Empirical evidence on economies of scale in healthcare is mostly based on the cost effects of hospital mergers. In contrast to earlier studies, this paper approaches the economies of scale issue by analysing the break-ups of municipal health centre federations. We use the...

There are two types of regional development elements those are namely economic and social terms. While both developing and developed countries initially need to establish regional economic infrastructure, the next concern should be given to the social infrastructure. In local regions, the...

Knowledge of whether, and over what range of output, there are economies or diseconomies of scale in providing local communal services is an important question from theoretical, practical and regional political point of view also. The theoretical side of the question is connected to the...

This paper revisits a classical inquiry by addressing the question of localization and urbanization economies. We propose that specialization and diversity may offer externalities operating at different spatial scales. Using high-resolution geo-coded plant-level panel data for Swedish cities...

This paper reconsiders the theoretical foundations of EU regional policy in economics. It begins with a discussion of the line of thought of its prevalent explanation in equilibrium economics which is focusing on market failures as its key underpinning and which is the major toolkit of...

This paper reports the application of our new spatial computable general equilibrium (SCGE) model for analyzing the wider effects of strategic transport and land use development options. We examine the insights afforded by a SCGE model relative to those provided by existing land use and...

A recent strand of the economic literature has emphasised the role of services, and in particular knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS), as a primary source of knowledge creation and diffusion. Since this transferring process often occurs through strong face-to-face interactions, the role...

Agricultural public facilities for irrigation and drainage play an important role in Japanese agriculture, especially in paddy production. However, the budget for renovation of old facilities was drastically cut in 2010. For prolonging life time and decreasing lifecycle costs of public...