Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science

Minimum wage differentials and commuting across districts

Monday, Feb 16, 2026 by Tifani Siregar and Carlos Mendez Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science

This study examined the effect of cross-district minimum wage differentials on workers' commuting probabilities in the pre-pandemic era of the Greater Jakarta Metropolitan Area (Jabodetabek). We found that minimum wages in cross-border districts, along with differentials between home and neighboring district minimum wages, significantly affect worker commuting probabilities. These findings highlighted important methodological considerations when analyzing labor survey data, as such data typically reflect workers' residential locations rather than their employment sites.

Regional decline and structural changes in Northeast China: an exploratory space-time approach

Saturday, Jun 1, 2024 by Yilin Chen Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science

This paper applies an exploratory space-time approach to investigate the spatial links between regional decline and structural change in Northeast China across three periods (1995-2002, 2002-2015, 2015-2019), identifying premature deindustrialization and spatial co-decline in industry and construction employment as the primary driver of regional income decline.

Measuring and understanding regional inequality through the lens of the Indonesian experience

Tuesday, May 2, 2023 by Carlos Mendez Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science

This article reviews the book by Akita and Kataoka (Regional inequality and development: Measurement and applications in Indonesia, 2022). The book first provides an overview of various measurement methods of regional inequality. Next, it presents four case studies that deepen our understanding of regional inequality in the context of the development challenges of Indonesia: decentralization, premature deindustrialization, financial crisis, and low labor productivity, among others. Overall, this book provides an excellent introduction and application of inequality decomposition methods in the context of regional disparities and structural change.

Spatial dynamics of consumer price in Indonesia: Convergence clubs and conditioning factors

Saturday, Nov 7, 2020 by Harry Aginta Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science

This paper aims to identify convergence clubs in regional price across 34 provinces in Indonesia and investigate conditioning factors of club formation. We analyze regional monthly consumer price data from January 2012 to December 2019 with a novel club convergence test developed by Phillips and Sul (Econometerica 756:1771–1855, 2007), and show that regional consumer price does not converge into a single universal equilibrium. Instead, there are four convergence clubs identified. Further investigation shows that labor productivity, inflation expectation, consumption growth, and spatial externalities influence the convergence club formation.

Regional Efficiency Convergence and Efficiency Clusters: Evidence from the Provinces of Indonesia 1990–2010

Monday, Jan 27, 2020 by Carlos Mendez Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science

Improving production efficiency at the regional level is often considered a means to reduce regional inequality. This article studies regional efficiency convergence across provinces in Indonesia over the 1990–2010 period. Through the lens of both classical and distributional convergence frameworks, the dispersion dynamics of the following three indicators are contrasted: overall efficiency, pure efficiency, and scale efficiency. Results from the classical convergence approach suggest that—on average—there is regional convergence in all these three efficiency measures.