The Experts below are selected from a list of 288 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Jacques-françois Thisse - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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new economic geography an appraisal on the occasion of paul krugman s 2008 nobel prize in economic sciences
Regional Science and Urban Economics, 2009Co-Authors: Masahisa Fujita, Jacques-françois ThisseAbstract:Paul Krugman has clarified the microeconomic underpinnings of both spatial economic agglomerations and regional imbalances at national and international levels. He has achieved this with a series of remarkably original papers and books that succeed in combining imperfect competition, increasing returns, and transportation costs in new and powerful ways. Yet, not everything was brand new in New Economic Geography. To be precise, several disparate pieces of high-quality work were available in urban economics and Location Theory. Our purpose in this paper is to shed new light on economic geography through the lenses of these two fields of economics and regional science.
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Agglomeration and economic geography
Economic Geography, 2004Co-Authors: Jacques-françois ThisseAbstract:Peaks and troughs in the spatial distributions of population, employment and wealth are a universal phenomenon in search of a general Theory. Such spatial imbalances have two possible explanations. In the first one, uneven economic development can be seen as the result of the uneven distribution of natural resources. This is sometimes called `first nature' and refers to exogenously given characteristics of different sites. However, it falls short of providing a reasonable explanation of many other clusters of activities, which are much less dependent on natural advantage. The aim of geographical economics is precisely to understand what are the economic forces that, after controlling for first nature, account for `second nature', which emerges as the outcome of human beings' actions to improve upon the first one. Specifically, geographical economics asks what are the economic forces that can sustain a large permanent imbalance in the distributions of economic activities. In this paper, we focus on the so-called `new economic geography' approach. After having described some of the main results developed in standard Location Theory, we use a unified framework to survey the home market effect as well as core-periphery models. These models have been criticized by geographers because they accounts for some spatial costs while putting others aside without saying why. Furthermore, core-periphery models also exhibit some extreme features that are reflected in their bang-bang outcomes. We thus move on by investigating what the outcomes of core-periphery models become when we account for a more complete and richer description of the spatial aspects that these models aim at describing. We conclude by suggesting new lines of research.
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agglomeration and economic geography
2003Co-Authors: Gianmarco I P Ottaviano, Jacques-françois ThisseAbstract:Peaks and troughs in the spatial distributions of population, employment and wealth are a universal phenomenon in search of a general Theory. Such spatial imbalances have two possible explanations. In the first, uneven economic development can be seen as the result of the uneven distribution of natural resources. This is sometimes called 'first nature' and refers to exogenously given characteristics of different sites. It falls short of providing a reasonable explanation of many other clusters of activities, however, which are much less dependent on natural advantage. The aim of geographical economics is precisely to understand what are the economic forces that, after controlling for first nature, account for 'second nature', which emerges as the outcome of human beings' actions to improve upon the first one. Specifically, geographical economics asks what are the economic forces that can sustain a large permanent imbalance in the distributions of economic activities. In this Paper, we focus on the so-called 'new economic geography' approach. After having described some of the main results developed in standard Location Theory, we use a unified framework to survey the home market effect as well as core-periphery models. Geographers have criticized these models because they accounts for some spatial costs while putting others aside without saying why. Furthermore, core-periphery models also exhibit some extreme features that are reflected in their bang-bang outcomes. We thus move on by investigating what the outcomes of core-periphery models become when we account for a more complete and richer description of the spatial aspects that these models aim at describing. We conclude by suggesting new lines of research.
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economics of agglomeration
Research Papers in Economics, 1996Co-Authors: Jacques-françois Thisse, Masahisa FujitaAbstract:We address the fundamental question arising in economic geography: why do economic activities agglomerate in a small number of places? The main reasons for the formation of economic clusters involving firms and/or households are analysed: (i) externalities under perfect competition; (ii) increasing returns under monopolistic competition; and (iii) spatial competition under strategic interaction. We review what has been accomplished in these three domains and identify a few general principles governing the organization of economic space. Other standard lines of research in Location Theory are also discussed while several alternative, new approaches are proposed.
Masahisa Fujita - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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the evolution of spatial economics from thunen to the new economic geography
The Japanese Economic Review, 2010Co-Authors: Masahisa FujitaAbstract:This paper presents a review of the evolution of spatial economics over the past two centuries. The focus is on the evolution of what I consider to be the most fundamental Theory of spatial economics, i.e., general Location Theory. The paper starts with a review of Thunen (1826), and ends with a review of the New Economic Geography initiated by Paul Krugman in the early 1990s. It is shown that the study of general Location Theory has been successful at shedding light on many important features of actual spatial economies.
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new economic geography an appraisal on the occasion of paul krugman s 2008 nobel prize in economic sciences
Regional Science and Urban Economics, 2009Co-Authors: Masahisa Fujita, Jacques-françois ThisseAbstract:Paul Krugman has clarified the microeconomic underpinnings of both spatial economic agglomerations and regional imbalances at national and international levels. He has achieved this with a series of remarkably original papers and books that succeed in combining imperfect competition, increasing returns, and transportation costs in new and powerful ways. Yet, not everything was brand new in New Economic Geography. To be precise, several disparate pieces of high-quality work were available in urban economics and Location Theory. Our purpose in this paper is to shed new light on economic geography through the lenses of these two fields of economics and regional science.
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economics of agglomeration
Research Papers in Economics, 1996Co-Authors: Jacques-françois Thisse, Masahisa FujitaAbstract:We address the fundamental question arising in economic geography: why do economic activities agglomerate in a small number of places? The main reasons for the formation of economic clusters involving firms and/or households are analysed: (i) externalities under perfect competition; (ii) increasing returns under monopolistic competition; and (iii) spatial competition under strategic interaction. We review what has been accomplished in these three domains and identify a few general principles governing the organization of economic space. Other standard lines of research in Location Theory are also discussed while several alternative, new approaches are proposed.
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communication technologies and spatial organization of multi unit firms in metropolitan areas
Regional Science and Urban Economics, 1993Co-Authors: Mitsuru Ota, Masahisa FujitaAbstract:Abstract Departing from traditional Location Theory (which treats a firm as a single-unit entity), in this paper we consider that each firm consists of multiple units that exchange information or services. Specifically, we develop a general equilibrium model of the city,in which each firm consists of a front-unit (e.g. business office) and back-unit (e.g. plant or back-office). Each front-unit interacts with all other front-units for the purpose of business communications, while each back-unit exchanges information or management services only with the front-unit of the same firm. Each firm must choose the Location of its front-unit and back-unit optimally. The equilibrium spatial configuration of the city is determined as an outcome of interactions among all firms and households through competitive land and labor markets. We show that, depending on parameters, a variety of interesting patterns of metropolitan spatial organization emerges.
Kay Axhausen - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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The social aspect of residential Location choice: on the trade-off between proximity to social contacts and commuting
Journal of Transport Geography, 2019Co-Authors: Sergio Guidon, Michael Wicki, Thomas Bernauer, Kay AxhausenAbstract:Commuting has been found to be one of the least enjoyable activities. As it is a consequence of the choice of home and work Location, the question arises as to how its disutility is compensated. Urban Location Theory suggests a compensation in the housing or the labor market. While this provides part of the explanation, individuals' personal networks may provide additional insights. Data from a social network survey were used to investigate proximity to social contacts as a factor in residential Location choice. The results indicated that proximity to social contacts was an important factor and that it was traded off against commute time. The notion that the disutility of commuting is not compensated for may be a consequence of ignoring the effect of personal networks. The results contribute to the understanding of residential Location choice and have implications for urban planning and policies that seek to reduce commuting.
Philip Mccann - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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the Location behavior of the multinational enterprise some analytical issues
Growth and Change, 2004Co-Authors: Philip Mccann, Ram MudambiAbstract:In the international business literature Location behavior has traditionally been analyzed using Dunning's (1977) OLI framework, which focuses on the nature, role, and behav- ior of multinational enterprise (MNE). In this paper it is argued that this approach is now no longer appropriate for discussing the spatial behavior of MNEs, because of the fundamental changes which have taken place either in MNE organization or in the global and institutional environment for foreign direct investment (FDI). At the same time, the paper argues that current Location Theory from regional economics and economic geography is also largely unsuitable for discussing these issues, such that the spatial behavior of the MNE provides a set of difficult challenges to Location analysts. There appears to have been some response to these issues from the international busi- ness and management literature, most notably the Porter literature on clusters. However, it is also argued here that this literature provides few, if any, real answers to the problems set by the geo- graphical behavior of the MNE. It is concluded that a fusion of traditional economic geography approaches with a focus on the information and organizational aspects of the firm and the region under consideration may be a way forward for both Theory and empirical analysis.
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the Location behavior of the multinational enterprise some analytical issues
2004Co-Authors: Philip Mccann, Ram MudambiAbstract:In the international business literature Location behavior has traditionally been analyzed using Dunning's (1977) OLI framework, which focuses on the nature, role and behavior of multinational enterprise. In this paper we argue that this approach is now no longer appropriate for discussing the spatial behavior of MNEs, because of the fundamental changes which have taken place either in MNE organization or in the global and institutional environment for foreign direct investment (FDI). At the same time, we argue that current Location Theory from regional economics and economic geography is also largely unsuitable for discussing these issues, such that the spatial behavior of the MNE provides a set of difficult challenges to Location analysts. There appears to have been some response to these issues from the international business and management literature, most notably the Porter literature on clusters. However, we will also argue here that this literature provides few, if any real answers to the problems set by the geographical behavior of the MNE. We conclude that a fusion of traditional economic geography approaches with a focus on the information and organizational aspects of the firm and the region under consideration may be a way forward for both Theory and empirical analysis.
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The Rise, Fall and Rise Again of Industrial Location Theory
Regional Studies, 2003Co-Authors: Philip Mccann, Stephen SheppardAbstract:M CCANN P. and SHEPPARD S. (2003) The rise, fall and rise again of industrial Location Theory, Reg. Studies 37 , 649-663. In this paper we will argue that new academic fashions, new international institutional arrangements, new communications technology and new developments in data availability, have all renewed the need for a redevelopment of analytical industrial Location Theory. Our paper will argue that the microeconomic foundations of industrial Location Theory must now be reconsidered. In particular, the methodological basis of traditional industrial Location models needs to be reconciled with recent models of clustering, the new economic geography literature, and also more aggregate systemic levels of analysis. We will argue that in order to do this it is necessary: first, to specify the transactions-cost assumptions underlying these various approaches; second, to adopt broader definitions of spatial transactions costs; and third, to incorporate environmental characteristics within an orthodox loca...
Atsushi Iimi - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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optimal Locational choice for agrobusinesses in madagascar an application of spatial autoregressive tobit regression
Social Science Research Network, 2018Co-Authors: Atsushi IimiAbstract:The traditional Location Theory predicts that firms' Locational choice is independent of the output demand. However, firms are often concentrated in large markets. In Africa, agrobusinesses are expected to play an important role to facilitate agricultural growth but are hardly available in rural areas. This paper examines the question of why agribusinesses are not located in local production areas despite the clear benefits expected from close proximity to their inputs. By applying the spatial autocorrelation Tobit model, the paper estimates the impacts of market and farm accessibility on agglomeration of new agrobusinesses in Madagascar. The findings show that market accessibility and agglomeration economies are important for attracting more agrobusinesses. The quality of labor is also an important determinant for their Locational choice. The findings are consistent with some models of Location Theory: firms move away from rural areas where they may still have monopsony power, toward urban areas where productivity is higher.
