Florida-forskarna försvarar sig

6 jul 2007, kl 19:14
bergh in Lite väl akademiskt

Svenska Florida-forskare verkar vara trevliga figurer, såtillvida att de hör av sig till mig med kommentarer om min kritik. Høgni Kalsø Hansen skickde mig

Technology, Talent and Tolerance - The Geography ofthe Creative Class in Sweden. Rapporter och Notitser 169, Department ofSocial and Regional Geography, Lund University

som innehåller ett bemötande av den (omfattande) kritik som Florida fått utstå, inklusive Ed Glaesers. Först återges kritiken:

By running regressions with the same data that Florida & Knudson (2004) do, Glaeser finds a positive correlation between cities with growing populations and concentrations of highly educated people [...] Glaeser finds no important correlations between population growth and the Patent Index, the Gay Index and the Bohemian Index – some of Florida’s indicators of creativity, innovation and tolerance. These indexes all have a small impact on population growth compared to talent.

Omedelbart efter detta kommer försvaret:

One argument that favours Florida’s creative class population is that creativity is not something that can only be learned in school. Especially the group of creative professionals counts peoplethat are not necessarily highly educated but may have worked their way up or are gifted with a talented or creative mindset. Therefore, when Glaeser chooses only to look at the creative core in his analytical critique of Florida, he might only get half the story.

Glaeser’s critique must be taken very seriously. When analysing the influence of technology, talent and tolerance on regional economic growth, it is important to control for human capital and the influence of human capital. We, however, also wish to point to the fact that population growth, which Glaeser uses as a proxy of economic growth in his analytical critique, is only one of several proxies on economic growth. Hence, we find that Glaeser’s critique would benefit from taking a broader theoretical perspective by including more than only human capital.

Hur översätta detta till vanlig svenska? Svårt. Men kanske så här:

"Visst, Glaeser har en poäng, men kreativitet är komplext och kan inte fångas med ett enkelt utbildningsmått"

På detta tror jag Glaeser skulle svara ungefär så här:

"Visst, kreativitet är komplext, men poängen var ju att t o m ett enkelt utbildningsmått funkar bättre än Floridas index"

Så långt kommen i debatten är det nog läge att läsa den här, även om en snabb genomläsning antyder att det fortfarande rör sig om korrelationer snarare än diskussioner om de kausala sambanden. Eller?

Article originally appeared on (http://andreasbergh.se/).