Deokho Cho (p)

South Korea has complemented the compressive economic development since 1960s. It is one of the best success stories in the world in terms of economic and political developments. However she also experienced extremely rapid changes of population structure. South Korea hit the lowest-ever fertility rate of 1.05 births per woman in 2017. To maintain its population level stable, she needs 2.1 baby births per woman. The government statistics shows that only 357,000 babies were born last year. The average birth rate per woman is due to be as low as 0.96 this year even if Korea has made an effort to boost the birth rate (Korean Statistics Office, 2018). Korea is currently the fastest-aging developed economy in the world and has a population structure composed of more elderly people than young people but the level of population ageing differs from region to region. Rural areas already became the super ageing society. And then she has a hard time which is the low birth rate and population ageing in terms of demographic structure (Woo, 2018). The goal of this study is to promote the birth rate in order to solve the overall population cliff and to decrease the population ageing speed. This study examines the fertility boosting policies in terms of social, economic and regional aspects in order to overcome very low fertility (McDonald, 2008). It figures out the factors which influence the birth rate and suggest the better policy alternatives to reverse the trend of this low fertility rate.

Djoni Hartono (p), Khoirunurrofik Khoirunurrofik , Tony Irawan (p)

High number of housing backlog, especially for low-income people in urban area, is one of Indonesia government major concern. The problem is continuously increasing particularly in Jakarta as the capital city of Indonesia, urging government to implement policy and program in order to provide more proper living place. Using data collected through a survey of 1000 households in greater Jakarta, this study aims to identify low income communities’ preferences on house status, renting or buying, and house provider, public or private, in Jakarta and surrounding areas. It analyzed low income preference in housing and found that households having fixed employment status, larger number of family members, higher literacy in housing policy, and accessible house location have higher probability to choose to own a house. In addition, education level, knowledge of housing policies, and eviction are major determinant of household to decide occupying public house rather than private house. The findings provide basic input to government development programs in designing housing policy for low-income people.

Nathan Gouin (p)

By the analysis of a planning project carried out in Normandy during the 1960s, the aim is to show that the use of the term “region” by regional development’s actors refers to a plurality of geographical representations, which has big consequences on territorial policies.
The “Schéma Basse-Seine” (SBS) is a planning document edited in 1969, during the beginning of the French regionalization and shortly after the regional division of 1960 (Circonscriptions d’Action Régionale), which gathered several departments. This institutional division does not fit to the academic conception of the region at this time, led by several figures as Etienne Juillard, Jean Boudeville, or François Perroux, for whom the metropole influence define the regional area. This definition was also used by the DATAR (French delegation of regional planning) in the “métropoles d’équilibre” politics (1963).
This duality can also be found in the discourses of the SBS actors, as the term “region” designs both the institutional space delimited by the regional division (Haute-Normandie region) and the space corresponding to the polarized theory of region (“Bassin parisien”). The word “region” therefore stands for a repertoire of loosely articulated ideas leading to confusions and manipulations from some actors, especially about metropolitan project in Haute-Normandie.
This will be demonstrated using discourse analysis on a corpus including all the strategic documents edited during this planning project. Actor discourses will be classified according to the regional representations to which they relate: institutional or polarized region.
We will conclude on the crucial importance of the words in regional development analysis, inspiring by critical geopolitics and discursive institutionalism works, which highlight the main role of ideas and representations contained by discourses on the construction of space and public policies.

Jeffrey Zax (p)

The literature estimating returns to education in China is extensive. However, as elsewhere, this literature struggles to address the potential endogeneity of educational attainment. This paper exploits the Huai River discontinuity and the exogeneity of residential location in pre- and early-reform China to construct a new instrumental variable for educational attainment. Educational attainment was significantly and negatively associated with temperature in areas where winter heating was limited. The effect of variations in educational attainment that are attributable to this temperature effect on earnings is much higher than conventional estimates of returns to education in China. These variations also have substantial effects on labor force participation.