Modeling Agglomeration and Dispersion in City and Country: Gunnar Myrdal, François Perroux, and the New Economic Geography

Abstract

The "new economic geography" is a recent body of literature that seeks to explain how resources and production come to be concentrated spatially for reasons other than the standard "geographic" ones. Unlike alternative explanations of the geographic distribution of industry, the literature is not interdisciplinary. The new economic geography lies well within economics proper: it is an offspring of international trade theory, with models characterized by increasing returns, factor mobility, and transportation costs. The models explain the distribution of industry in terms of the opposition of an agglomerating force, the interaction of transportation costs and increasing returns to scale, with a dispersing force, commonly the interaction of transportation costs and a partially fixed input or output market.Some authors outside the new economic geography (e.g., Martin 1999) have criticized it as simplistic, irrelevant, or passé. They claim it employs overly abstract analysis, prioritizes mathematical technique over realistic explanation, and is reminiscent of the much earlier works of Gunnar Myrdal and François Perroux-in comparison to which, however, it falls short. This paper investigates the similarities and differences between the new economic geography and the work of Myrdal and Perroux, who in the previous special issue of this journal were ranked by Zafirovsky (1999, pp. 596, 598) as among the leading twentieth century economic

Theorizing and Rethinking Linkages Between the Natural Environment and the Modern World-System: Deforestation in the Late 20th Century

“…As this occurs, large urban agglomerations put demand on resources for their own use and for export, while extraction of those resources tends to be from rural areas where there are still natural resources available (Meardon 2001; also see Smith 1994see Smith , 1996.…”

Is geographical economics imperializing economic geography?

“…Indeed, some believe that geographical economics is just a repackaging or at any rate a continuation of those economic ideas and style of analysis, which geographers have rejected long ago (Barnes 2003). In addition, although the general mainstream of the economics discipline ignored spatial questions, sub-disciplines such as urban and regional economics didn't (Meardon 2001). This gives support to those who claim that because spatial issues belong to the perceived domain of economics, geographical economics is not a case of economics imperialism.…”

Distribution and dynamics of development of small and medium-sized enterprises as a method of determining the growth centres. Example of Podkarpackie Region

“…2. The growth centre is characterized by an above-average growth rate relative to other centres, the source of which lies in so-called propulsive industries (fast growing with an extensive market and an advanced level of technology and managerial expertise (Meardon 2001). 3.…”