Wealth and poverty, progress and regress are the type of realities usually related on moral grounds. Scientifically serious causal economic relations are not so easy to find. Moral criteria does not require scientific proof of causality. But this search for causal links is also important to...

This teaching material concentrates on the influence of transportation costs, size of markets and productivity differences in the competitiveness of producers located in different places. It is a simple presentation of the approach taken by Krugman, by Button and by Richardson in their...

The fastest massive increase in poverty in Latin American modern history is commonly attributed to the debt crisis. The 80s of this ending century have been called “the lost decade”. The Jubilee 2000 campaign presses for placing a strong moral exigency on the creditors and must lay a solid...

In recent years we are observing a process of strengthening of private property rights and an increasing role for contracts in economic relations. The rising importance of the contract in contrast to that of law implies the privatization of power relations, the growing marginality of the...

In this article we have shown that between 1950 and the debt crisis economic fluctuations of Andean countries and of the U. S. A. are positively correlated. The exceptions to the rule are the oil exporting Venezuela and Ecuador during some of the subperiods selected. In general, the correlation...

What kind of forces concentrate industry in the biggest cities? First, using Krugman’s model we illustrate the impact of transport costs in the decision to install a plant in a relatively small city. Then, we introduce the impact of productivity to show that productivity differences would have...