Shifts in Economic Geography and their Causes

This paper analyses some of the forces that are changing the spatial distribution of activity in the world economy. It draws on the 'new economic geography' literature to argue the importance of increasing returns to scale and cumulative causation processes in shaping the productivity and comparative advantage of different regions. In the presence of such increasing returns there may be persistent spatial disparities in productivity. Economic development will tend to be 'lumpy', with some regions (countries, or smaller areas such as cities) experiencing rapid growth and others being left behind.economic geography, urbanisation, world economy, productivity

Geography and International Inequalities: the Impact of New Technologies

Some writers have predicted that new technologies mean the 'death of distance', allowing suitably skilled economies to converge with high income countries. This paper evaluates this claim. It argues that geography matters for international income inequalities, and that new technologies will change, but not abolish this dependence. Some activities may become more entrenched in high income countries than they are at present. Others - where information can be readily codified and digitized - will relocate, but typically only to a subset of lower income countries. These countries will benefit, but other countries will continue to experience the costs of remoteness.

Depletion and Development: Natural Resource Supply with Endogenous Field Opening

This paper develops a model in which supply of a non-renewable resource can adjust through two margins: the rate of depletion and the rate of field opening. Faster depletion of existing fields means that less of the resource can ultimately be extracted, and optimal depletion of open fields follows a (modified) Hotelling rule. Opening a new field involves sinking a capital cost, and the timing of field opening is chosen to maximize the present value of the field. Output dynamics depend on both depletion and field opening, and supply responses to price changes are studied. In contrast to Hotelling, the long run equilibrium rate of growth of prices is independent of the rate of interest, depending instead on characteristics of demand and geologically determined supply.non-renewable resource, depletion, exhaustible, Hotelling, fossil fuel, carbon tax

Evaluating Urban Transport Improvements: Cost Benefit Analysis in the Presence of Agglomeration and Income Taxation

There is a substantial empirical literature quantifying the positive relationship between city size and productivity. The paper draws out the implications of this productivity relationship for evaluations of urban transport improvements. A theoretical model is developed and used to derive a wider cost-benefit measure that includes productivity effects. The order of magnitude of such effects is illustrated by calculations in a simple computable equilibrium model. It is argued tht productivity effects, particularly when combined with distortionary taxation, are quantitatively important, substantially increasing the gains that are created by urban transport improvements.Agglomeration, productivity, urban transport

Shifts in economic geography and their causes

Recent decades have seen momentous changes in the economic geography of the world. Political transitions and economic liberalization have brought formerly closed countries into the world economy. Such changes have challenged our understanding of the location of economic activity and of the determinants of changes in the pattern of location. ; In a presentation at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s 2006 economic symposium, “The New Economic Geography: Effects and Policy Implications,” Venables explored how a new economic geography perspective provides a number of additional insights into existing patterns of activity and into the forces driving future changes. ; His discussion focused on three key propositions. First, proximity to other economic agents—workers, consumers, and firms—is good for productivity. Second, large income disparities are a perfectly natural outcome of a world in which proximity matters. And, third, the effects of increased trade are potentially ambiguous—there are circumstances in which cheaper spatial interactions cause inequality, not convergence.Economic conditions

Spatial Disparities in Developing Countries: Cities, Regions and International Trade

Spatial inequality in developing countries is due to the natural advantages of some regions relative to others and to the presence of agglomeration forces, leading to clustering of activity. This paper reviews and develops some simple models that capture these first and second nature economic geographies. The presence of increasing returns to scale in cities leads to urban structures that are not optimally sized. This depresses the return to job creation, possibly retarding development. Looking at the wider regional structure, development can be associated with large shifts in the location of activity as industry goes from being inward looking to being export oriented.cities, spatial disparities, urbanisation, developing countries

Internal Geography and External Trade: regional disparities in Italy, 1861-2011

This paper explores the interactions between external trade and regional disparities in the Italian economy since unification. It argues that the advantage of the North was initially based on natural advantage (in particular the endowment of water, intensive in silk production). From 1880 onwards the share of exports in GDP stagnated and then declined; domestic market access therefore became a key determinant of industrial location, inducing fast growing new sectors (especially engineering) to locate in regions with a large domestic market, i.e. in the North. From 1945 onwards trade growth and European integration meant that foreign market access was the decisive factor; the North had the advantage of proximity to these markets.industrialisation, market integration, new economic geography, geographic concentration, Italian regions

Trading Arrangements and Industrial Development

This paper outlines a new approach for analysing the role of trade in promoting industrial development. It offers an explanation as to why firms are reluctant to move to economics with lower labour costs, and shows how trade liberalisation can change the incentives for firms to locate in developing countries. Unilaterally liberalising imports of manufcatures can promote industrialisation, but membership of a preferential trading arrangement is likley to create larger gains. South-South PTAs will be sensitive to the market size of member states, while North-South PTAs seem to offer better prospects- for participating Southern economies, if not for excluded countries.

Spatial Determinants of Productivity: Analysis for the Regions of Great Britain

This paper uses NUTS3 sub-regional data for Great Britain to analyse the determinants of spatialvariations in income and productivity. We decompose the spatial variation of earnings into aproductivity effect and an occupational composition effect. For the former (but not the latter) wefind a robust relationship with proximity to economic mass, suggesting that doubling thepopulation of working age proximate to an area is associated with a 3.5% increase in productivityin the area. We measure proximity by travel time, and show that effects decline steeply with time,ceasing to be important beyond approximately 80 minutes.regional disparities, productivity, clustering