This paper estimates the returns to household income due to improved access to electricity in rural India. We examine the effect of connecting a household to the grid and of the quality of electricity, defined as hours of daily supply. The analysis is based on two rounds of a representative...

The EU’s cohesion policy should now be confluent with the goals of the Lisbon strategy by promoting growth and employment. In this context, the promotion of a concept called regional innovation system has recently become important in the EU for guaranteeing long-term regional economic growth....

China’s Hukou system poses severe restrictions on labor mobility. This paper assesses the consequences of relaxing these restrictions for China’s internal economic geography. We base our analysis on a new economic geography model. First, we obtain estimates of the important model parameters...

In recent decades, Southeast Asian economies have prospered through an outward-oriented strategy, through intra-regional integration under the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) initiative and through participating in the East Asian production networks. In the 1970-80’s, South...

The additionality principle says that the funds of the European Union should not replace, but be an addition to national regional policy funds. The benchmark for the co-funding is that the EU bears 50% of total costs associated with regional projects eligible for EU support. In some regions,...

New firm location decisions, relative to incumbents may be based on a choice between two types of advantages: natural advantages or those that arise from social embeddedness, the latter of which may particularly include knowledge spillovers. We analyze the relative importance of geographically...

We analyze the efficiency of urbanization patterns in a stylized dynamic model of urban growth with three sectors of production. Pollution, as a force that discourages agglomeration, is caused by domestic production. We show that cities are too large and too few in number in uncoordinated...

Hosting a mega-event is a costly activity of short duration. Still, cities frequently compete to become host of all types of events. This paper examines the effect of staging the largest and most important sporting event in the world, the Summer Olympic Games, on the host city. Applying a...

This paper looks at a model in which two countries trade agricultural and manufactured commodities. The manufactured-goods sector produces with increasing returns to scale under conditions of monopolistic competition. It is shown that an increase in land endowment (or an increase in agricultural...

This paper offers a new theoretical approach to urban squatting, reflecting the view that squatters and formal residents compete for land within a city. The key implication of this view is that squatters “squeeze” the formal market, raising the price paid by formal residents. The squatter...