Results

CEP discussion paper

Location choice when the number of jobs matters: Matching in spatial equilibrium

The idea that people want to go to where the jobs are is intuitive yet is absent from the standard quantitative spatial modelling approach in which location choices are guided by prices, without reference to quantities (...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

Technical change, jobs, and wages in the global economy

This paper presents a compact and intuitive framework that consolidates, simplifies, and extends results on the links between technology, trade, and labour market outcomes. It makes three main contributions. First, it pr...Read more...

Journal article

Canadian Journal of Economics:

Regional Specialization: From the Geography of Industries to the Geography of Jobs

Our analysis begins with an empirical investigation of how employment concentration in industries and occupations across United States regions has changed over time, and how regional specialization has changed. Results ...Read more...

Blog

Economics Observatory:

Boosting productivity: why doesn't the UK invest enough?

The UK economy has long suffered from chronic levels of underinvestment. Many factors explain the failure to invest enough. One recurring theme is short-term thinking - by managers who don't invest in projects with long-...Read more...

Journal article

CESifo Forum:

“Big Push” Green Industrial Policy

Economists have been actively engaged with the question of climate policy for at least 30 years (Nordhaus 1991). The main product of this engagement has been vocal and wholehearted support of carbon pricing according to ...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

Radical climate policies

The transition to net zero will require policies that promote switching to carbon-free technologies on a large scale and will often involve complementarities and peer effects in demand. Frederick van der Ploeg and Anthon...Read more...

Blog

CEPR & VideoVox Economics:

Why do some regions fail to recover from economic shocks? (video)

Recorded at CEPR's June Paris Symposium, Tony Venables presents his research on those regional disparities in the UK which originated in the 1970s through negative trade and technology shocks and whose long run consequen...Read more...

External publication

Pancakes to pyramids: city form to promote sustainable growth (English)

Towns and cities are economic and social microcosms in which large numbers of people and firms interact. These interactions largely shape how a city looks, how it functions, and how it grows. But how exactly does this ma...Read more...

Journal article

The Review of Economic Studies:

Building the City: From Slums to a Modern Metropolis

We model the building of a city, estimate parameters of the model, and calculate welfare losses from institutional frictions encountered in changing land-use. We distinguish formal and slum construction technologies; in ...Read more...

Journal article

Oxford Review of Economic Policy:

The persistent consequences of adverse shocks: how the 1970s shaped UK regional inequality

The economic shocks experienced by the UK economy in the 1970s brought major changes in the spatial distribution of employment rates in the UK. This paper traces the long-run implications of these changes, suggesting tha...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Urban Economics:

Land tenure and land-use in a developing city: A quantitative spatial model applied to Kampala, Uganda

Land rights and tenure systems are an important factor behind poor housing and inefficient land-use in developing country cities. In Kampala, Uganda, four systems of land tenure coexist, allowing a detailed study of the ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Globalisation and urban polarisation

External trade affects the internal spatial structure of an economy, promoting growth in some cities or regions and decline in others. Internal adjustment to these changes has often proved to be extremely slow and painfu...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Development Economics:

The Belt and Road Initiative: Reshaping economic geography in Central Asia?

This paper develops a computable spatial equilibrium model of Central Asia and uses it to analyze the possible effects of the Belt and Road Initiative on the economy of the region. The model captures international and su...Read more...

Journal article

Review of International Economics:

Globalization and urban polarization

External trade affects the internal spatial structure of an economy, promoting growth in some cities or regions and decline in others. Internal adjustment to these changes has often proved to be extremely slow and painfu...Read more...

Journal article

Region:

Urbanisation in developing economies: Building cities that work

This paper reviews recent work on the economics of fast growing developing country cities, with a focus on Africa. It sets out some of the broad facts about African urbanisation and summarises two recent pieces of resear...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Geography:

Who gets the urban surplus?

High productivity in cities creates an economic surplus relative to other areas. How is this divided between workers and landowners? Simple models with homogenous labour suggest that it accrues largely-or entirely-in the...Read more...

Journal article

Science:

Building functional cities

The literature views many African cities as dysfunctional with a hodgepodge of land uses and poor "connectivity." One driver of inefficient land uses is construction decisions for highly durable buildings made under weak...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Building the City: Urban Transition and Institutional Frictions

We model the building of a city, estimate parameters of the model, and calculate welfare losses from institutional frictions encountered in changing land-use. We distinguish formal and slum construction technologies; in ...Read more...

Chapter

Evolving city systems

in Urbanization and development

Leading scholars in urban economics examine the data and definitions associated with the field, and look in-depth at the economic and social consequences of urbanization. Special focus is given to urban violence, and pla...Read more...

Journal article

Review of Economic Dynamics:

The dynamics of city formation

This paper examines city formation in a country whose urban population is growing steadily over time, with new cities required to accommodate this growth. In contrast to most of the literature there is immobility of hous...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Economic Linkages Across Space

We develop a diagrammatic framework that can be used to study the economic linkages between regions or cities. Hitherto, such linkages have not been the primary focus of either the theoretical or empirical literatures. W...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Shifts in economic geography and their causes

Why are economic activity and prosperity spread so unevenly, and does globalisation necessarily narrow these differences? Tony Venables outlines the key forces driving the economic geography of cities, nations and the wo...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Shifts in Economic Geography and their Causes

This paper analyses some of the forces that are changing the spatial distribution of activity in the world economy. It draws on the 'new economic geography' literature to argue the importance of increasing returns to sca...Read more...

CentrePiece article

The China effect

The economic emergence of the world's most populous nation is having a big impact on everyone else. Tony Venables and Linda Yueh analyse which countries, industries and workers are likely to benefit and which may lose ou...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Cities in the Developing World

Rapid urbanisation is a major feature of developing countries. Some 2 billion more people are likely to become city residents in the next 30 years, yet urbanisation has received little attention in the modern development...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Multinationals: heroes or villains of the global economy?

Multinational firms are demonised by anti-globalisation campaigners.Yet according to a new book by Tony Venables and colleagues, the evidence is that they are generally a force for prosperity in the world economy....Read more...

CentrePiece article

Productivity: understanding regional differences

What drives variations in economic performance across Britain? Patricia Rice and Tony Venables find that access to cities has a big influence on regional productivity....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Evaluating Urban Transport Improvements: Cost Benefit Analysis in the Presence of Agglomeration and Income Taxation

There is a substantial empirical literature quantifying the positive relationship between city size and productivity. The paper draws out the implications of this productivity relationship for evaluations of urban transp...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Spatial Determinants of Productivity: Analysis for the Regions of Great Britain

This paper uses NUTS3 sub-regional data for Great Britain to analyse the determinants of spatial variations in income and productivity. We decompose the spatial variation of earnings into a productivity effect and an occ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Timeliness, Trade and Agglomeration

An important element of the cost of distance is time taken in delivering final and intermediate goods. We argue that time costs are qualitatively different from direct monetary costs such as freight charges. The differen...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

Economic geography and international inequality

This paper estimates a structural model of economic geography using cross-country data on per capita income, bilateral trade, and the relative price of manufacturing goods. We provide evidence that the geography of acces...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Buzz: Face-to-Face Contact and the Urban Economy

This paper argues that existing models of urban concentrations are incomplete unless grounded in the most fundamental aspect of proximity; face-to-face contact. Face-to-face contact has four main features; it is an effic...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Spatial Disparities in Developing Countries: Cities, Regions and International Trade

Spatial inequality in developing countries is due to the natural advantages of some regions relative to others and to the presence of agglomeration forces, leading to clustering of activity. This paper reviews and develo...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Yawning gaps

Why has globalisation brought such large increases in exports to some countries and not to others? Stephen Redding and Anthony Venables look at the way internal geography and domestic institutions seem to be a large part...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Explaining Cross-Country Export Performance: International Linkages and Internal Geography

This paper investigates the determinants of countries' export performance looking in particular at the role of international product market linkages. We begin with a novel decomposition of the growth in countries' expo...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Globalization in History: A Geographical Perspective

This paper argues that a geographical perspectie is fundamental to understanding comparative economic development in the context of globalization. Central to this view is the role of agglomeration in productivity perform...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Economic Geography of Trade, Production, and Income: A Survey of Empirics

This paper surveys the empirical literature on the economic geography of trade flows, factor prices, and the location of production. The discussion is structured around the empirical predictions of a canonical theoretica...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Geography and International Inequalities: the Impact of New Technologies

Some writers have predicted that new technologies mean the 'death of distance', allowing suitably skilled economies to converge with high income countries. This paper evaluates this claim. It argues that geography matt...Read more...

Book

The Spatial Economy
Cities, Regions, and International Trade

The authors show how a common approach that emphasizes the three-way interaction among increasing returns, transportation costs, and the movement of productive factors can be applied to a wide range of issues in urba...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Distance still matters

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CEP discussion paper

Economic Geography and International Inequality

This paper estimates a structural model of economic geography using cross-country data on per capita income, bilateral trade, and the relative price of manufacturing goods. More than 70% of the variation in per capita in...Read more...

CentrePiece article

What goes where: integration and industrial specialisation in the European Union

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Journal article

World Bank Economic Review:

Trading Arrangements and Industrial Development

This article outlines a new approach for analyzing the role of trade in promoting industrial development. It offers an explanation as to why firms are reluctant to move to countries with lower labor costs and shows how t...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Agglomeration and Economic Development: Import Substitution versus Trade Liberalisation

This paper analyses a model of economic development in which international inequalities in the location of industry and income are supported by the agglomeration of industry in a subset of countries. Economic development...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Trade Liberalisation and Factor Mobility: An Overview

This paper analyses the ways in which liberalisation of goods trade may change factor prices and the incentives for factor mobility. While trade liberalisation reduces the incentives for factor mobility in a Heckscher-Oh...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Trading Arrangements and Industrial Development

This paper outlines a new approach for analysing the role of trade in promoting industrial development. It offers an explanation as to why firms are reluctant to move to economics with lower labour costs, and shows how t...Read more...

Journal article

The Quarterly Journal of Economics:

Globalization and the Inequality of Nations

A monopolistically competitive manufacturing sector produces goods used for final consumption and as intermediates. Intermediate usage creates cost and demand linkages between firms and a tendency for manufacturing agglo...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Preferential Trading Arrangements and Industrial Location

This paper considers the location effects of geographically discriminatory trade policy. A preferential move towards a customs union pulls industry into the integrating countries. When internal barriers fall below some c...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Location Choice

Much of the excitement around the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has been generated by anticipations of a strongly foreign investment response. Nevertheless, the plethora of applied papers about the NAFTA ha...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Intergration

The paper considers the equilibrium location of two industries in two countries. Both industries are imperfectly competitive and produce goods which are used in final consumption and as intermediates by firms in the same...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Equilibrium Locations of Vertically Linked Industries

This paper considers the locational choice of firms in an upstream and a downstream industry. Both industries are imperfectly competitive, with firms subject to increasing returns. There are transport costs between the t...Read more...