This Paper examines city formation in a country whose urban population is growing steadily over time, with new cities required to accommodate this growth. In contrast to most of the literature there is immobility of housing and urban infrastructure, and investment in these assets is taken on the...

Geography is widely viewed as the important determinant of city location. This paper empirically disentangles the different roles of geography in shaping the European city system. We present a new database that covers all actual cities as well as potential city locations over the period when the...

This chapter describes how the spatial distribution of economic activity changes as economies develop and grow. We start with the relation between development and rural-urban migration. Moving beyond the coarse rural-urban distinction, we then focus on the continuum of locations in an economy...

Following the rationale for regional redistribution programmes described in the official documents of the European Union, this Paper studies a very simple multi-country model built around two regions: a core and a periphery. Technological spillovers link firms’ productivity in each of the two...

Taking both the enlargement process, as currently defined by the EU, and the structural funds as a given, this Paper examines what is the best way for candidate countries to fuel real convergence. The experience from earlier EU enlargements and current economic conditions within the CEEC10...

This paper is concerned with the influence of agglomeration economies on economic outcomes across British regions. The concentration of economic activity in one place can foster economic performance due to the reduction in transportation costs, the ready availability of customers and suppliers,...

This Paper uses bilateral trade data for OECD countries at the 3-digit industry level to investigate the geography of intra-industry trade (IIT). IIT diminishes with distance and much of the existing empirical literature suggests that this is an inherent characteristic of such trade, arguing...

This Paper aims to explain the spatial variations of crime, both between and within cities. Two types of mechanisms are put forward: social interactions that stipulate that an individual is more likely to commit crime if his peers commit than if they do not commit crime; and distance to jobs that...

Incorporating space in economic models has two important consequences. First, the hypothesis of perfect competition becomes untenable, and second, the distinction between private and public goods becomes blurred. We review arguments that lead to these conclusions and summarize recent work...

This Paper uses NUTS3 sub-regional data for Great Britain to analyse the determinants of spatial variations in income and productivity. We decompose the spatial variation of earnings into a productivity effect and an occupational composition effect. For the former (but not the latter) we find a...