Due to several requests, the deadline for submittimg an abstract for the Fourth European SBCA conference has been extended to June 12, 2023.

Notification of acceptance:

16 June 2023 (for submissions received before May 15)

23 June 2023 (for submissions received after May 15)

Early bird registration deadline: 3 July 2023

Final registration deadline: 14 July 2023

To submit an abstract, GO TO THE EASYCHAIR SUBMISSION PLATFORM:

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=sbca-eu2023

(After opening the link, click  on "create account" and follow the instructions)

All relevant information regarding the conference, including a detailed Call for Abstracts, will be available at the following web page, which will be constantly updated

 https://centrejeanmonnet.unimi.it/sbca-2023/

 https://www.benefitcostanalysis.org/european-conference-2023         

Dear RSAI members,

it is with great pleasure that we deliver good news. As of Jan. 1, 2024 both RSAI journals (Papers in Regional Science and Regional Science Policy & Practice) will be published by Elsevier.

The last decade was marked by continuous growth in quality and volume for both journals. For this, the RSAI is grateful to the current publisher, Wiley, which thoroughly supported our journal editors in the strive for offering better journals to our members.

As we all see from our everyday experience, the publication landscape is changing rapidly, and is in particular showing a fast growth of open access journals. These are meant to increase the access to science to as many researchers as possible, also including those hailing from low-income countries. To meet the needs of the market, the RSAI Council decided to partner with one of the top scientific publishers, Elsevier, to enhance the transition to gold open access for both journals. Therefore, effective Jan. 1, 2024, all articles published by our two journals will be published in the new mode.

As we realize that the transition is uneven, and may have distributional effects for a number of professional categories the RSAI Council has agreed a substantial number of waivers for Article Publishing Charges (APCs) and is now developing guidelines for their distribution. These are in addition to waivers and discounts already granted through initiatives supported by the Publisher such as Research4Life.

We are most happy to let the community know of this further step in the process of growth of our journals, and we can already guarantee that our Editors will keep working hard for selecting sound and impactful research to our community.

Please do follow our journals, web site, and newsletter for being kept abreast of the further developments,

Kind regards,

A Tribute to Richard James Arnott

Richard James Arnott, Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of California, Riverside (UCR), passed peacefully at his home in Riverside on April 21, 2023, after a short battle with leukemia. He was 74 years old.

Born on January 23, 1949, in London to Drs. David Charles and Ruth Margaret Arnott, Richard spent his childhood in England and Canada. He received his B.S. in Urban Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1969, an M.A. in Economics from the University of Toronto in 1971, and another M.A. and an M.Phil. in Economics from Yale University in 1972. In 1975, he earned his Ph.D. in Economics from Yale under the guidance of Joseph E. Stiglitz, who would later receive the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2001. Richard’s Ph.D. Dissertation, entitled Topics in Residential Location Theory, pioneered the analysis of the interaction between public finance and the spatial allocation of households, leading to a theory of optimal city size in a spatial economy.

Before joining UCR in 2007, Richard taught at Queen’s University (Canada) from 1975 to 1988, and Boston College from 1988 to 2007. He was affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research as a Research Associate from 1991 to 2005. He had also taken visiting positions at the École Normale Supérieure (Paris), Princeton University, Stanford University, University of Oxford, and many other prominent institutions in America, Asia, Europe, and Oceania.

Richard was a multidimensional thinker with diverse interests. Primarily an urban economic theorist, Richard published prominently in urban, public, and transportation economics as well as in microeconomic theory. Examples of his research topics include the optimal city, traffic congestion, the housing market, moral hazard, public finance, urban transportation, and land use. Stiglitz cited ten of his joint works with Richard in his Nobel Prize lecture as having motivated, facilitated, or extended the shift of paradigm in economics toward one that centers our understanding of the market and public policy around problems of information. Richard made significant contributions, primarily theoretical and methodological, to the discipline of regional science throughout his career; for this, he was awarded the Hoyt Academic Fellowship by the Homer Hoyt Institute in 2001, was elected as a Fellow of the Regional Science Association International in 2006, and received the Walter Isard Award of the North American Regional Science Council in 2008.

As part of his professional service, Richard edited the Journal of Economic Geography from 1999 to 2003 and Regional Science and Urban Economics from 2003 to 2007, and he served on over twenty editorial boards. As William S. Vickrey passed away soon after the announcement that he would receive the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1996, Richard served as the archivist of Vickrey’s papers at Columbia University from October 1996 to the end of 1997. Richard also served as the Secretary-Treasurer of the Canadian Economics Association from 1981 to 1984 and as the Vice President of the International Transportation Economics Association from 2010 to 2012. In 2015, Economics of Transportation, the official journal of the International Transportation Economics Association, published a special issue in honor of Richard, not only for his scientific contributions, but also for his many contributions to the journal, the association, and the profession. On campus, Richard assumed numerous administrative responsibilities at the departmental and university levels at Queen’s, Boston College, and UCR, and always fulfilled them with diligence and efficiency. At UCR, among many responsibilities, he served as Chair of the Committee on Research, Vice-Chair of the Committee on Planning and Budget, on the CHASS Executive Committee, and two stints as Graduate Advisor in the Department of Economics. For the public, he advised the Department of Finance of Canada, Treasury Board of Canada, Executive Council of Ontario (Canada), and Province of Ontario (Canada).

One of Richard’s major contributions to the profession was as a mentor to students and junior colleagues. In his career, he supervised or advised more than 70 Ph.D. dissertations at Queen’s, Boston College, and UCR, and many of these students are now tenured professors and have had fruitful research careers. Richard was highly respected, on campus and in the profession, not only for his scholarly contributions, but also for the intellectual support and advice that he generously provided to his colleagues.

Richard was a soft-spoken gentleman with impeccable manners in the best of old English traditions. He will be remembered for his scholarship, service, and mentoring, as well as for his witty humor and enthusiasm for the music of Mozart, films of Alec Guinness, and the game of baseball. But most of all, he will be remembered as an empathic, kind, caring, and generous human being.

Richard is survived and missed by his twin brother John, his sister Jane, and dog Dirk. He asked not to have a service. Information about a scholarship to be created in his name will be forthcoming on the Department of Economics webpage. We will all miss him dearly.

Regional Science Policy & Practice (RSPP)

Calll for Special Issue: Urban-rural linkages: policies, actions, and visions for coordinated territorial decisions, and conflicts resolution

This year, on May 11 and 12, Narxoz University , together with The Regional Science Association International, is holding an international conference on sustainable development in Central Asia "The 1st International Conference on Sustainable Regional Development in Central Asia" (Ryskulov Readings - 2023).

RSAI is the publisher of the Regional Science Policy & Practice (RSPP) - Q2 journal in the Scopus database. According to our agreement, all abstracts approved for presentation by the scientific committee of the conference will be considered by the editors of the journal for publication in the format of an article absolutely free of charge. All other papers will be published in the conference proceedings.

The conference is also dedicated to a significant date - the 60th anniversary of Narxoz University. The university, established in 1963, has trained more than 140,000 graduates for the economy of Kazakhstan, and in 2023 Narxoz draws a jubilee line under its past and reveals grandiose plans for the future.

Program is attached.

https://kk.narxoz.kz/sustainable2023#!/tab/539294463-1

The University of Montana invites applications for Associate Director and Director of Health Care Industry Research, Bureau of Business and Economic Research. 

The position directs a high-visibility research program in Health Care Industry Research with significant outside funding.  The incumbent is expected to conduct peer-reviewed research and communicate findings to the public in non-technical language, including presentations at the Montana Economic Outlook Seminars. 

The University of Montana is flagship, research-intensive R1 institution with approximately 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students. It is located in Missoula, a culturally vibrant community of about 75,000, surrounded by mountains and three rivers converge. Abundant recreational opportunities in surrounding state and national forests and nearby Glacier National Park and Yellowstone National Park complement a thriving intellectual atmosphere.

The Bureau’s purpose is to serve the general public, as well as people in business, labor, and government, by providing an understanding of the economic environment in which Montanans live and work.

Please follow the link for more details.

https://university-montana-hr.silkroad.com/epostings/submit.cfm?fuseaction=app.jobinfo&jobid=3879&company_id=16254&version=1&source=ONLINE&jobOwner=994515&aid=1

Call for Papers

14th Geoffrey J.D. Hewings Regional Economics Workshop

Keynote: Prof. Dr. Ron Boschma | Vienna, October 2 - 3, 2023

The Austrian Institute of  Economic  Research  (WIFO)  is  very  pleased  to  announce  the 14th international workshop in honor of Geoffrey J.D. Hewings, Professor of Economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and member of WIFO's Scientific Board.

Prof. Hewings has published numerous scientific contributions in economics, economic geog- raphy, urban and regional planning, input-output analysis and other fields. He is famous for being a scholar always eager to share his knowledge and give profound and positive advice to younger researchers.

Any empirical contribution within the field of regional economics is welcome. The topics of interest include questions related to:

• regional specialization, structural change, and knowledge diffusion
• regional location analyses, spatial location choice, and location concepts
• geographical impact of economic policy measures
• regional labor markets
• regional tourism
• regional planning

We are proud to announce that we have been able to attract Professor Dr. Ron Boschma as keynote speaker. The title of his talk will be:

“Opportunities spaces of European regions: the role of regional capabilities and inter-regional linkages”

Ron Boschma is a reputable expert in the fields of Regional Economics and Economic Geog- raphy and Professor at the Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning at the Fac- ulty of Geosciences, Utrecht University. He is also affiliated as Professor at the University of Sta- vanger, Norway. From 2013 to 2015 he was Director of the Centre for Innovation, Research and Competence in the Learning Economy at Lund University. He has widely published in interna- tional journals on evolutionary economic geography, the spatial evolution of industries, re- gional systems of innovation, the structure and evolution of networks, agglomeration external- ities and regional growth and diversification. In an interdisciplinary context, he is engaged in the programs “Institutions for Open Societies” and “Pathways to Sustainability”. He has been member of the Research, Innovation and Science Experts (RISE) High-Level Advisory Body to European Commissioner Carlos Moedas 2015-2016 and is Board member of the International Regional Studies Association. From 2018-2020 he was member of the Scientific Advisory Group of DG Regional and Urban Policy, from 2018 to 2025 Ron Boschma is nominated as a member of the Commissie Sectorplan Social Sciences and Humanities in the Netherlands (National Ad- visory Group to the Minister of Education, Culture and Science).

The workshop aims at bringing together researchers from various fields of economics working mainly at the regional level to discuss ideas and exchange knowledge. Moreover, it should be emphasized that the workshop should also attract contributions characterized as "work in pro- gress" and those from young researchers. Submissions should include an extended abstract (minimum of 300 words) or a full paper.

The workshop will be held at WIFO in Vienna. There are no fees for participants of the workshop. All papers presented may be published in the WIFO Working Paper series. Abstracts of papers and/or full papers intended for presentation should be prepared in PDF-format and be sent to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Deadline for submission of abstracts: July 30, 2023

Notification of acceptance: August 11, 2023

Dear RSAI members,

I hope this email finds you well.

I am writing to circulate the interesting call for submissions to the Regional Science session at the 2024 ASSA meeting in San Antonio, TX (Jan. 5-7, 2024).

The session is organized and chaired by Prof. Sandy Dall'erba (University of Illinois at Urbana) and Adam Rose (USC Sol Price School of Public Policy). You may apply by submitting your paper or long abstract (1-2 pages) including authors’ name, affiliation and contact information to Sandy Dall’erba at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. within June 7, 2023.

Submissions are not associated with a fee. Fees will have to paid to ASSA if your paper is selected.

Thank you in advance for your attention,

Kind regards,

Andrea Caragliu

Associate Professor of Regional and Urban Economics

Politecnico di Milano, ABC Department

RSAI Executive Director