Comparative Advantage in Land-Use Allocation under Regionalism

The Ricardian principle of comparative advantage is used frequently as a foundation for illustrating potential improvements in the allocation of production and trade flows among countries. Such improvements typically consist of increased economic efficiency in the form of lower aggregate production costs and greater welfare in the form of higher levels of aggregate output. The improvements are made possible by the effective integration of otherwise individual economies. This paper employs the principle of comparative advantage as the foundation for illustrating potential improvements in the allocation of land uses under a regional approach to land-use planning. It uses a generalized assignment problem within a geographical information system (GIS) to describe the efficiency benefits of integrating land-use plans among several districts.