Location and spatial specificities: contributions from spatial economics

This editorial, introducing the nine papers comprising this issue of Spatial Economic Analysis (SEA), shows that novel methodologies applied to spatial data allow for a better understanding of the location phenomena at different spatial and sectoral scales. Global processes also have local specificities, which should be investigated, but, in parallel, local processes might hide a component of global structure in the spatial data that can drive estimation results, as the first paper shows. The papers in this issue henceforth present novel analyses, which enable the study of phenomena whose extent is usually considered to be global showing their spatial relevance, such as the location of energy facilities, job polarisation and the effects of devaluation on trade. Other aspects such as the Okun’s law, the efficiency of firms, and the market for liquid petroleum, the performance of start-ups and the happiness of people are studied and shown to depend on local characteristics and interactions. Furthermore, the issue introduces a number of novel techniques, such as spatial stochastic frontier estimations, new decompositions and mixed spatial analysis of variance (MS-ANOVA) models.