Portuguese Economic Journal, 2005, Volume 4, Nº 2
URI permanente para esta coleção:
Navegar
Entradas recentes
- On the evolution of the spatial economy with multi-unit · multi-plant firms : the impact of IT developmentPublication . Fujita, Masahisa; Gokan, ToshitakaThis paper examines how the decline of communication costs between management and production facilities within firms and the decrease in trade costs of manufactured goods affect the spatial organization of a two-region economy with multi-unit·multi-plant firms. The development of information technology decreases the costs of communication and trade costs. Thus, the fragmentation of firms is promoted. Our result indicates that, with decreasing communication costs, firms producing low trade-cost goods (such as electronics products) tend to concentrate their manufacturing plants in low wage countries. In contrast, firms producing high trade-cost products (such as automobiles) tend to have multiple plants serving to segmented markets, even in the absence of wage differentials.
- Market potential and welfare : evidence from the Iberian PeninsulaPublication . Pires, Armando José GarciaWe present a methodology to quantify market potential in the context of an economic geography model. The model is then applied to the NUTS 2 regions of Portugal and Spain. Some results can be pointed out. First, the Iberian Peninsula presents a clear centre-periphery pattern. The market potential pike is situated in the region of Madrid, followed very closely by Catalu˜na and Pais Vasco. Also all Portuguese regions are at the bottom of the market potential rank, i.e.: Portugal is at the periphery of Spain. Second, the regional welfare index confirms market potential results. There is therefore a direct correlation between market potential and regional welfare. Third, a scenario of complete integration between the Portuguese and the Spanish economy is favourable to the most laggard regions. On the contrary, the most advanced regions of each country loose a little. However, ‘lock-in’ effects allow the most central regions to continue in the forefront of development and welfare.
- Transport development and the evolution of economic geographyPublication . Fujita, Masahisa; Mori, TomoyaIn this paper, based on the recent advances in the new economic geog- raphy (e.g., Fujita et al. [12]), we analyze impacts of transport costs on the spatial patterns of economic agglomeration. We first identify prototypes from the existing models, and explain the mechanism of how transport costs influence the balance between economic forces of agglomeration and dispersion. We then investigate the transformation of the agglomeration/dispersion patterns given gradually decreasing transport costs for different goods.
- Agglomeration in a vertically-related oligopolyPublication . Pontes, José PedroThis paper examines the location of three vertically-linked firms. In a spatial economy composed of two regions, a monopolist firm supplies an input to two consumer goods firms that compete in quantities. It is concluded that agglom- eration is more likely to occur when the ratio between the transport cost of the intermediate good and the transport cost of the final good is higher. If this pro- portion is low, the likelihood of an agglomeration decreases with transport costs. If the ratio has an intermediate value, a non-monotonic pattern is obtained that is different from Krugman and Venables (1995).