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This chapter draws attention to a specific feature of a NEG model that uses linear (and not iso-elastic) demand functions, namely its ability to account for zero trade. Thus, it represents a suitable framework to study how changes in parameters that are typical for NEG models, such as trade costs and regional market size, not only shape the regional distribution of economic activity, but at the same time determine the emergence of additional trade links between formerly autarkic regions. We survey some related papers and present a three-region framework that potentially nests many possible trade patterns. To focus the analysis, we study in more detail three specific trade patterns frequently found in the EU trade network. We start with three autarkic regions; then we introduce the possibility that two regions trade with each other; and, finally, we allow for one region trading with the other two, but the latter are still not trading with each other. We find a surprising plethora of long-run equilibria each involving a specific regional distribution of economic activity and a specific pattern of trade links. We show how a reduction in trade costs shapes simultaneously industry location and the configuration of the trade network.

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Preface of the book

We review a recent literature that shows that interactions between markets, created by the market entry and exit behavior of boundedly rational firms, may cause complex endogenous dynamics. In particular, these models predict that welfare decreases if firms rapidly switch between markets. Against this background, we show that policy makers have the opportunity to stabilize markets and thus to enhance welfare by regulating interacting markets. For instance, imposing profit taxes reduces the markets’ profit differentials and thus slows down the firms’ market entry and exit behavior. However, these stabilization policies may also lead to undesirable side effects, such as coexistence of attractors, hysteresis effects and, in a multi-region setting, failure of policy makers to coordinate on the globally optimal policy. Moreover, regulation may be subject to the lobbying efforts of special interest groups and thus not be optimal.

The treaty of Rome was signed in 1957 and it started a continuous process of strengthening the internal integration of the EU. In this study, we consider the economic effects of intensified trade integration within the Union in which productive factors are also mobile. We argue that a New Economic Geography (NEG) perspective is preferable to the Heckscher-Ohlin approach. We show that trade integration leads to specialization, trade creation, and trade diversion (as predicted by a standard Heckscher-Ohlin framework), but it may also lead to agglomeration within the Union, which is typical of a NEG framework. We show that these agglomeration processes reinforce the specialization and trade effects of trade integration. Finally, we provide insights into the dynamic processes and show that the coexistence of attractors in our modeling approach is more pervasive than in a standard NEG framework.

In this paper, we put forward a four-region new economic geography footloose entrepreneur model in which regions are differentiated by their size and their geographical position along a line. There are two distinct trade blocs, each of them consisting of a pair of regions. Direct and indirect trade between all regions is allowed, whereas factor mobility can occur only between regions of the same bloc. Given this more general geographical structure, as compared to previous studies, we are able to disentangle two manifestations of the market access effect: firms can take advantage of locating both in a more central region (centrality effect) and/or in a bigger region (local market size effect). The model is able to generate a plethora of long-term outcomes, including four equilibria with full agglomeration in each trade bloc that can be ranked by factor owners. Equilibria where industry is dispersed or agglomerated in a bloc and dispersed in the other one, are also possible as well as more complex attractors. Finally, by allowing direct and indirect trade between regions, we are able to look at the effect of trade integration on transit traffic by evaluating in a preliminary analysis the consequences of policies aiming at limiting transport volumes in a model with shifting industry.

In this paper, we deal with a three-region new economic geography model. The dynamic law which governs the migration of the mobile factor – in our context, “footloose” entrepreneurs (Commendatore et al. (Spat Econ Anal 3(1):115–141, 2008); Forslid and Ottaviano (J Econ Geogr 3:229–240, 2003)) – across three identical regions is formulated in discrete time. The resulting dynamical model belongs to the class of two-dimensional noninvertible maps (Mira et al. (1996) Chaotic dynamics in two-dimensional noninverible maps. World Scientific, Singapore). We present the local stability analysis of the map’s fixed points, corresponding to long term stationary equilibria of the economic system, and a preliminary study of its global stability properties. Our results show that the presence of a third region matters and that there are crucial differences with respect to the symmetric two-region footloose entrepreneurs model: firstly, when the manufacturing sector is absent in one of the three regions, stable asymmetric equilibria may emerge; secondly, we detect complex/strange two-dimensional attractors that cannot exist in two-region new economic geography models, which are typically one-dimensional; finally, we highlight the complex self-similar structure of the basins of attraction of some of the two-dimensional attractors.

It has been increasingly argued in recent economic literature that deregulation not only in the labour but also in the product market is beneficial for labour market outcomes. The results offered to support this argument, however, are controversial. So far the debate has been concerned with comparative static results. In our paper, we reassess the consequences of deregulation in a dynamic context. Our model is a dynamic counterpart of Blanchard and Giavazzi’s (2003) prototype model. We show that product and/or labour market liberalisation still increase the equilibrium employment and wage rates. However, deregulation may induce stability loss and endogenous fluctuations

Recently, issues of international taxation have also been analysed from a New Economic Geography perspective. These discussions show that adding agglomerative forces can change the results considerably. In the paper, we introduce explicitly taxation and public expenditures into a Footloose Capital Model and investigate the local and global dynamic implications of such a public policy for industry agglomeration. It turns out that agglomeration can be highly sensitive wrt initial conditions and/or parameters and that these dynamic patterns are surprisingly robust wrt to the taxation principle.

The economy can be conceived as a complex system characterized by interconnected multilayer structures with a spatial dimension. At each layer, different types of decisions or interactions take place involving international or interregional trading partners at the macro-level; institutions, markets and industries at the meso-level; and individual firms and households at the micro-level. Within these structures, the spatial distribution of economic activities evolves over time following complex patterns. These same structures are subject to continuous changes triggered by different types of factors, which test their resilience and their ability to develop and evolve. These concepts were explored by worldwide research as part of a four-year research project. Each of the five articles in this special issue is representative of one of the main fields of analysis of this research network.

Inspired by Brexit, the paper explores the effects of splitting an integration area or "Union" on trade Patterns and the spatial distribution of industry. A linear three-region New Economic Geography (NEG) model is developed and two possible situations before separation are considered: agglomeration and dispersion. By analogy with the Brexit options, soft and hard separation scenarios are considered. Firms in the leaving region may move to the larger Union market, even on the periphery, relocation substituting trade; or firms in the Union may move in the more isolated leaving region, escaping from competition. The paper also analyses deeper Union integration following separation. Instances of multistability and complex Dynamics are found.

We consider a two-class growth model with optimal saving and switch in behavior. The dynamics of this model is described by a two-dimensional (2D) discontinuous map. We obtain stability conditions of the border and interior fixed points (known as Solow and Pasinetti equilibria, respectively) and investigate bifurcation structures observed in the parameter space of this map, associated with its attracting cycles and chaotic attractors. In particular, we show that on the x-axis, which is invariant, the map is reduced to a 1D piecewise increasing discontinuous map, and prove the existence of a corresponding period adding bifurcation structure issuing from a codimension-two border collision bifurcation point. Then, we describe how this structure evolves when the related attracting cycles on the x-axis lose their transverse stability via a transcritical bifurcation and the corresponding interior cycles appear. In particular, we show that the observed bifurcation structure, being associated with the 2D discontinuous map, is characterized by multistability, that is impossible in the case of a standard period adding bifurcation structure.

Using intra-European interregional trade data, we analyze the topology of the E.U. regional trade network. A triad census analysis confirms the intuition that the interregional trade network (and, thus, the European economic integration) is far from being complete. The majority of the E.U. interregional trade patterns are characterized by simple, at best bilateral, configurations. Moreover, we analyze the effect of trade costs in shaping the topological structure of the network. It emerges that the relative presence of simple trade configurations increases with distance, while the relative presence of more complex trade configurations decreases with distance. Finally, we discuss the theoretical underpinnings of these empirical facts through a simple new economic geography model with three regions. In this model, we analyze how trade costs shape the pattern of the trade network. On the whole we find a correspondence between theoretic and empirical results. However, details differ and they suggest directions for further research.

This chapter acquaints the reader with the use of dynamic models in regional economics. The focus is on the New Economic Geography (NEG) approach. A brief comparison is provided between NEG and other economic approaches to investigate regional inequalities. The analytic structure of a general multi-regional model is described, and some simple examples are presented, where the number of regions is assumed to be small to obtain more easily analytic and numerical results. Tools from the mathematical theory of dynamical systems are drawn to study the qualitative properties of such multi-regional model.

We provide empirical evidence on the network structure of trade flows between European regions and discuss the theoretical underpinning of such a structure. First, we analyze EU regional trade data using Social Network Analysis. We describe the topology of this network and compute local and global centrality measures. Finally, we consider the distribution of higher order statistics, through the analysis of local clustering and main triadic structures in the triad census of interregional trade flows. In the theoretical part, we explore the relationship between trade costs and trade links. As shown by Behrens (J Urban Econ 55(1):68–92, 2004), Behrens (Reg Sci Urban Econ 35(5):471–492, 2005a) and Behrens (J Urban Econ 58(1):24–44, 2005b) in a two-region linear new economic geography (NEG) model, trade costs and the local market size determine, even with finite trade costs, unconditional autarky and unilateral trade, that is, a one-directional flow from one region to the other. Following these contributions and guided by the empirical evidence, we clarify the relationship between market competition, trade costs and the patterns of trade in a three-region NEG model. We identify a larger set of trade network configurations other the three elementary ones that occur at the dyadic level between two regions (no trade, one-way trade, reciprocated two-way trade), and relate the model with the triad census.

The location choices of multinational enterprises have been the center of attention both empirically and theoretically in international and regional economics during the last 20 years. Different approaches and methods have been employed to examine foreign firms’ location decisions. We make a critical assessment of these approaches and their contributions to our understanding of dispersion of multinational activities across space. We start from the most influential theoretical contributions which have addressed the motivation of MNEs to be engaged in a horizontal or a vertical FDI and provide a list of the large number of foreign firms’ location determinants considered in the literature. Then, we discuss the various econometric specifications used in the empirical literature to test the hypotheses on these determinants. Finally, we discuss issues for further development specifically for modeling multinationals’ economic activity in space.

Modeling regional economic dynamics requires the adoption of complex econometric tools, which allow us to deal with some important methodological issues, such as spatial dependence, spatial heterogeneity and nonlinearities. Recent developments in the spatial econometrics literature have provided some instruments (such as Spatial Autoregressive Semiparametric Geoadditive Models), which address these issues simultaneously and, therefore, are of great use for practitioners. In this paper we describe these methodological contributions and present some applications of these methodologies in the fields of regional science and economic geography.

The standard footloose capital (FC) model, as well as the discrete time version, assumes that all capital units are internationally mobile between two regions. In this paper, we assume that in one of the two regions some of the blueprints/capital units may be immobile because their utilization requires some locally specific natural resource (first nature advantage). Mobile blueprints, instead, can be utilized in both regions. We focus on this asymmetric distribution of immobile firms/capital units, labeled first nature firms. The central question of our paper is how the existence of first nature asymmetry affects agglomerative processes framed in discrete time. This modification of the FC model leads to a one dimensional piecewise smooth map for which we show analytically that border collision bifurcations are pervasive and (even asymmetric) multistability is possible.

The new economic geography (NEG) aims to explain long-term patterns in the spatial allocation of industrial activities. It stresses that endogenous economic processes may enlarge small historic differences leading to quite different regional patterns—history matters for the long-term geographical distribution of economic activities. A pivotal element is that productive factors move to another region whenever the anticipated remuneration is higher in that region. Given the long-term nature of NEG analyses and the crucial role of expectations, it is astonishing that most of the existing models assume only naive or myopic expectations. However, a recent stream of the literature in behavioral and experimental economics shows that agents often use expectational heuristics, such as trend extrapolating and trend reverting rules. We introduce such expectations formation hypotheses into a NEG model formulated in discrete time. This modification leads to a system of two nonlinear difference equations (corresponding, in the language of dynamical systems theory, to a 2-dimensional piecewise smooth map) and thus enriches the possible dynamic patterns: with trend extrapolating (reverting) the symmetric equilibrium is less (more) stable; and it may lose stability only via a flip bifurcation (or also via a Neimark–Sacker bifurcation) giving rise to a period-doubling cascade (or also to quasi-periodic orbits). In both cases, complex behavior is possible; multistability, that is, the coexistence of locally stable equilibria, is pervasive; and border-collision bifurcations are also allowed. In this sense, our analysis corroborates some of the basic insights of the NEG.

In this paper we extend the discrete time Footloose Capital model analyzed in Commendatore et al. (Nonlinear Dyn Psychol Life Sci 11(2):267-289, 2007) by introducing "first nature firms", i.e., firms that use locally specific blueprints and, therefore, are immobile. Due to the presence of first nature firms (symmetrically distributed across the regions), the central dynamic map becomes a piecewise differentiable function: in addition to "standard" flip and pitchfork bifurcations also border collision bifurcations are possible and instances of multistability may emerge. Our analysis confirms and extends the results of Commendatore et al. (2007): (1) continuous time formulation hides complex dynamics patterns; (2) asymmetric distributions of industrial activity can be endogenously generated and are path dependent. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.