Application Process (download)

The RSAI Young Researchers Prize aims to showcase the research of young scholars in regional science through paper presentation and discussion organized at the Regional Science Association World Congress.  

After close evaluation of the candidates of this year for the RSAI Young Researcher award, the members of the evaluation committee Prof Hee-Jung Jun, Prof Vicente Royuela and Prof John Carruthers, have decided that the winner of this year is Pedro Henrique Moura Siqueira, from Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF) with the paper titled "The Regional Economic Effects of Port Efficiency Improvements in Brazil".

The paper was presented during the RSAI World Conference in Quito. This Award has an economic reward of 600€.

Congratulations!

REGIONAL STATISTICS, 2026, VOL 16, No 3.

STUDIES

Dear Readers,

We are pleased to say that the 3/2026 issue of Regional Statistics has been published and available online!

CONTENT

Rusli Abdulah: Measuring rural economic development from outer space: evidence from the Village Fund policy in Indonesia

https://www.ksh.hu/statszemle_archive/regstat/2026/2026_03/rs160301.pdf

Roberto Yoan Castillo Dieguez – Samuel Arturo Mongrut Montalván – Ma. Benilde Rincón García – Graciela Lara Gómez: Regional inequalities in productivity: multiscale evidence on structural trajectories in Mexico

https://www.ksh.hu/statszemle_archive/regstat/2026/2026_03/rs160302.pdf

Dao Van Le – Xuan Hoan Pham – Tuyen Quang Tran: How do temperature shocks affect tax revenue from international trade? New evidence from provincial panel analysis in Vietnam

https://www.ksh.hu/statszemle_archive/regstat/2026/2026_03/rs160303.pdf

Gábor Mayer – Kristóf Bertalan Orbán – Judit Berkes – Katalin Mezei – Tibor Navracsics: Defining daily space use patterns in Hungary: identification of functional urban centres with a multidimensional methodology

https://www.ksh.hu/statszemle_archive/regstat/2026/2026_03/rs160304.pdf

Patrik Tátrai – József Molnár – Ágnes Erőss – Katalin Kovály: Quantifying ethnic populations without a census: methodological lessons from Ukraine

https://www.ksh.hu/statszemle_archive/regstat/2026/2026_03/rs160305.pdf

Thanh Son Ngo – Kariyawasam Pinikahana Gamage Lahiru Sandaruwan – Viktor Varjú – Diána Koponicsné Györke: How green growth affects environmental quality in some Central and Eastern European countries: an asymmetric analysis

https://www.ksh.hu/statszemle_archive/regstat/2026/2026_03/rs160306.pdf

Anita Zombory: Balancing economic growth and emission reductions: an empirical study of the European Union

https://www.ksh.hu/statszemle_archive/regstat/2026/2026_03/rs160307.pdf

Achi Rinaldi – Ro’fah Nur Rachmawati – Muhamad Syazali – Achmad Abdurrazzaq – Muhammad Yusuf Al Habsy: A LASSO–multiscale GTWR: quantifying the blue economy index and its influence on regional growth in the district city of Sumatra Island

https://www.ksh.hu/statszemle_archive/regstat/2026/2026_03/rs160308.pdf

Imre Dobos – Gergely Lülök – Zoltán Sebestyén: Corrigendum and addendum to the paper „Statistics on the use of AI technologies in the member states of the EU”

https://www.ksh.hu/statszemle_archive/regstat/2026/2026_03/rs160309.pdf

Join us to our social networking sites:

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Articles

Book Reviews

Dear RSAI members,

I hope this email finds you well.

In the following link you can read the newest issue of the RSAI Newsletter (download). 

Enjoy the read, and please do not hesitate to get in touch with Martijn (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) and Mina (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) if you would like to propose new material, ideas, researchers to interview, etc. for the next newsletter.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that Regional Science events (conferences, seminars, workshops, summer schools, awards, etc) organized by the RSAI National Sections or the RSAI Supranationals (NARSC, LARSA, ERSA, PRSCO) are regularly announced in the NEWS of the RSAI web page (https://regionalscience.org/) and also for convenience in the events calendar (https://regionalscience.org/index.php/news/events-calendar.html)

Kind regards,

Dr Ana Viñuela

RSAI Executive Director

Associate Professor, Applied Economics Department

REGIOlab, University of Oviedo,  Spain

European Project EXIT (https://www.exit-project.eu/)

Articles

Book Reviews

The RSAI President, Prof Shibusawa, and the RSAI Executive Director, Ana Vinuela, have the pleasure to announce the new elected RSAI Fellow for 2026.

But first, we would like to thank the members of the RSAI Fellows Selection Committee -made up of Prof. Jouke Van Dijk (Chair), Amit Batabyal and Sarah Low, who received and evaluated the candidatures for this year's RSAI Fellows election; and also thank all the RSAI Fellows that participated in the ballot. 

According to the votes received from the RSAI Fellows, three (3) new Fellows have been elected this year, 2026 (ordered in alphabetical order):

• Simona Iammarino (Gran Sasso Science Institute, GSSI in L'Aquila, Italy)
• Julie Le Gallo (L'Institut Agro Dijon, France)
• Bruce Newbold (McMaster University, Canada)

Congratulations to all for this outstanding achievement!