Since its very appearance, probably due to its provocative name, New Economic Geography has stirred a debate on whether it is economic geography proper or rather geographical economics. In both cases, its real novelty has been questioned. We focus on this last issue. In particular, we argue that...

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we present an alternative model of agglomeration and trade that displays the main features of the recent economic geography literature while allowing for the derivation of analytical results by means of simple algebra. Second, we show how this...

We consider a finite number of firms which compete imperfectly for heterogenous workers. Firms produce a homogeneous good sold on a competitive market and face demand-induced price fluc- tuations. It is then shown that unemployment may arise in equilibrium because of uncertainty on product...

This paper explores the interplay between commodities’ transportation costs and workers’ commuting costs within a general equilibrium framework `a la Dixit-Stiglitz. Workers are mobile and choose a region where to work as well as an intraurban location where to live. We show that a more...

Discrete choice theory is very much dominated by the paradigm of the maximization of a random utility, thus implying that the probability of choosing an alternative in a given set is equal to the sum of the probabilities of all the rankings for which this alternative comes first. This property...

This paper investigates the impact of the heterogeneity of the labor force on the spatial distribution of activities. This goal is achieved by applying the tools of discrete choice theory to an economic geography model. We show that taste heterogeneity acts as a strong dispersion force. We also...

The lobbying process is modelled as an auction with externalities in which lobbies bid to get implemented their most-preferred policy. Furthermore, the government may influence the lobbying process itself by biasing the auction among organized interests. We identify the following trade-off:...

This paper investigates the impacts of capital mobility and tax competition in a setting with imperfect matching between firms and workers. The small country always gains and the large country always loses from tax competition, thus implying tax competition leads to redistribution from the...

The paper examines the interactions between economic integration and population agglomeration in a middle product economy displaying neoclassical growth. There are two vertically integrated economies. Each consists of a large number of final good competitive firms operating plants in both...

Consider a model à la Koopmans-Beckmann involving two indivisible and interactive firms, as well as a continuum of workers. Firm 1 uses labor, while firm 2 uses labor and good 1 produced by firm 1; both goods 1 and 2 can be exported their output but good 1 cannot be imported. The land...