Using a market potential function, we examine the spatial correlation of wages and consumer purchasing power across regions in West Germany. The market potential function can be regarded as a reduced form of several new economic geography models. Thus, the estimation results provide some first...

This paper presents a regional economic model in which increasing returns to scale in the production of non-traded consumer services cause the agglomeration of high-skilled workers in one region. The residential choice of high-skilled individuals exerts a pecuniary externality on immobile...

The economic geography literature distinguishes between two types of reasons for economic agglomeration. Regional concentration of economic activity can be attributed to ''first nature'' meaning geographic advantages and disadvantages given by nature or to ''second nature'' meaning agglomeration...

In this paper, I propose a simple model in which behavior is determined by the individual's attitude towards the behavior and the attitude depends on the individual's values. The model is based on the Schwartz theory of human values, which is very prominent in social psychology. Values are...