Contenu du sommaire : Varia

Knowledge spillovers, more than industrial specialization In the recent years, a vast body of urban economics literature has addressed the importance of industrial specialization and diversity in determining the nature of agglomeration economies. This literature has, however, not paid to much attention to the possibility that agglomeration economies exist in part because workers can learn from their occupational peers, no matter what industry they are in. This paper proposes a new approach that utilizes high tech occupation data to try to explain the existence of these economies. Overall, our econometrics results seem to confirm the fact that occupational specialization, occupational diversity and the size effect foster the accumulation, diffusion and internalization of knowledge, which would increase North American high tech workers'productivity.

Land-Use Conflicts and Administrative Law Litigation. The case of the Ile-de-France area The article provides an analysis of land-use conflicts extract from the rulings of French Administrative Courts from 1981 to 2005. It focuses on Paris's suburb, where the urbanisation process and the diversity of land-use require a deeper comprehension of the problem. Our results show that the land-use conflict's evolution is correlated with the urbanisation process. They also detect a coupling phenomenon between conflict's type and territory's parameters : urbanism disputes often arise in wealthy municipalities, whereas oppositions to public infrastructure have particularly risen in strongly urbanising towns. Classified industrial facility's nuisances have been found in unfortunate municipalities.

Regional integration of spaces within Europe : a three-dimensional process Even thought the integration process is still been in UE, regional integration dynamics of space seems to be a crucial issue. The reflections engaged, the SDEC in particular, aim at promoting a wilful policy of polycentric adjustment of the European space. Thus, we are led to consider both the structuring and regional integration dynamics of this space. An inventive use of spatial econometrics tools and an improvement in modelling the interactions between areas make possible to appreciate and to quantify the concerned processes. Thus, we highlight three dimensions of the regional integration dynamics in Europe.

The transnational representation determinants of life space. A place attachment approach based on cross-border workers employed in Luxembourg Due to the concept of belonging and its various dimensions, this article analyzes the representations of the life space of Luxemburgish cross-border workers. Do they consider that the activities, carried out on the other side of the border, belong to a territorial reality including activities achieved in their home country ? If so, which factors contribute to the transnational representation of their basin of life ? The answers brought are based on a sample laminated of 2470 cross-border workers on the vocational training, housing, daily and residential mobilities, as well as the attachment, by specifying if their place of work formed part of their life space. Using models of simultaneous equations, the results show cultural differences between the countries bordering Luxembourg, even if economic dimension remains important for all.

Assessing economic performance for the coastal fishery : the case of Brittany (France) Fishing activities have a significant role in socio-economic base for a few coastal areas. Fleets operating mainly in coastal fisheries deserve a special interest due to their narrow links with the home base. Coastal fleet activities are not very known, restricting the capacity to deliver a diagnosis on their economic viability. This article suggests an assessment of the influence and the economic performance of the coastal fleets in Brittany. Results show similar economic performances for coastal units compared to offshore units. Furthermore, coastal units own additional advantages in relation to their energy consumption and capacity to operate without public subsidies. There are vulnerable to fishing effort of offshore fleets in the coastal zone in the absence of specific fisheries management measure.

Environmental development and agriculture Within the framework of the European common agricultural policy, we call back the environmental development implemented by the French agricultural policy to underline their weak points. In this way, each farmer engaged on an agri-environmental contract acts in a reference of constraints of his farm management and of a defined polluted agricultural territory. We show that such a contract is difficult to achieve. So to ensure individually and collectively an efficient environmentally friendly agricultural production, these farmers must commit to respect environmental standards, within a frame of an environmental management instrument like iso 14000 or Emas.