We try to combine theory with empirical analysis to investigate the drivers of spatial growth processes, welfare and disparities in a context in which people are markedly immobile. Drawing on two of our recent papers (Cheshire and Magrini, 2006 and 2008), we review the evidence on the drivers of...

This paper documents the potential employment and other value-added benefits of infrastructure investments in Ontario. In particular, it details the impact of infrastructure investment as a counter-cyclical fiscal policy tool. A review of the recent literature reveals that infrastructure...

The paper will review representations of regional development models in terms of their assumptions (peeled away like an onion) and in terms of their level of complexity, very much in the tradition of Peter Allen's classification system. Some applied models of regional economic development in...

In many of the biggest and richest cities in America, there is a housing affordability crisis. Housing prices in these cities have appreciated well beyond the cost of construction and even faster than rising incomes. These price increases are a direct result of zoning rules that limit the...

New economic geography models analyze agglomeration and dispersion forces, whose interactions determine the spatial distribution of economic activity. We introduce consumers' taste differences in the model by Ottaviano et al. (2002), and we argue that this allows us to represent an additional...

This paper develops a theoretical as well as an empirical model of deforestation and economic development in a tropical forest economy. The empirical model is estimated using panel data for 316 municipalities in the Brazilian Amazon during the period 1970-1985. The effects of controversial...

Complexity theory has become a popular frame for conceptualizing and analyzing cities. The theory proposes that certain large systems are characterized by the nonlinear, dynamic interactions of their many constituent parts. These systems then behave in novel and unpredictable ways — ways that...

Since the early 1990s, there has been a renaissance in the study of regional growth, spurred by new models, methods, and data. We survey a range of modeling traditions, and some formal approaches to the hard problem of regional economics; namely, the joint consideration of agglomeration and...

The structure employed is a small open economy, with one city and a rural hinterland, two traded goods, a transport sector, two specific factors, and mobile labour. A socially profitable programme will promote not only internal, but also external trade. Theory and numerical examples indicate...

Russian Abstract: Социальное неравенство между городским населением и жителями сельской местности в России является очевидным. Российская общественная мысль...