Studying Spatial Economic
Relationships
Presenter: Dr Karen Malam
Regions research
BITRE
Regional economies
• Boundaries
– Functional unit
– Customised
• Data
– Small area estimation
– Survey data
2
Industry Structure
• Differences in regional industry structure plays a
significant, but partial, role in explaining
differences in regional economic growth.
• A region's industry structure is closely tied to the
size of its economy – but what is a regional
economy?
• Needed to develop working zone
boundaries
3
Information paper 49
Working zones
Local Government Areas
•
•
4
BITRE’s Working zones
Labour market - economic functional area
Based on commuting flows between Statistical Local Areas
Map of Melbourne’s Working Zone
Research report 125
5
Source: BITRE 2011a
Commuting to Wyndham North SLA
Source: BITRE 2011a
6
Melbourne 2030 activity centres
Employment average annual growth rate, 2001 to 2006
2.50
Average annual growth rate (per cent)
2.00
1.50
1.00
0.50
0.00
-0.50
-1.00
7
BITRE 2011a
Population movements
Research report 122
8
BITRE 2011b
Population movements, 2001 to 2006
9
Major Cities Unit, Department of Infrastructure and Transport 2011
Household Wealth
• To improve understanding of
household wealth & its relevance to
regional wellbeing
• To explore the relationship between
regional wealth and regional income
• To develop and analyse new
measures of household
wealth for Australia’s regions
– 2003-04 snapshot
10
Information paper 63
Methodology
• Small area estimation
• ABS Survey of Income and Housing 2003-04
– Provides capital city/state balance benchmarks for each wealth component
• Small area data sources:
–
–
–
–
Valuer -General’s data on property sales
ATO Taxation Statistics
Census data
Other ABS data
• Estimates produced for 1135 Statistical Local Areas
11
Average household wealth, 2003-04
12
BITRE 2009
Comparison of wealth and income
13
BITRE 2009
Social Capital
• Analyse the spatial dimensions of social
capital in Australia.
• Explore the extent to which social capital is
related to particular aspects of the
economic and social wellbeing of
Australia’s regions.
• Measure key elements of social
capital at a regional scale.
Information paper 55
14
Methodology
• ABS Social Capital framework
• Data sources
– Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA)
– ABS General Social Survey
• Boundaries
– Capital cities and Balance of state
– Remoteness classification
– 69 BITRE defined regions
• 33 Social Capital indicators
15
Examples of indicators
Network qualities
• Feeling of safety at home after dark
16
Network structure
• Frequency of social contact
• Neighbours helping each other out
• Volunteering rate
• Active membership
• Labour force participation rate
• Usage of email or chat sites in the
last 12 months
• Proportion who live in the same SLA
as they did 5 years ago
Network transactions
• Could ask someone for a favour
Network types
• I often feel very lonely
• Capacity to raise $2000 in a week
for emergency
• Integration into the community
• Only get together socially once a
months or less with friends or
relatives
BITRE 2005
Community involvement
17
BITRE 2005
Concluding remarks
• Regional economies
• Boundaries
–
–
–
–
Administrative
ABS – Mesh blocks
Functional area
Customised area
• Availability of data
– Wide variety of sources (sometimes of varying quality).
– Development of new datasets
– Confidentiality and small sample size
18
Karen Malam
BITRE Regional Research
karen.malam@infrastructure.gov.au
<www.bitre.gov.au>