This paper is concerced with the role of externalities and nonconvexities in agglomeration (concentration) of urban population and production. The paper examines whether, indeed, as often asserted, the external aspect of scale economies (diseconomies) deters (enhances) agglomeration.

It is common to explain the market failure in efficiently distributing the population among urban areas by externalities associated with unpriced transportation congestion and external scale economies in the supply of private and public goods. Consequently, in prescribing the appropriate...

In this paper we argue that the impact of external scale economies and diseconomies on city size is not nearly as clear-cut as it is tacitly believed in urban economics. Similarly, that city-size distortions are not caused by externalities alone. Noncovexity, which prevents establishing the...

The supply of local public goods would obey principles that are not fundamentally different from those governing the efficient supply of differentiated goods. All these results rest on the assumption of an efficient land market. This suggests that the problem of land property rights should...

The paper contributes to the debate abouyt whether market incentives induce excessive concentration of the urban population in cities that are too large. It answers two related questions which have not been satisfactorily answered in the existing literature. The first is whether the very...

This paper discusses three aspects of urbanization: the effect of urbanization (that is, aggregate urban population growth) on agglomeration, the discontinuity of urban population partition among urban areas, and the failure of laissez-faire to induce the emergence of new urban areas...