Assistant Professor of Economics T.M. Tonmoy Islam’s research was recently published in The Annals of Regional Science.
T.M. Tonmoy Islam, assistant professor of economics in the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business, has authored the article “The impact of population agglomeration of an area on its neighbors: evidence from the USA” that was recently published in The Annals of Regional Science.
Islam notes that little is known about the economic spillovers a densely populated (agglomerated) region produces on its neighboring areas. His research looks at the effect of growth of an agglomerated county has on its surrounding non-agglomerated counties.
He finds that at low levels of per capita income of an agglomerated county, growth has a positive impact on its neighboring non-agglomerated counties, relative to non-agglomerated counties that do not have any agglomerated counties nearby. Additionally, as the agglomerated county gets richer, its relationship with the neighboring non-agglomerated county becomes negative, relative to the growth rate of a non-agglomerated county that has no agglomerated county nearby.
The Annals of Regional Science presents high-quality research in the interdisciplinary field of regional and urban studies. The journal publishes papers that make a new or substantial contribution to the body of knowledge in which the spatial dimension plays a fundamental role, including regional economics, resource management, location theory, urban and regional planning, transportation and communication, population distribution and environmental quality.
Islam taught economics at the University of Wisconsin- Green Bay prior to joining Elon in 2014. He earned his masters from Vanderbilt University and his doctorate in economics from the University of Kentucky. His fields of specialization are labor economics, regional economics, economics of poverty and empirical econometrics.