Regional industrial structure is a critical determinant of regional growth. Each region wishes to have the industrial structure that can lead to more rapid regional growth. It has been overlooked, however, that industrial agglomeration, which has been...
Regional industrial structure is a critical determinant of regional growth. Each region wishes to have the industrial structure that can lead to more rapid regional growth. It has been overlooked, however, that industrial agglomeration, which has been considered as a necessary condition for the growth of regional economy, may have a negative effect on employment growth and income distribution. Up until recently, numerous researches have conducted on the effects of industrial specialization and diversity but researchers do not focus on the employment growth and income inequality within a specific region.
Therefore, this dissertation attempts to examine what industrial structure conduces to employment growth and how industrial structure affects the degree of income inequality within a region. Additionally, this study also tries to find empirical evidence for the guidance and policy implications of regional industrial restructuring. In order to accomplish the research purposes, the panel analysis is employed with regard to employment growth and income inequality respectively, for a period of 1993 to 2006, with City and Gun as the units of analysis. First, as for the analysis with regard to employment growth, the influence of regional industrial structure on regional employment growth is investigated by industries. Next, it is analyzed how specialization and diversity act on the income inequality for wage-earners within a region.
The important findings from this study can be summarized as follows: First, specialization has a significantly positive effect upon employment growth in all industries. Eight industries are found to have the significant influence of industrial specialization on wage income inequality; four industries are found to have the significant negative influence of specialization on wage income inequality. Second, industrial diversity is likely to aggravate regional wage income inequality. Third, there are notable differences among industries in the long-run effect on regional employment growth. Moreover, there are also great differences among industries in the share of short-run effect in long-run effect. Fourth, manufacturing workers' intra- regional earned income inequality in Korea shows great differences among regions, and the gap will grow continually in most regions. Fifth, it is found that the degree of earned income inequality has been aggravated more after economic recovery than immediately after the foreign exchange crisis.
On the basis of the above results, the following implications for industrial and regional policies are derived.
First, if an industry, which is regionally specialized or will be specialized in the future, is found to have a small inertia in employment growth then further measures for continuous long-run employment growth should be prepared. Because even though the specialized industry shows a high rate of productivity growth, it cannot secure jobs, and the effects of specialization on employment growth will not last long.
Second, if a region wants to accomplish high rate of employment growth and long-term employment stability, the region may need to specialize in industries with great long-run effects and great inertia. But if a region needs to increase employment growth rapidly, then the priority of policy should be given to industries that can be influenced more by short-run effects.
Third, there are four industries where specialization is found to aggravate income inequality. Although there may be unintended consequences of pursuing specialization strategy in a region for the sake of employment growth, the level of aggravation of income inequality can be acceptable. However, the fact that the degree of inequality caused by specialization is found to be different according to industries suggests that it should be considered in the policies for regional economic growth to attract and promote industries that can alleviate intra-region income inequality.
Fourth, the fact that earned income inequality within a region have been increased even in the period of economic recovery after the foreign exchange crisis shows that it is necessary to prepare measures responding to the new order of global economy.
Last, the fact that the types of agglomeration economies are found to be different according to region-industry indicates that policy intervention for the changes in regional industrial environment should be different as well. Because the unique characteristic of each region in terms of regional endowment, population composition, and industrial structure may affect differently on the employment growth and the income inequality within a region.