The USC Price School of Public Policy, the METRANS Transportation Center and the Department of Urban Planning and Spatial Analysis hosted a Regional Science Academy Workshop on Feb. 11, organized by Price faculty members Adam Rose and Marlon Boarnet.
The academy is an outgrowth of the Regional Science Association International (RSAI) and is intended to facilitate exchanges of ideas and disseminate knowledge through conferences, workshops, publications and training. It emphasizes new ideas and approaches in informal settings. The RSAI has 4,500 members worldwide and includes economists, sociologists, planners, engineers and practitioners in several other fields beyond regional science. The organization has a strong tradition in the Price School and its forerunners at USC.
The Feb. 11 workshop consisted of two sessions. The first, chaired by Professor Boarnet, focused on transportation and offered presentations by Michael Manville of UCLA and Karima Kourtit of KTH Royal Institute of Technology, The Netherlands. In addition, several Price School faculty, PhD students and postdoctoral researchers – including Boarnet, METRANS Director Genevieve Giuliano, Sanggyun Kang, Jovanna Rosen and Madison Swayne – also presented.
The second session, chaired by Professor Rose, addressed the contributions of Regional Science to state formation in conflict zones, and led off with presentations by Peter Nijkamp of Free University of Amsterdam, Rose and Price PhD graduate Noah Dormady of Ohio State University. These were followed by a panel discussion, chaired by Dean Emeritus of Public Policy at George Mason University Kingsley Haynes, featuring panelists Terry Clower of GMU, Geoffrey Hewings from the University of Illinois, Mark Partridge of Ohio State, USC’s Rose, and Roger Stough of GMU. The session concluded with a brainstorming meeting involving all participants on the path forward in setting a research agenda on this topic and the initiation of a research proposal for large-scale funding.
The workshop was a precursor to the Annual Meeting of the Western Regional Science Association in Pasadena on March 12-14. USC Price’s Giuliano is President-elect of the WRSA, and Price Professor Eric Heikkila serves on the Board of Directors. More than a dozen Price School faculty and students made presentations at the conference.