The paper argues that East Asian regionalism is fragile because (i) each nation's industrial competitiveness depends on the smooth functioning of "Factory Asia" - in particular for intraregional trade; (ii) the unilateral tariff-cutting that created Factory Asia is not subject to WTO discipline...

We review the theoretical links between growth and agglomeration. Growth, in the form of innovation, can be at the origin of catastrophic spatial agglomeration in a cumulative process la Myrdal. One of the surprising features of the Krugman [Journal of Political Economy 99 (1991) 483499] model,...