CASADO-DIAZ J. M. (2000) Local Labour Market Areas in Spain: a case study, Reg. Studies 34, 843-856. This paper presents the results of a regionalization exercise carried out in Spain following the methodology used to define Travel-to-Work Areas (TTWAs) in the UK. These areas are defined so that most jobs are filled by residents of that area and most of the resident working population work in the area. For the regionalization a set of commuting data derived from the 1991 Census of Population for the region of Valencia has been used. Due to missing data for some regions it is not possible to conduct a regionalization covering the whole of Spain. Regionalizations have been produced not only for the aggregate population but also for the different sub-groups into which the employed population has been divided in the Census, according to gender, occupation and industry. CASADO-DIAZ J. M. (2000) Les bassins d'emplois locaux en Espagne: une etude de cas, Reg. Studies 34, 843-856. Cet article cherche a presenter les resultats provenant d'une etude de regionalisation menee en Espagne qui poursuit la methodologie employee au Royaume-Uni afin de delimiter les zones au sein desquelles se font les deplacements pour aller au travail. Ces zones-la sont delimitees de sorte que les habitants locaux occupent la plupart des emplois et que la majorite de la population active occupee locale travaillent au sein de la zone. Quant a la regionalisation, on a employe un ensemble de donnees relatives aux migrations quotidiennes qui provient du recensement de la population 1991 pour la region de Valence. Vu la non-disponibilite de donnees pour certaines regions, il s'avere impossible d'effectuer une regionalisation qui couvre toute l'Espagne. On a fait des regionalisations non seulement de la population globale, mais aussi des sous-groupes employes dans le recensement pour categoriser la population active en fonction du genre, de l'emploi et de l'industrie. CASADO-DIAZ J. M. (2000) Gebiete ortlicher Arbeitsmarkte in Spanien: eine Fallstudie, Reg Studies 34, 843-856. Dieser Aufsatz stellt die Ergebnisse eines Regionalisierungsverfahrens vor, die in Spanien in Anlehnung an die im Vereinigten Konigreich von Grossbritannien benutzte Methodik zur Bestimmung der Arbeitweggebiete (Travel-to-Work Areas=TTWAs) verwendet wurde. Die Definition dieser Gebiete erfolgt auf der Grundlage von Arbeitsplatzen, die grossenteils an im Gebiete ansassige Einwohner vergeben werden, and der ansassigen, erwerbstatigen Bevolkerung, die grossenteils in diesem Gebiete arbeitet. Zur Regionalisierung wurde eine Serie Pendlerdaten herangezogen, die der Volkszahlung vom Jahre 1991 in Gebiet von Valencia entnommen wurden. Mangels fehlender Daten fur einige Gebiete war es nicht moglich, eine Regionaliseriung ganz Spaniens durchzufuhren. Regionalisierungen sind nicht nur fur Gesamtbevolkerungen, sondern auch fur verschiedene Unterabteilungen, welche die Volkszahlung bei der erwerbstatigen Bevolkerung berucksichtigte, nach Geschlecht, Berufstatigkeit und Industrie durchgefuhr...

The delineation of functional economic areas, or market areas, is a problem of large practical relevance, since the delineation of functional sets such as Economic Areas in the US, Travel-to-Work Areas in the United Kingdom, and their counterparts in other OECD countries are the basis of many statistical operations and policy making decisions at local levels. This is a combinatorial optimisation problem defined as the partition of a given set of indivisible spatial units (covering a territory) into regions characterised by being (a) self-contained and (b) cohesive, in terms of spatial interaction data (flows, relationships). Usually, each region must reach a minimum size and self-containment level, and must be continuous. Although this type of problems has been typically solved through greedy methods, a recent strand of the literature in this field has been concerned with the use of evolutionary algorithms with ad hoc operators. Although these algorithms have proved to be successful in improving the results of some of the more widely applied official procedures, they are so time consuming that cannot be applied directly to solve real-world problems. In this paper we propose a new set of group-based mutation operators featuring general operations over disjoint groups, tailored to tackle with that problem so that all the constraints are respected during the operation to improve efficiency. A comparative analysis of our results with those from previous approaches shows that our algorithm systematically improves them in terms of both quality and processing time, something of crucial relevance since it allows dealing with most large, real-world problems in reasonable time.

h i g h l i g h t sWe examine the origin of wage differences between hospitality and rest of sectors. Small differences in lower part of wage distribution but very relevant in upper part. Differences due only to a composition effect, in contrast with other low-wage sectors. Most qualified workers are penalized: endowments much less rewarded in hospitality. Low levels of wage inequality in hospitality explained by wage-setting mechanisms. Available online xxx JEL codes:The article examines the origin of differences between wages in the hospitality sector and the rest of the private sector in Spain. The evidence obtained for the 2002e2010 period shows that the wage disadvantage of hospitality presents an increasing profile along the wage distribution so that it is particularly relevant for those earning comparatively higher salaries. In contrast with other low-wage sectors, lower wages in hospitality are explained almost entirely by the specific characteristics of its workers and jobs (particularly their lower educational qualifications and their higher presence in low-skilled occupations), and not by the existence of lower rewards to those characteristics. Highly qualified individuals are however an exception since they suffer a wage penalty for working in the sector. Furthermore the analysis shows that pay inequality is substantially lower in the hospitality sector and that it is not due to the relative characteristics of its workers and jobs.

This paper presents a new approach to the delineation of local labor markets based on evolutionary computation. The aim of the exercise is the division of a given territory into functional regions based on travel-to-work flows. Such regions are defined so that a high degree of inter-regional separation and of intra-regional integration in both cases in terms of commuting flows is guaranteed. Additional requirements include the absence of overlapping between delineated regions and the exhaustive coverage of the whole territory. The procedure is based on the maximization of a fitness function that measures aggregate intra-region interaction under constraints of inter-region separation and minimum size. In the experimentation stage two variations of the fitness function are used, and the process is also applied as a final stage for the optimization of the results from one of the most successful existing methods, that used by the British authorities for the delineation of Travel-to-Work Areas (TTWAs). The empirical exercise is conducted using real data for a sufficiently large territory which is considered to be representative given the density and variety of travel -to-work patters that it embraces. The paper includes the quantitative comparison with alternative traditional methods, the assessment of the performance of the set of operators which has been specifically designed to handle the regionalization problem, and the evaluation of the conver gence process. The robustness of the solutions, something crucial in a research and policy-making context, is also discussed in the paper.

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