This article introduces a social planner version of a model central to the New Economic Geography for explicitly answering whether the symmetric equilibrium outcome of the decentralized market economy is socially desirable. We find that savings incentives are too weak, resulting in an...

Economic development in industrialized countries is characterized by rising per capita GDP, increasing life expectancy, and an ever larger share of the population living in cities. We explain this pattern within a regional innovation-driven economic growth model with labor mobility and a...

This article introduces a social planner version of a model central to the New Economic Geography for explicitly answering whether the symmetric equilibrium outcome of the decentralized market economy is socially desirable. We find that savings incentives are too weak, resulting in an...