Regional inequalities in product per capita and labour productivity in the EU are large and persistent. Building on a model in which aggregate increasing returns is the result of the increase in the number of varieties of composite services, under competitive manufactures, we derive a simple and...

This paper tests two competing models, one deriving from new economic geography theory (NEG) emphasising varying market potential, the other with a basis in urban economics theory (UE) in which the main emphasis is on producer service linkages. Using wage rate variations across small regions of...

The past fifty years have witnessed a major transformation of Britain's urban system. Some cities have consistently prospered and been relatively successful in terms of maintaining or increasing their share of national employment and population, whilst others have lost ground and have struggled...

This paper focuses on the estimation and predictive performance of several estimators for the time-space dynamic panel data model with Spatial Moving Average Random Effects (SMA-RE) structure of the disturbances. A dynamic spatial Generalized Moments (GM) estimator is proposed which combines the...

I have given this paper the title 'Regional Science in a time of uncertainty' because that is what it appears to be, very much a time of uncertainty. Uncertainty is always with us, but what I mean is the future is more uncertain than usual. There are multiple unanticipated and threatening shocks...

Place names, or toponyms, provide insight into the initial geographical characteristics of settlements. We present a unique dataset of 3,705 German toponyms that includes the date of the first historical record mentioning the settlement and the date it was granted city rights. We show that the...

In a seminal paper, Rose (2004) found that the assumed positive impact of the WTO on international trade was questionable. This finding has been scrutinized and modified in subsequent research, using different datasets, econometric methods and separating the WTO from other forms of trade...

This paper analyses the impact of share ownership, creditorship and networking by financial institutions on the performance of 94 Dutch non-financial firms in the period 1992-1996. We find a nonlinear relationship between firm performance and ownership by banks. Because of various defense...

In this paper we want to shed some light on the empirical relevance of the new economic geography. Using one of the central features of the core new economic geography models, namely that wages have the tendency to fall the further one moves away from centres of economic activity, we investigate...