IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wiw/wiwrsa/ersa04p329.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Regional Specialization via Differences in Transport Costs: An Economic Geography Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Hajime Takatsuka
  • Dao-Zhi Zeng

Abstract

The regional specialization via differences in transport costs are observed in Japanese manufacturing industries. Concretely, industries with high transport costs for their products, such as iron and steel, petroleum and coal products, remained close to the core region while industries with low transport costs, such as electrical machinery, precision instruments, have relocated to the periphery region. The purpose of this paper is to give a theoretical foundation for this fact by use of a new economic geography model with multiple industries. The urban costs and congestion are explicitly included in the model. We obtain the following results. First, if congestion does not exist, at most one industry disperses when transport and commuting costs are sufficiently small. Furthermore, regional specialization occurs in which industries having higher adjusted transport costs (which are defined as the ratios of transport costs to the number of varieties) than that of the dispersing industry agglomerate in one region. Second, in the case of strong congestion, plural industries might disperse even if transport and commuting costs are small, but as the degree of congestion decreases, the location will change to complete regional specialization. Keywords: regional specialization, economic geography, transport costs, urban costs, congestion.

Suggested Citation

  • Hajime Takatsuka & Dao-Zhi Zeng, 2004. "Regional Specialization via Differences in Transport Costs: An Economic Geography Approach," ERSA conference papers ersa04p329, European Regional Science Association.
  • Handle: RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa04p329
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www-sre.wu.ac.at/ersa/ersaconfs/ersa04/PDF/329.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Puga, Diego & Venables, Anthony J., 1996. "The Spread of Industry: Spatial Agglomeration in Economic Development," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 440-464, December.
    2. Masahisa Fujita & Paul Krugman & Anthony J. Venables, 2001. "The Spatial Economy: Cities, Regions, and International Trade," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262561476, April.
    3. Fujita,Masahisa & Thisse,Jacques-François, 2013. "Economics of Agglomeration," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521171960.
    4. Richard Baldwin & Rikard Forslid & Philippe Martin & Gianmarco Ottaviano & Frederic Robert-Nicoud, 2005. "Economic Geography and Public Policy," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 7524.
    5. Gianmarco Ottaviano & Takatoshi Tabuchi & Jacques-François Thisse, 2021. "Agglomeration And Trade Revisited," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Firms and Workers in a Globalized World Larger Markets, Tougher Competition, chapter 3, pages 59-85, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    6. Pines,David & Sadka,Efraim & Zilcha,Itzhak (ed.), 1998. "Topics in Public Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521561365.
    7. Krugman, Paul, 1991. "Increasing Returns and Economic Geography," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(3), pages 483-499, June.
    8. Krugman, Paul & Venables, Anthony J., 1996. "Integration, specialization, and adjustment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(3-5), pages 959-967, April.
    9. Fujita, Masahisa & Krugman, Paul & Mori, Tomoya, 1999. "On the evolution of hierarchical urban systems1," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 209-251, February.
    10. Picard, Pierre M. & Zeng, Dao-Zhi, 2005. "Agricultural sector and industrial agglomeration," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 75-106, June.
    11. Fujita,Masahisa & Thisse,Jacques-François, 2013. "Economics of Agglomeration," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521171960.
    12. Tabuchi, Takatoshi, 1998. "Urban Agglomeration and Dispersion: A Synthesis of Alonso and Krugman," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 333-351, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. José M. Gaspar, 2018. "A prospective review on New Economic Geography," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 61(2), pages 237-272, September.
    2. de Palma, André & Papageorgiou, Yorgos Y. & Thisse, Jacques-François & Ushchev, Philip, 2019. "About the origin of cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 1-13.
    3. Marcus Berliant & Tomoya Mori, 2017. "Beyond urban form: How Masahisa Fujita shapes us," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 13(1), pages 5-28, March.
    4. Hajime Takatsuka & Dao-Zhi Zeng, 2005. "Regional Specialization via Differences in Transport Costs," ERSA conference papers ersa05p448, European Regional Science Association.
    5. Thisse, Jacques-François & Tabuchi, Takatoshi & Zeng, Dao-Zhi, 2002. "On the Number and Size of Cities," CEPR Discussion Papers 3386, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Carl Gaigné & Jacques-François Thisse, 2013. "New Economic Geography and the City," Working Papers SMART 13-02, INRAE UMR SMART.
    7. Pierre Philippe Combes & Gilles Duranton & Henry G. Overman, 2005. "Agglomeration and the adjustment of the spatial economy§," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 84(3), pages 311-349, August.
    8. José M. Gaspar, 2020. "Paul Krugman: contributions to Geography and Trade," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 99-115, April.
    9. Tabuchi, Takatoshi & Thisse, Jacques-Francois, 2002. "Taste heterogeneity, labor mobility and economic geography," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 155-177, October.
    10. Stef Proost & Jacques-François Thisse, 2019. "What Can Be Learned from Spatial Economics?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 57(3), pages 575-643, September.
    11. Robert-Nicoud, Frédéric, 2006. "Off-shoring of business services and de-industrialization: threat or opportunity - and for whom?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 19847, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. Akamatsu, Takashi & Mori, Tomoya & Osawa, Minoru & Takayama, Yuki, 2017. "Spatial scale of agglomeration and dispersion: Theoretical foundations and empirical implications," MPRA Paper 80689, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Gordon H. Hanson, 2000. "Scale Economies and the Geographic Concentration of Industry," NBER Working Papers 8013, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Luca, Spinesi, 2005. "Vertical and Horizontal Innovation : Effects of Globalization and Migration on Inequality, Growth and Human Capital Accumulation," Discussion Papers (ECON - Département des Sciences Economiques) 2005028, Université catholique de Louvain, Département des Sciences Economiques.
    15. Takatoshi Tabuchi & Jacques-François Thisse, 2006. "Regional Specialization, Urban Hierarchy, And Commuting Costs," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1295-1317, November.
    16. Pierre M. Picard & Dao‐Zhi Zeng, 2010. "A Harmonization Of First And Second Natures," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(5), pages 973-994, December.
    17. J.Peter Neary, 2001. "Of Hype and Hyperbolas: Introducing the New Economic Geography," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(2), pages 536-561, June.
    18. Pflüger, Michael & Tabuchi, Takatoshi, 2010. "The size of regions with land use for production," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 481-489, November.
    19. Epifani, Paolo & Gancia, Gino A., 2005. "Trade, migration and regional unemployment," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 625-644, November.
    20. Takatoshi Tabuchi & Kristian Behrens & Andrea R. Lamorgese, 2004. "Testing the Home Market Effects in a Multi-country World: The Theory," Econometric Society 2004 Far Eastern Meetings 595, Econometric Society.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    regional specialization; economic geography; transport costs; urban costs; congestion.;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa04p329. 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: Gunther Maier (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ersa.org .

    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.