DEMARCATING FUNCTIONAL ECONOMIC REGIONS ACROSS AUSTRALIA DIFFERENTIATED BY WORK PARTICIPATION CATEGORIES

Abstract

Analysing spatial variations in regional economic performance is a common focus for research by regional scientists. Typically such investigations suffer from using de jure regions (such as Local Government Areas) as the spatial base because data tend to be readily available for such administrative areas to derive the variables that researchers use in econometric modelling. But using those de jure regions means we encounter the modifiable area unit problem (MAUP) which necessitates making adjustments to address spatial autocorrelation issues. It is preferable to use functional regions as the spatial base for such investigations, but that is often difficult to achieve. This paper outlines how..