Economic Geography and International Trade

本研究将开发和实证检验模型的 国内生产地点，作为减少 推动国际贸易和投资的力量。 研究的理论部分将使用以下模型： 不完全竞争的市场中， 返回到规模，以分析导致地理 生产集中。 这将涉及建模两者 总体集中-国家的划分 进入人口密集的"核心"地区， "外围"-和高地理位置的出现 许多制成品的生产集中， 一些服务。 这些模型将借鉴 新贸易理论和新增长理论。 关键主题将是 路径依赖，即，最终结果对初始结果的依赖性 条件，并观察到的质量特征， 经济地理学以可预测的方式依赖于几个关键因素， 经济参数，如运输成本，规模经济， 和非农业就业份额。 实证研究将使用美国人口普查数据和可比数据 来自其他国家（特别是欧洲）的数据来测试这些 模型，并将区域间与国际 专业化和贸易。 一个核心项目是利用美国的数据， 计算大量的地理集中指数， 行业，然后将这些指数与行业进行比较 特征，以区分替代品 浓度的解释。 第二个项目将使用 历史的证据来测试各种质的变化， 临界质量现象和其他非线性特征预测 理论模型。 这个项目很重要，因为它试图整合 经济地理学与国际贸易理论 与此 研究，我们将更好地了解可能的 1992年欧洲和美国经济一体化的影响- 加拿大自由贸易协定。

This research will develop and empirically test models of the location of production within countries, as a way of shedding light on the forces driving international trade and investment. The theoretical part of the research will use models of imperfectly competitive markets in which there are increasing returns to scale to analyze the processes leading to geographical concentration of production. This will involve modeling both concentration at an aggregate level - the division of countries into densely populated "core" regions and less dense "peripheries" -and the emergence of high geographical concentration of the production of many manufactured goods and some services. The models will borrow techniques from both the new trade theory and the new growth theory. Key themes will be path dependence, i.e., dependence of eventual outcomes on initial conditions, and the observation that the qualitative character of economic geography depends in predictable ways on a few key economic parameters, such as transport costs, scale economies, and the nonagricultural share of employment. The empirical research will use US Census data and comparable data from other countries (especially Europe) to test these models and compare interregional with international specialization and trade. A central project is to use US data to compute indices of geographic concentration for a large number of industries, and then to compare these indices with industry characteristics in order to discriminate between alternative explanations of concentration. A second project will use historical evidence to test for the kinds of qualitative changes, critical mass phenomena, and other nonlinear features predicted by the theoretical models. This project is important because it attempts to integrate economic geography with international trade theory. With this study, we will be better equipped to understand the likely effects of the 1992 economic integration in Europe and the US- Canada Free Trade Agreement.