This paper analyses how the degree of regional integration affects regional differences in production structures and income levels. With high transport costs, industry is spead across regions to meet final consumer demad. As transport costs fall, increasing returns interacting with labour...

We develop a model in which the interaction between transport costs, increasing returns, and labour migration across sectors and regions creates a tendency for urban agglomeration. Demand from rural areas favours urban dispersion. European urbanisation took place mainly in the XIX Century, with...

i. This discussion paper is a completely revised version of SERCDP0047, published April 2010. This paper argues that agglomeration externalities are important even in the rural periphery. The analysis focuses on the forced relocation of more than a tenth of the Finnish population after World War...