Industrial location and economic integration : centrifugal and centripetal forces in the new Europe

In recent decades the world economy has been characterized by deepening and widening integration. Throughout this time, there have been concerns that this process may foster the geographical concentration of industries, a view substantiated by contributions to the new economic geography. In this book, Barbara Dluhosch opposes this position and presents an entirely different view of the consequences of globalization. Barbara Dluhosch carefully identifies and analyses the main pillars of the new economic geography. She then presents an essentially new approach focusing on the decline of communication costs, and introduces cost competition and technological choice, which have largely been neglected. In doing so, she arrives at fundamentally different conclusions and provides new insights into the consequences of regional integration and the process of globalization. Finally, the policy implications of this are critically evaluated by drawing on experiences of European economic integration