RSPP Paper Award 2025

The Committe, made up of Denise Pumain (ERSA), Kara Kockelman (NARSC), Carlos Azzoni (LARSA), and Neil Reid (NARSC), evaluated five very good papers -pre-selected by the RSPP EiC, Andrea Caragliu- and decided that this year the Award goes to:

Loras-Gimeno, D., Gómez-Bengoechea, G., & Díaz-Lanchas, J. (2024). Fiscal redistribution and the narrowing urban–rural income gap. Regional Science Policy &Practice, 16(5), 100045. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rspp.2024.100045

The winner was chosen because of its touching upon two very relevant topics for the regional science policy literature, viz. (i.) the role of agglomeration economies in driving territorial income imbalances, and (ii.) whether policies should target territories, rather than individuals.

The paper originally exploits Spanish micro data to show that, in a low density context, the urban-rural income gap decreases as a result of fiscal interventions, while also documenting relevant spatial heterogeneity in the gaps across Spanish regions.

These results offer a significant contribution to the regional science literature dealing with the role of national and regional policies in shaping local welfare levels.

Congratulations to the prize winners on their achievement!

In Memoriam Jean Paelinck

When I think of the quintessential well-rounded scholar, Jean Paelinck would be primus inter pares.  He was an incredibly well-read, erudite person who was also very committed to regional science and the nascent field of spatial econometrics.  His spatial econometric model, FLEUR, captured these two fields of interest perfectly as they mutually reinforced what was at the time, an important innovation in our goal to find an analytical framework to understand how multi-economy systems functioned.  However, Jean was always interested in what others were doing and he delighted in attending meetings where he could engage in conversation with as many as possible, especially if he was able to nurse a glass of wine during the discourse.  He was our pianist-in-residence and always enjoyed performing during the lunch celebrations and he provided a very moving performance during a memorial service for Walter Isard.  Regional Science rewarded him with a Founders Medal, a Fellowship and the Paelinck Prize – but he rewarded us with his presence and multi-decade commitment to our field.    Thank you, Jean.

Geoffrey J.D. Hewings, Emeritus Director, Regional Economics Applications Laboratory.

________________

Jean Paelinck was a wonderful insightful scholar who fathered spatial theory in regional economics, applied regional science and specifically spatial econometrics. He was a prolific publisher across a wide range of topics but he always had a strong mathematical or statistical analytic bent to his regional research. He was a truly gifted intellectual who besides his prodigious scholarship wrote poetry for all occasions and was a wonderful composer and pianist. He composed original marching scores for many organizations including Regional Science International. His gentle and gentlemanly ways were widely appreciated. He will be deeply missed. Regards

Kingsley Haynes, University Professor Emeritus, Schar School of Policy and Government

________________

One of the most distinguished regional scientists, Jean Paelinck, passed away on April 18, 2025, at the age of 94.

Jean Henri Paul Paelinck was born on July 4, 1930, in Antwerp, Belgium. He began his long standing academic journey at the University of Liège, where he first studied law; he earned his Doctor of Law degree maxima cum laude in 1953, and later received additional master’s degrees from the same university. His early promise led him to further studies, inter alia at the University of Cambridge in the Department of Applied Economics (1958–1959), where he worked with the famous Richard Stone (Nobel Laureate, 1984).

Paelinck’s academic career spanned several countries and institutions. He held teaching and research positions at several universities, including Lille, Namur, Paris, and the Université Catholique de Louvain. Most notably, from 1969 to 1995, he served as a professor in theoretical spatial economics at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. His work during this period laid a solid foundation for his lifelong commitment to rigorous, quantitative-analytical and interdisciplinary research in regional science.

In May 1974, while addressing the annual meeting of the Dutch Statistical Association, Paelinck introduced the term “spatial econometrics.” This new field sought to explore the spatially interdependent dimensions of economic behavior and regional development—a concept that would come to influence both academic inquiry and public policy all over the world. His 1979 book, Spatial Econometrics, co-authored with his colleague Leo Klaassen, became a cornerstone text and has since been cited as central to the emerging field of spatial econometrics. Another seminal book of Jean Paelinck (co-authored with Peter Nijkamp) was the analytical textbook on Operational Theory and Method in Regional Economics (1975), which was intended to be a contemporaneous successor of Walter Isard’s core text on Methods of Regional Analysis (1960). A more recent noteworthy title is Non-standard Spatial Statistics and Spatial Econometrics (2011), a book co-authored with Dan Griffith. This work delves into advanced statistical techniques tailored to address the complexities that arise in spatial data analysis—techniques that often did not fit the classical frameworks of spatial statistics.

Jean Paelinck has over many years been an original thinker in quantitative regional science. For example, his interesting studies on international and interregional trade patterns served to find a linkage between the pioneering works of Nobel Laureate Jan Tinbergen (and his colleague Henk Bos) and the early spatial hierarchy systems studies by August Lösch, termed by him  ‘Tinbergen-Bos models’. In a later stage of his life, he was also engaged as a visiting professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, as a close colleague of the late Roger Stough and Kingsley Haynes. Over the course of his career, he authored more than 55 books and over 300 articles, reflecting a deep and sustained engagement with econometric methods in regional science.

Beyond teaching and research, Jean Paelinck contributed also his expertise to international organizations. He served in advisory roles for the United Nations, the European Union, and other international bodies concerned with economic and regional development. His scholarly contributions were recognized through numerous honors—including seven honorary doctorates, the RSAI Founder’s Medal, and a knighthood in the Order of the Netherlands Lion. In 2014, the Regional Science Association International established the Jean Paelinck Award to honor his pioneering work on quantitative regional science.

His legacy lives on not only in his extensive body of work, but also in the many students, colleagues, and international policy-analysts who continue to draw inspiration from his dedication to understanding the spatial complexities of economic life.

Peter Nijkamp, Free University. Faculty of Economics and Business Administration. Department of Spatial Economics

We are excited to call for participants and mentors for the upcoming NERSA/NARSC Program in Mobility, Migration, and Regional Science, June 20, 2025-December 19, 2026, which will explore key theories, methodologies, and applications related to human movement across geographic scales. This workshop will feature keynote lectures on recent evidence-based theories of migration behavior while also addressing recent advances in data sources, analytical methods, and policy implications within diverse spatial and socio-economic contexts.

This program will begin with a virtual keynote lecture by renowned scholar Dr. Bruce Newbold of McMaster University. This will be followed by 7 virtual workshops throughout the summer. The virtual workshops will begin with a review of data and trends in the U.S. and international perspectives. This will be followed by 4 methods workshops on visualization, economic impacts, machine learning, and network analysis. The final workshop will center on policy implications.  After the summer, the program will continue with presentations, social events, and award ceremonies at the North American Regional Science Council (NARSC) 2025 and 2026 annual meetings, as well as additional virtual project meetings. Selected completed project papers will be invited to publish in the well-known regional science journal, Growth and Change.

Confirmed speakers include Dr. David Plane (UA), Dr. Nancy Lozano (World Bank), Dr. Ashish Shenoy (UC Davis), Dr. Kelsey Best (Vanderbilt), Dr. Elijah Knapp (SDSU), and Dr. Kevin Kane (SCAG). 

In addition to calling for participants, we welcome experts to share interests and insights on mobility, migration, and immigration dynamics, covering topics such as concepts and cutting-edge methods used by regional scientists for the study of migration behavior. A key focus of this workshop is fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, bringing together early career scholars, senior researchers, and practitioners in a dynamic, engaging, interactive environment.  We also welcome mentors to support early career scholars by providing research feedback, career guidance, and networking opportunities. Whether as a presenter, mentor, or both, this is an excellent opportunity to present cutting-edge research, engage with a diverse cohort, and contribute to critical discussions on emerging trends and policy frameworks that shape human mobility and migration.  

Additionally, we invite ideas from the regional science community to enhance the program’s impact—whether through innovative session formats, new research directions, or collaborative initiatives that bridge research and policy.

Join us in this 18-month cohort-based program that not only advances regional science but also builds a lasting community of scholars dedicated to addressing pressing socio-economic and policy challenges through innovative research. If you are passionate about shaping the next generation of regional scientists, we encourage you to get involved, share your ideas, and help make this workshop a success!

If you are interested in being a participant, please submit your name, affiliation, contact information, and a short bio during the registration process. The program registration fee as a participant is $100, which includes access to all workshop sessions and materials. Payment is required at the time of registration to secure your spot. You can register and pay the fee using a credit card using our secure registration portal at https://narsc.meetingsavvy.net A certificate of completion and an award ceremony will follow upon successful completion of the program.

If you are interested in serving as a mentor or potential presenter, please let us know. You can direct any inquiries or express your interest by contacting Dr. Ting Zhang at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and Dr. Keith Waters at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. An honorarium will be provided in recognition of your valuable contribution.

For further information about the program, please visit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b23U42J_v--LP1t2yyYxzCyjfDZh5PEi/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=101955173043268796923&rtpof=true&sd=true. 

Registration Deadline: May 15

Acceptance Notification: June 10

https://meet.google.com/yom-mivu-fzd

REGIONAL STATISTICS, 2025, VOL 15, No 2.

STUDIES

Dear Readers,

We are pleased to say that the 2/2025 issue of Regional Statistics has been published and available online!

CONTENT

Dwi Agus Prastiwi – Khoirunurrofik Khoirunurrofik: The spatial spillover effects of small and medium-sized enterprise clusters and industrial estates on the unemployment rate: evidence from Java

https://www.ksh.hu/statszemle_archive/regstat/2025/2025_02/rs150201.pdf

Patrícia Becsky-Nagy – Balázs Fazekas: What do women want? – role of higher education in shaping female entrepreneurship

https://www.ksh.hu/statszemle_archive/regstat/2025/2025_02/rs150202.pdf

Áron Dénes Hartvig – László Szabó: Regional residential battery storage diffusion pathways in Hungary 

https://www.ksh.hu/statszemle_archive/regstat/2025/2025_02/rs150203.pdf

Hasbi Yasin – Purhadi – Ahmad Choiruddin: Geographically and temporally weighted multivariate generalised gamma regression for modelling three educational indicators in Central Java, Indonesia

https://www.ksh.hu/statszemle_archive/regstat/2025/2025_02/rs150204.pdf

Wencelaus Musyoka Muthama – Zoltán Gál: Role of fiscal decentralisation in poverty reduction: spatio-temporal evidence from Kenya’s devolution framework

https://www.ksh.hu/statszemle_archive/regstat/2025/2025_02/rs150205.pdf

Attila Bányai – Tibor Tatay – Gergő Thalmeiner – László Pataki: Analyzing the impact of geographical diversification on portfolio performance

https://www.ksh.hu/statszemle_archive/regstat/2025/2025_02/rs150206.pdf

Muhammad Arif – Lutfi Mutaʼali – R. Rijanta: Mapping poverty traps in Indonesia: a spatial perspective

https://www.ksh.hu/statszemle_archive/regstat/2025/2025_02/rs150207.pdf

Baurzhan Bokayev – Gulnaz Akhmetova: Evaluation of economic strategies for managing internal migration of Kazakhstani citizens: analysis of regulatory instruments and their effectiveness

https://www.ksh.hu/statszemle_archive/regstat/2025/2025_02/rs150208.pdf

Join us to our social networking sites:

https://www.facebook.com/RegionalStatistics

https://ksh.academia.edu/RegionalStatistics

Dear colleagues,

We want to inform you about the plenary lectures scheduled for October 16th and 17th. Professor Katarzyna Kopczewska, a researcher in the Department of Data Science at the University of Warsaw, will give the first lecture. She researches the modeling of the significance of location for economic, social, and environmental phenomena, using quantitative methods that are specifically tailored to geo-located data, primarily point data. Her research enables the optimization of locations for specific phenomena and entities, analyzing spatial density, agglomeration effects, and diffusion.

The second presentation will be given by Mr. Riccardo Crescenzi, Professor of Geographical Economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He has been a European Research Council (ERC) grant holder, leading a major five-year research project on foreign direct investment (FDI), global value chains (GVCs), and their territorial impacts worldwide. He is currently the LSE Principal Investigator of a large collaborative research project funded by Horizon Europe and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) on inequalities in the era of global megatrends.

We want to remind you that registration is required to send and manage communications.

Participants who registered last year can use their username and password: https://reunionesdeestudiosregionales.org/pamplona2025/en/user/

If you have forgotten your username and/or password, please click on the following link: https://reunionesdeestudiosregionales.org/pamplona2025/wp-login.php?action=lostpassword.

Please enter your email address to receive a message with instructions on recovering your username and/or password. If you don’t have an account, please register at https://reunionesdeestudiosregionales.org/pamplona2025/en/user/new/

To simplify procedures, the previous round of summaries is eliminated. The Scientific Committee will only evaluate communications and extended summaries. The models can be downloaded at: https://reunionesdeestudiosregionales.org/pamplona2025/en/user/new/.

We encourage you to send your proposals as soon as possible.

The Organizing Committee and Scientific Committee would like to invite you to propose Special Sessions until May 16th. To submit your proposal, you need to send the title of the Special Session, along with the name(s) of the coordinator(s) and a summary in both Spanish and English to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

We are eagerly awaiting your arrival in Pamplona. Sincerely,

The Organizing Committee

The unexpected effects of policies on cities and regions

The Annals of Regional Science

Submissions open: 14 April 2025

Submission deadline: 15 November 2025

Editors:

• Sébastien Bourdin, Professor of Economic Geography, EM Normandie Business School, France
• Elena Ragazzi, Research Director, CNR-IRCrES, Italy
• Lisa Sella, Senior Researcher, CNR-IRCrES, Italy

Over the past few years, public policy evaluation has become an important area of research. This is partly due to (i) major changes in social and economic policies in many countries, and (ii) the introduction of new management and control procedures in the public sector. In an environment where local and regional governments are facing major budget restrictions, policy effectiveness has become a hotly debated issue. At the same time, more and more regional science articles are being published on the evaluation of these public policies, studying causal mechanisms with convincing identification strategy.

In the current research landscape, special attention is being paid to the anticipated impacts of policies. These policies can result in distributive effects, resource reallocations, or changes in socio-economic structures that profoundly influence cities and regions. For example, tax reforms, education policies, or national environmental legislation can have various and sometimes surprising repercussions on different areas, depending on their specific economic, demographic, or environmental characteristics.

However, these impacts often extend beyond the effects initially foreseen by decision-makers, and can affect dependent variables that were not expected. For instance, a policy intended to stimulate employment in a region may also alter the dynamics of internal migration or disrupt the local environmental balance in unforeseen ways. These consequences can be beneficial, such as when untargeted policies lead to an unexpected reduction in regional disparities, or they can be detrimental, raising doubts about the initial objectives of the policies.

This collection aims to explore these complex dynamics and encourages critical reflection on how public/regional/local policies shape cities and regions in sometimes unpredictable ways. We welcome contributions that analyze these often underestimated side-effects to enhance our understanding of the interactions between policy decisions and local realities. The purpose of this collection is to address the gap in the study of these unexpected impacts by inviting researchers to analyze and discuss them. The goal is to uncover how policies, even those not explicitly designed with territorial intentions, shape the spatial and socio-economic fabric of cities and regions, sometimes in unexpected ways. We encourage contributions that employ rigorous quantitative and theoretical approaches to explore these dynamics in different geographical and political contexts.

Topics of interest (but not limited to):

+ What are the unexpected impacts of national, regional, or local policies on the social, economic, and environmental dynamics of cities and regions?

+ How do unintended consequences of public policies potentially undermine, reinforce, or shift the original objectives of these interventions?

+ Which theoretical frameworks and empirical methods are best suited to identify, anticipate, and evaluate the indirect or spatially diffuse effects of public policies on territorial systems?

+ How can public decision-makers integrate the territorial side effects of policies into more adaptive and context-sensitive policy design?

+ What lessons can be drawn from past experiences where unforeseen policy impacts significantly influenced regional development outcomes?

Submissions are welcome until 15 November 2025. The collection may remain open for additional contributions beyond this date, subject to editorial decision.

Submissions to this Collection undergo the same strict peer review process as regular submissions to this journal.

Please follow the submission guidelines for authors.

+ info: https://link.springer.com/collections/jdeaafjjei