IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/apjors/v5y2021i1d10.1007_s41685-021-00191-x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Borders as opportunities in the space-economy: towards a theory of enabling space

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Nijkamp

    (Open University
    Alexandru Ioan Cuza University
    Polytecnic University (UM6P)
    Adam Mickiewicz University)

Abstract

This paper posits that regional science—as a multidisciplinary analysis of the functioning of regions—has, in its historical evolution, largely neglected the specific role of borders. Borders do not only act as barriers with friction costs in an otherwise open human interaction space; they are multidimensional organizing principles for mobility, interaction, location, and socio-cultural identities of areas. The existence of borders does therefore not necessarily mean exclusively the existence of costly impedance and transaction frictions. Starting from a historical sketch of focal points in regional science, the paper seeks to develop the contours of a new conceptualisation of enabling space in which borders may be seen as opportunities for innovative development in a cross-border space-economy. Amartya Sen’s capability theory will be used as a cornerstone for a novel interpretation of borders to be used by smart and alert actors as a challenging and promising portfolio of cooperative development strategies for people, business agents, and spatial cohesion policy. This study concludes that borders—in case of a sufficient degree of permeability—may generate smart opportunities for the regions involved.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Nijkamp, 2021. "Borders as opportunities in the space-economy: towards a theory of enabling space," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 223-239, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:apjors:v:5:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s41685-021-00191-x
    DOI: 10.1007/s41685-021-00191-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s41685-021-00191-x
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s41685-021-00191-x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Annekatrin Niebuhr & Silvia Stiller, 2003. "Territorial disparities in Europe," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 38(3), pages 156-164, May.
    2. Ana Condeço-Melhorado & Panayotis Christidis, 2018. "Road Accessibility in Border Regions: a Joint Approach," Networks and Spatial Economics, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 363-383, June.
    3. Christodoulou, Aris & Christidis, Panayotis, 2020. "Bridges across borders: A clustering approach to support EU regional policy," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    4. Goyal, Sanjeev & Staal, Klaas, 2004. "The political economy of regionalism," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 563-593, June.
    5. Didier Plat & Charles Raux, 1998. "Frontier Impedance Effects And The Growth Of International Exchanges: An Empirical Analysis For France," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 77(2), pages 155-172, April.
    6. Didier Plat & Charles Raux, 1998. "Frontier impedance effects and the growth of international exchanges: an empirical analysis for France," Post-Print halshs-00144768, HAL.
    7. Enrico Spolaore & Romain Wacziarg, 2005. "Borders and Growth," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 331-386, December.
    8. Roberta Capello & Roberto Camagni & Barbara Chizzolini & Ugo Fratesi, 2008. "Modelling Regional Scenarios for the Enlarged Europe," Advances in Spatial Science, Springer, number 978-3-540-74737-6.
    9. Anssi Paasi, 1999. "Boundaries as Social Practice and Discourse: The Finnish-Russian Border," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(7), pages 669-680.
    10. André Torre & Frédéric Wallet (ed.), 2014. "Regional Development and Proximity Relations," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14813.
    11. Christophe Sohn & Julien Licheron, 2018. "The multiple effects of borders on metropolitan functions in Europe," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(11), pages 1512-1524, November.
    12. John F. Helliwell, 1996. "Do National Borders Matter for Quebec's Trade?," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 29(3), pages 507-522, August.
    13. Michael Porter, 2003. "The Economic Performance of Regions," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(6-7), pages 549-578.
    14. Annekatrin Niebuhr & Silvia Stiller, 2004. "Integration and Labour Markets in European Border regions," ERSA conference papers ersa04p29, European Regional Science Association.
    15. McCallum, John, 1995. "National Borders Matter: Canada-U.S. Regional Trade Patterns," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(3), pages 615-623, June.
    16. Nijkamp, Peter & Rietveld, Piet & Salomon, Ilan, 1990. "Barriers in Spatial Interactions and Communications: A Conceptual Exploration," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 24(4), pages 237-252.
    17. Roberta Capello & Andrea Caragliu & Ugo Fratesi, 2018. "Measuring border effects in European cross-border regions," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(7), pages 986-996, July.
    18. Batten, David & Nijkamp, Peter, 1990. "Barriers to Communication and Spatial Interaction," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 24(4), pages 233-236.
    19. Kourtit, Karima, 2016. "Super-Proximity and Spatial Development," INVESTIGACIONES REGIONALES - Journal of REGIONAL RESEARCH, Asociación Española de Ciencia Regional, issue 36, pages 215-231.
    20. Damiaan Persyn & Wouter Torfs, 2016. "A gravity equation for commuting with an application to estimating regional border effects in Belgium," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 16(1), pages 155-175.
    21. Hans Westlund, 2006. "Social Capital in the Knowledge Economy," Advances in Spatial Science, Springer, number 978-3-540-35366-9.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Peter Nijkamp & Waldemar Ratajczak, 2021. "Gravitational Analysis in Regional Science and Spatial Economics: A Vector Gradient Approach to Trade," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 44(3-4), pages 400-431, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christodoulou, Aris & Christidis, Panayotis, 2020. "Bridges across borders: A clustering approach to support EU regional policy," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    2. Zijlstra, Toon, 2020. "A border effect in airport choice: Evidence from Western Europe," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    3. Ying Ge & Yingxia Pu & Mengdi Sun, 2021. "Alternative measure of border effects across regions: Ripley's K‐function method," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 100(1), pages 287-302, February.
    4. Roberta Capello & Andrea Caragliu, 2021. "Merging macroeconomic and territorial determinants of regional growth: the MASST4 model," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 66(1), pages 19-56, February.
    5. Francesco Cappellano & Christophe Sohn & Teemu Makkonen & Virpi Kaisto, 2022. "Bringing borders back into cross-border regional innovation systems: Functions and dynamics," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 54(5), pages 1005-1021, August.
    6. Federico Fantechi & Ugo Fratesi, 2023. "Border Effects on firm's productivity: The role of peripherality and territorial capital," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 102(3), pages 483-506, June.
    7. Blum, Ulrich, 2001. "Borders matter!: Regional integration in Europe and North America," Dresden Discussion Paper Series in Economics 08/01, Technische Universität Dresden, Faculty of Business and Economics, Department of Economics.
    8. Luigi Capoani, 2023. "Review of the gravity model: origins and critical analysis of its theoretical development," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 3(5), pages 1-43, May.
    9. Roberta Capello & Andrea Caragliu & Ugo Fratesi, 2018. "Breaking Down the Border: Physical, Institutional and Cultural Obstacles," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 94(5), pages 485-513, October.
    10. Cavallaro, Federico & Dianin, Alberto, 2020. "Efficiency of public transport for cross-border commuting: An accessibility-based analysis in Central Europe," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    11. Dirk Steffen & Ingo Pitterle, 2004. "Spillover Effects of Fiscal Policy Under Flexible Exchange Rates," Econometric Society 2004 Australasian Meetings 286, Econometric Society.
    12. Michele Fratianni & Francesco Marchionne, 2011. "The Limits to Integration," Chapters, in: Miroslav N. Jovanović (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Integration, Volume I, chapter 9, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. Brown, W. Mark, 2003. "Overcoming Distance, Overcoming Borders: Comparing North American Regional Trade," Economic Analysis (EA) Research Paper Series 2003008e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    14. Nuria Gallego & Carlos Llano, 2014. "The Border Effect and the Nonlinear Relationship between Trade and Distance," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(5), pages 1016-1048, November.
    15. Keith Head & Thierry Mayer, 2002. "Effet frontière, intégration économique et “Forteresse Europe”," Economie & Prévision, La Documentation Française, vol. 0(1), pages 71-92.
    16. Brülhart, Marius & Trionfetti, Federico, 2009. "A test of trade theories when expenditure is home biased," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(7), pages 830-845, October.
    17. Enrico Spolaore, 2016. "The economics of political borders," Chapters, in: Eugene Kontorovich & Francesco Parisi (ed.), Economic Analysis of International Law, chapter 1, pages 11-43, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    18. Salvador Gil-Pareja & Rafael Llorca & Josè A. Martinez-Serrano, 2011. "Is There A Continental Bias In Trade?," ERSA conference papers ersa10p792, European Regional Science Association.
    19. Nicole Litzel & Joachim Möller, 2011. "Industrial Clusters and Economic Integration: Theoretic Concepts and an Application to the European Metropolitan Region Nuremberg," Chapters, in: Miroslav N. Jovanović (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Integration, Volume II, chapter 12, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Paul Friesen & Stephen Kosempel, 2010. "A Calibrated Trade Model of Agglomeration," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 714-729, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:apjors:v:5:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s41685-021-00191-x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.