Economics of Agglomeration
Cities, Industrial Location, and Globalization

This second edition studies the economic reasons for the existence of a variety of agglomerations arising from the global to the local.

Masahisa Fujita (Author), Jacques-François Thisse (Author)

9781107001411, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 31 July 2013

544 pages, 42 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 3.5 cm, 0.97 kg

'Fujita and Thisse provide an exhaustive and rigorous account of what microeconomic theory has to say about the basic economic forces that give rise to cities. This new edition, substantially updated and with an increased emphasis on issues in the intersection of spatial economics and international trade, will be the standard reference in the field for years to come.' Robert Helsley, University of British Columbia

Economic activities are not concentrated on the head of a pin, nor are they spread evenly over a featureless plane. On the contrary, they are distributed very unequally across locations, regions and countries. Even though economic activities are, to some extent, spatially concentrated because of natural features, economic mechanisms that rely on the trade-off between various forms of increasing returns and different types of mobility costs are more fundamental. This book is a study of the economic reasons for the existence of a large variety of agglomerations arising from the global to the local. This second edition combines a comprehensive analysis of the fundamentals of spatial economics and an in-depth discussion of the most recent theoretical developments in new economic geography and urban economics. It aims to highlight several of the major economic trends observed in modern societies. The first edition was the winner of the 2004 William Alonso Memorial Prize for Innovative Work in Regional Science.

1. Agglomeration and economic theory
Part I. Fundamentals of Spatial Economics: 2. The breakdown of the price system in a spatial economy
3. The von Thünen model and land rent formation
4. Increasing returns vs. transportation costs: the fundamental trade-off of spatial economics
5. Cities and the public sector
Part II. The Structure of Metropolitan Areas: 6. The spatial structure of cities under communication externalities
7. The formation of urban centers under imperfect competition
Part III. Factor Mobility and Industrial Location: 8. Industrial agglomeration under monopolistic competition
9. Market size and industrial clusters
Part IV. Urban Systems, Regional Growth, and the Multinationalization of Firms: 10. Back to von Thünen: the formation of cities in a spatial economy
11. Globalization, growth, and the geography of the supply chain.

Subject Areas: Regional geography [RGL], Development economics & emerging economies [KCM], Economic growth [KCG], Economics of industrial organisation [KCD]