Do trade integration and fiscal competition contribute to shape the economic landscape? The answer is yes. This paper uses a theoretical model and an econometric analysis of Brazilian regional manufacturing employment data over the period 1990-1998 to address this question. Brazil is a natural...

This paper considers a model of spatial allocation of investment capital under uncertainty. We demonstrate that the spatial concentration of economic activity depends upon properties of risk preferences deeper than risk aversion. The degree of so-called relative prudence unambiguously decides...

This paper investigates interregional differences in cooperative behavior of manufacturing establishments in the field of research and development (R&D). The empirical analysis for eleven European regions reveals a number of significant differences between these regions in the propensity to...

Literature suggests that location should matter for R&D activities. However, attempts to empirically detect differences in innovation activity between regions have so far been rather unsuccessful. Using a unique data set which contains comparable information about manufacturing enterprises in...

Most analyses of the recent financial crisis in the US focus on the consequences of the dramatic slump in housing prices that started in the mid-2000s, which led to rising mortgage defaults, shrinking home equity credit and liquidity in the banking system. Yet these accounts do not explain what...

In a model of spatial competition, we analyse the equilibrium outcomes in markets where the product price is exogenous. Using an extended version of the Hotelling model, we assume that firms choose their locations and the quality of the product they supply. We derive the optimal price set by a...

The production of natural gas is strongly increasing around the world. Long-run negative external effects of extraction are understudied and often ignored in social) cost-benefit analyses. One important example is that natural gas extraction leads to soil subsidence and subsequent induced...

How have house prices evolved in the long-run? This paper presents, for the first time, annual house prices for 14 advanced economies since 1870. Based on extensive data collection, we show that the past decades have seen a historically unprecedented boom in global house prices. Real house...

The focus of the paper is on evaluating the productivity gap between rural and urban locations in the UK using micro data. We build a structural model of the unobservable productivity emphasising the link between productivity and spatial density of economic activity and adapt the semi-parametric...

Regional politicians regard the cluster concept as a key factor for promoting regional economic performance. They refer to a comprehensive set of theoretical and empirical literature which provides the clusters' positive impact on regional development. Recent studies dealing with that topic...