Spatial Economics Seminar Amsterdam

Speaker(s)
Jacques Thisse (Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium and NRU-Higher School of Economics, Russia)
Date
Tuesday, 16 December 2014
Location
Amsterdam

We show that how technological innovations and migration costs interact to shape the space-economy. Regardless of the level of transport costs, rising labor productivity fosters the agglomeration of activities, whereas falling transport costs do not affect the location of activities. When labor is heterogeneous, the number of workers residing in the more productive region increases by decreasing order of productive efficiency when labor productivity rises. This process affects in opposite directions the welfare of those who have a lower productivity. Joint with Takatoshi Tabuchi (University of Tokyo) and Xiwei Zhu (Zhejiang University).