一组空间经济学英文文献4.pdfVIP

Papers Reg. Sci. 80, 411–424 (2001) c RSAI 2001 Modelling the geography of economic activities on a continuous space Giuseppe Arbia Department of Science, University G. d’Annunzio, Pescara, Viale Pindaro, 42, 65127 Pescara, Italy (e-mail: Arbia@Sci.Unich.it) Received: 18 May 1998 / Accepted: 12 March 2001 Abstract. In the present article we propose a spatial micro econometric approach for studying the geographical concentration of economic activities. We analyse the incentives to use this approach rather than the traditional one based on re- gional aggregates. As an example, we present our prototypical theoretic model – to be seen as a continuous space version of Krugman’s concentration model – that includes birth, survival and growth components. We present a numerical estimation of the birth model for a set of data referring to the concentration of the manufacturing industries in the San Marino Republic. JEL classification: C1, O0, R3 Key words: Birth-death processes, economic geography, geographical concen- tration, Markov fields, regional economic growth 1 Introduction Until relatively recently, location and physical geography characteristics have been regarded as irrelevant factors in many economic theoretical studies. Most economists have behaved as if all economic agents are concentrated in one sin- gle, dimensionless point in space, and as if transportation and communication The comments received by the participants to two seminars given by the author at Milano- ` Bocconi and Geneve University are gratefully acknowledged. Thanks are also due to Guido Pellegrini of Bologna University for some references, to Milena Gasperoni of the Statist