Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vfjqv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-27T03:43:01.224Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Geographical Economics: A Historical Perspective*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2015

Jacques-François Thisse
Get access

Summary

This paper provides a bird-eye overview of the history of spatial economic theory. It is organized around three main ideas (and authors): (i) land use and urban economics (Thünen), (ii) the nature of competition across space (Hotelling), and (iii) new economic geography and the emergence of economic agglomerations (Krugman).

Cet article présente un survol de l'histoire de la théorie économique spatiale. Il est organisé autour de trois thèmes et de trois auteurs: (1) l'utilisation du sol et l'économie urbaine (Thünen), (2) la nature de la concurrence dans une économie spatialisée (Hotelling) et (3) la nouvelle économie géographique et l'émergence des agglomérations économiques (Krugman).

Keywords

urban economicsspatial competitioneconomic geographyB10B20B40F20L13R12R30économie urbaineéconomie géographique et concurrence spatialeB10B20B40F20L13R12R30
Type
Research Article
Information
Recherches Économiques de Louvain/ Louvain Economic Review , Volume 77 , Issue 2-3 , September 2011 , pp. 141 - 168
Copyright
Copyright © Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de recherches économiques et sociales 2011 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

**

CORE, Université catholique de Louvain and CEPR

*

This paper is an extended version of the chapter devoted to economic geography and prepared for the Handbook of the History of Economic Analysis edited by Gilbert Faccarello and Heinz D. Kurz. I thank the editors, Luisito Bertinelli, Steven Brakman, Michel de Vroey, and Erik Schokkaert for their comments and suggestions. Above all, I am grateful to my friend Masahisa Fujita with whom I have discussed many of the ideas surveyed in this paper.

References

Abdel-Rahman, H. and Anas, A., (2004), Theories of systems of cities, in Henderson, J.V. and Thisse, J.-F. (eds.) Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics. Cities and Geography, Amsterdam: North Holland, pp. 2293–2342.Google Scholar
Allais, M. (1943), A la recherche d'une discipline économique. Reprinted as: Traité d'économie pure, Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1952.Google Scholar
Alonso, W. (1964), Location and Land Use, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Anas, A. (1983), Discrete choice theory, information theory, and the multinomial logit and gravity models, Transportation Research B, 17, pp. 13–23.Google Scholar
Arrow, K. and Debreu, G., (1954), Existence of an equilibrium for a competitive economy, Econometrica, 22, pp. 265–290.Google Scholar
Baldwin, R. E., Forslid, R., Martin, P., Ottaviano, G. I. P., and Robert-Nicoud, F. (2003), Economic Geography and Public Policy, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Baldwin, R.E. and Martin, P., (2004), Agglomeration and regional growth, in Henderson, J.V. and Thisse, J.-F. (eds.) Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics. Cities and Geography, Amsterdam: North Holland, pp. 2671–2711.Google Scholar
Beckmann, M.J. (1972a), Von Thiinen revisited: a neoclassical land use model, Swedish Journal of Economics, 74, pp. 1–7.Google Scholar
Beckmann, M.J. (1972b), Spatial Cournot oligopoly, Papers and Proceedings of the Regional Science Association, 28, pp. 37–47.Google Scholar
Beckmann, M.J. (1976), Spatial equilibrium in the dispersed city, in Papageorgiou, Y.Y (ed.). Mathematical Land Use Theory, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, pp. 117–125.Google Scholar
Blaug, M. (1985), Economic Theory in Retrospect, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brakman, S., Garretsen, J.H. and van Marrewijk, C. (2009), The New Introduction to Geographical Economics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Braudel, F. (1979), Civilisation matérielle, économie et capitalisme, XVe-XVIIIe siècle. Le temps du monde. Paris: Armand Colin. English translation: Civilization and Capitalism 15th-18th Century. The Perspective of the World, New York: Harper Collins (1985).Google Scholar
Bröcker, J. (2010), Is there a German school of location theory before 1945? memo, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel.Google Scholar
Cantillon, R. (1755), Essai sur la nature du commerce en général, London: Fletcher. English translation by Higgs, H.. Reprinted in 1964. New York: A.M. Kelley.Google Scholar
Carrothers, G. (1956), A historical review of the gravity and potential concepts of human interaction, Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 22, pp. 94–102.Google Scholar
Christaller, W. (1933), Die zentralen Orte in Süddeutschland, Jena: Gustav Fischer Verlag. English translation: The Central Places of Southern Germany, Englewood Cliffs (NJ): Prentice-Hall (1966).Google Scholar
Combes, P.-P., Mayer, T. and Thisse, J.-F. (2008), Economic Geography. The Integration of Regions and Nations, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Cournot, A. (1838), Recherches sur les principes mathématiques de la théorie des richesses, Paris: Hachette. English translation: Researches into the Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth, New York: Macmillan (1897).Google Scholar
d'Aspremont, C., Gabszewicz, J.J. and Thisse, J.F. (1979), On Hotelling's “Stability in Competition”. Econometrica, 47, pp. 1045–1050.Google Scholar
de Palma, A., Ginsburg, V., Papageorgiou, Y.Y and Thisse, J.-F. (1985) The principle of minimum differentiation holds under sufficient heterogeneity, Econometrica, 53, pp. 767–781.Google Scholar
Dixit, A.K. and Stiglitz, J.E. (1977), Monopolistic competition and optimum product diversity, American Economic Review, 67, pp. 297–308.Google Scholar
Dos Santos Ferreira, R. and Thisse, J.-F. (1996), Horizontal and vertical differentiation: the Launhardt model, International Journal of Industrial Organization, 14, pp. 485–506.Google Scholar
Dunn, E.S. (1954), The equilibrium of land-use pattern in agriculture, Southern Economic Journal, 21, pp. 173–187.Google Scholar
Duranton, G. and Puga, D., (2004), Micro-foundations of urban increasing returns: theory, in Henderson, J.V. and Thisse, J.-F. (eds.) Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics. Cities and Geography, Amsterdam: North Holland, pp. 2063–2117.Google Scholar
Durlauf, S.N. (2004), Neighborhood effects, in Henderson, J.V. and Thisse, J.-F. (eds.) Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics. Cities and Geography, Amsterdam: North Holland, pp. 2173–2242.Google Scholar
Eaton, B.C. and Lipsey, R.G., (1977), The introduction of space into the neoclassical model of value theory, in Artis, M. and Nobay, A. (eds.) Studies in Modern Economics, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, pp. 59–96.Google Scholar
Eaton, B.C. and Lipsey, R.G., (1997), On the Foundations of Monopolistic Competition and Economic Geography, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Google Scholar
Fetter, F.A. (1924), The economic law of market area, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 34, pp. 520–529.Google Scholar
Fujita, M. (1988), A monopolistic competition model of spatial agglomeration: a differentiated product approach, Regional Science and Urban Economics, 18, pp. 87–124.Google Scholar
Fujita, M. (1989), Urban Economic Theory. Land Use and City Size, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fujita, M. and Krugman, P., (1995), When is the economy monocentric? von Thiinen and Chamberlin unified, Regional Science and Urban Economics, 25, pp. 505–528.Google Scholar
Fujita, M., Krugman, P. and Venables, A.J., (1999), The Spatial Economy. Cities, Regions and International Trade, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Fujita, M. and Thisse, J.-F., (2002), Economics of Agglomeration. Cities, Industrial Location and Regional Growth, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,Google Scholar
Fujita, M. and Thisse, J.-F., (2006), Globalization and the evolution of the supply chain: who gains and who loses? International Economic Review, 47, pp. 811–836.Google Scholar
Gabszewicz, J. J., and Thisse, J.-F., (1986), Spatial competition and the location of firms, in: Gabszewicz, J.J., Thisse, J.-F., Fujita, M. and Schweizer, U.. Location Theory, Chur: Harwood Academic Publishers, pp. 1–71.Google Scholar
Garretseen, H. and Martin, R., (2010), Rethinking (new) economic geography models: taking geography and history seriously, Spatial Economic Analysis, 5, pp. 127–160.Google Scholar
Hamilton, B.W. (1980), Indivisibilities and interplant transportation cost: do they cause market breakdown? Journal of Urban Economics, 7, pp. 31–41.Google Scholar
Hansen, P., Labbé, M., Peeters, D., and Thisse, J.-F., (1987), Facility location analysis, in: Hansen, P., Labbé, M., Peeters, D., Thisse, J.-F., and Henderson, J.V., Systems of Cities and Facility Location, Chur: Harwood Academic Publishers, pp. 1–70.Google Scholar
Harris, C. (1954), The market as a factor in the localization of industry in the United States, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 64, pp. 315–348.Google Scholar
Heffley, D.R. (1972), The quadratic assignment problem: a note, Econometrica, 40, pp. 1155–1163.Google Scholar
Helpman, E. and Krugman, P., (1985), Market Structure and Foreign Trade, Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press.Google Scholar
Helpman, E. (1998), The size of regions, in Pines, D., Sadka, E. and Zilcha, I. (eds.) Topics in Public Economics. Theoretical and Applied Analysis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 33–54.Google Scholar
Henderson, J.V. (1974), The sizes and types of cities, American Economic Review, 64, pp. 640–656.Google Scholar
Henderson, J.V. (1988), Urban Development. Theory, Fact and Illusion, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hotelling, H. (1929), Stability in competition, Economic Journal, 39, pp. 41–57.Google Scholar
Isard, W. (1949), The general theory of location and space-economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 63, pp. 476–506.Google Scholar
Isard, W. (1956), Location and Space-Economy, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Isard, W. (2003), History of Regional Science and the Regional Science Association International, Berlin: Springer.Google Scholar
Kaldor, N. (1935), Market imperfection and excess capacity, Economica, 2, pp. 35–50.Google Scholar
Koopmans, T.C. (1957), Three Essays on the State of Economic Science, New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Koopmans, T.C. and Beckmann, M.J., (1957), Assignment problems and the location of economic activities, Econometrica, 25, pp. 1401–1414.Google Scholar
Krugman, P. (1991a), Geography and Trade, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Krugman, P. (1991b), Increasing returns and economic geography, Journal of Political Economy, 99, pp. 483–499.Google Scholar
Krugman, P. (1995), Development, Geography, and Economic Theory, Cambridge MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Krugman, P. (1999), Was it all in Ohlin? Internet site: http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/ohlin.html.Google Scholar
Krugman, P. and Venables, A. J., (1995), Globalization and the inequality of nations, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 110, pp. 857–880.Google Scholar
Launhardt, W. (1882), Die Bestimmung des zweckmäβigsten Standortes einer gewerblichen Anlage. Zeitschrift des Vereins Deutscher Ingenieure, 26, pp. 109–116.Google Scholar
Launhardt, W. (1885), Mathematische Begründung der Volkswirtschaftslehre, Leipzig: B.G. Teubner. English translation: Mathematical Principles of Economics. Aldershot: Edward Elgar (1993).Google Scholar
Laurent, J. (2005), Henry George's Legacy in Economic Thought, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Lösch, A. (1940), Die Räumliche Ordnung der Wirtschaft, Jena: Gustav Fischer. English translation: The Economics of Location, New Haven, CN: Yale University Press (1954).Google Scholar
Mills, E.S. (1967), An aggregative model of resource allocation in a metropolitan area, American Economic Review, 57, pp. 197–210.Google Scholar
Mills, E.S. (1972), Studies in the Structure of the Urban Economy, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press.Google Scholar
Myrdal, G. (1957), Economic Theory and Underdeveloped Regions, London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Neary, J.P. (2001), Of hype and hyperbolas: introducing the new economic geography, Journal of Economic Literature, 39, pp. 536–561.Google Scholar
Ohlin, B. (1933), Interregional and International Trade, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Revised version published in 1968.Google Scholar
Ota, M. and Fujita, M., (1993), Communication technologies and spatial organization of multi-unit firms in metropolitan areas, Regional Science and Urban Economics, 23, pp. 695–729.Google Scholar
Papageorgiou, Y.Y., and Thisse, J.-F., (1985), Agglomeration as spatial interdependence between firms and households, Journal of Economic Theory, 37, pp. 19–31.Google Scholar
Predöhl, A. (1928), The theory of location in its relation to general economics, Journal of Political Economy, 36, pp. 371–390.Google Scholar
Ponsard, C. (1983), History of Spatial Economic Theory, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Ogawa, H. and Fujita, M., (1980), Equilibrium land use patterns in a non-monocentric city, Journal of Regional Science, 20, pp. 455–475.Google Scholar
Salop, S.C. (1979), Monopolistic competition with an outside good, Bell Journal of Economics, 10, pp. 141–156.Google Scholar
Samuelson, P.A. (1952), Spatial price equilibrium and linear programming, American Economic Review, 42, pp. 283–303.Google Scholar
Samuelson, P. A. (1954), The transfer problem and transport cost. II. Analysis of effects of trade impediments, Economic Journal, 64, pp. 264-89.Google Scholar
Samuelson, P.A. (1983), Thiinen at two hundred, Journal of Economic Literature, 21, pp. 1468–1488.Google Scholar
Schelling, T. (1969), Models of segregation, American Economic Review, 59, pp. 400–493.Google Scholar
Schelling, T. (1971), Dynamic models of segregation, Journal of Mathematical Sociology, 1, pp. 143–186.Google Scholar
Starrett, D. (1978), Market allocations of location choice in a model with free mobility, Journal of Economic Theory, 17, pp. 21–37.Google Scholar
Tabuchi, T. (1998), Agglomeration and dispersion: a synthesis of Alonso and Krugman. Journal of Urban Economics, 44, pp. 333–351.Google Scholar
Tabuchi, T. and Thisse, J.-F., (2002), Taste heterogeneity, labor mobility and economic geography. Journal of Development Economics, 69, pp. 155–177.Google Scholar
Takayama, T. and Judge, G.G. (1971), Spatial and Temporal Price and Allocation Models, Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
von Thünen, J.H. (1826), Der isolierte Staat in Beziehung auf Landwirtschaft und Nationalökonomie, Hamburg: Perthes. English translation: The Isolated State, Oxford: Pergammon Press (1966).Google Scholar
Warsh, D. (2006), Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations, New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Weber, A. (1909), Uber den Standort der Industrien, Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr. English translation: The Theory of the Location of Industries, Chicago: Chicago University Press (1929).Google Scholar
Wesolowsky, G.O. (1993), The Weber problem: history and procedures, Location Theory, 1, pp. 5–23.Google Scholar
Wilson, A.G. (1967), A statistical theory of spatial distribution models, Transportation Research 1, pp. 253–269.Google Scholar