This paper - a piece of the research output of the EU-funded project TERA - investigates the dynamics of development in the area of Basso Ferrarese, in Italy. The area is a relatively underdeveloped zone located in the otherwise wealthy Emilia Romagna. The first part of the paper identifies some...

This paper provides a new model of firm’s location choices. It integrates a Ricardian model of comparative advantage with the location effects deriving from trade costs, increasing returns to scale, product dif ferentiation, and monopolistic competition. In a two-region,...

Traditional push-and-pull factors offered partial explanations to the size of large urban areas in the third world. Moreover, the growing literature in eco - nomic geography identifies an additional factor exacerbating the phenomenon, namely trade costs. The present study tests econometrically...

This paper presents a two-country two-industry monetary model, with intermediate inputs and transport costs, which builds a bridge between the New Open Economy Macroeconomics and the New Economic Geography literatures. Endogenously asymmetric shocks arise in this model when the exchange rate...

In new economic geography models, geographic concentration cant arise because of workers mobility or vertical linkages between firms. We examine a setup that combines those two approaches in conjunction with local congestion costs. We find that, as trade costs are lowered, the geographic...

In this paper we extend the Harris-Todaro model to include an urban informal sector. The effects of exogenous inflow of foreign capital on outputs, unemployment and welfare are examined in the model where the product of the informal sector is used as an industrial input in the urban formal...

This paper discusses the problem of unemployment in developed countries that faces international labor movement. There are two types of unemployment. The first traditional type of unemployment exists simply because the common wage rate is fixed and higher than the equilibrium level. The second...

In a model of vertical product differentiation, duopolistic firms face qualitydependent costs and compete in quality and price in two segmented markets. Minimum quality standards, set uniformly or according to the principle of Mutual Recognition, can be used to increase welfare. The analysis...

In this paper we investigate how strategic aspects influence the choice between exporting and servicing foreign markets by setting up a plant in the foreign country. We show that tariffs on imports in conjunction with the size of the set up costs incurred while setting up plants and the size of...

This paper constructs a model of international joint ventures (JVs) with political-economy considerations as the main motivation. A foreign firm decides whether to undertake full ownership foreign direct investment (FDI), or to form a JV with a home firm, while the home firm lobbies against FDI....