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One aspect of agglomeration economies is economies of scale. When automobile production centered in Detroit in the early part of the twentieth century, this allowed more efficient production methods, which lowered the per-unit cost of output. Arrow (2000) emphasizes the tension between increasing returns to scale and equilibrium models, and as Young (1928) noted, increasing returns to scale is at the foundation of economic progress. Kaldor (1972), building on Young's insights, noted that static neoclassical economic models did not do a good job of depicting the economic progress that results from increasing returns to scale in production. This insight goes at least as far back as Adam Smith (1776), however, who noted the increased productivity that comes with an increased division of labor. Smith's example of the pin factory, where individuals specializing in one small part of a larger manufacturing operation increase productivity by, perhaps, hundreds of times, shows the benefits of agglomeration economies. The division of labor is limited by the extent of the market, Smith argued, so enlarging the extent of the market allows for a greater division of labor, which increases productivity and generates prosperity. By concentrating automobile production in Detroit rather than having automobiles locally built, the extent of the market is increased from one locality to an entire nation, and in some cases an entire world. The resulting agglomeration economies increase productivity and produce prosperity.

The influence of agglomeration externalities on a firm’s profits depends on the efficiency benefits it derives from collocating and on the contributions it makes to its competitors production processes. We examine the economics of firm location choice with a duopoly model that allows for asymmetric contributions by firms to production externalities. In the model, the magnitude of a firm’s contributions to industry agglomeration externalities is determined by its R&D levels and by how closely it locates to the other firm. Through numerical simulations, the effects of firm heterogeneity on industry geographical organization are evaluated. Specifically, the relationships between industry agglomeration strength, R&D investment, location choice timing and Nash equilibria industry structures are explored. The findings from this exercise indicate that geographic collocation tends to occur in industries with symmetry in firm R&D spending and where high R&D firms are the initial entrants. Moreover, we find that under some industry conditions, strengthened agglomeration economies encourage firms to locate more distant from each other rather than collocate. Finally, our simulations also show that firms’ profits tend to increase yet total welfare decreases as agglomeration economies strengthen.

“It should also be noted that the objective of convergence and equal distribution, including across under-performing areas, can hinder efforts to generate growth. Contrariwise, the objective of competitiveness can exacerbate regional and social inequalities, by targeting efforts on zones of excellence where projects achieve greater returns (dynamic major cities, higher levels of general education, the most advanced projects, infrastructures with the heaviest traffic, and so on). If cohesion policy and the Lisbon Strategy come into conflict, it must be borne in mind that the former, for the moment, is founded on a rather more solid legal foundation than the latter” European Commission (2005, p. 9)Adaptation of Cohesion Policy to the Enlarged Europe and the Lisbon and Gothenburg Objectives.

The market is not the only spontaneous order. Hayek himself drew attention to language and English common law as other examples, noting that they had first been identified as such by Scottish Enlightenment philosophers such as Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson. Hence, such orders “are made with equal blindness to the future; and nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the results of human action, but not the execution of any human design” (Ferguson, 1782, sec. II). In the 20th century, Michael Polanyi used the term spontaneous order for the polycentric feedback system that explains the growth of scientific knowledge (Polanyi, 1962).

This chapter applies the five drivers of productivity framework to regional microdata for Egypt and extends it by introducing an index of industrial clusters as an explanatory factor of the productivity performance of local private sector firms. Applying structural equation models, the geographic concentration of sectoral economic activity is found to have a positive and statistically significant effect on labor productivity. The transmission mechanism is conjectured to be the positive spillovers that are created, which local firms can tap into. In contrast, a higher concentration of skilled workers in an industrial sector in a region is associated with lower levels of labor productivity – a finding that suggests there may be structural deficiencies in the allocation of skilled workers. Regional policy should focus on net investments in gross capital formation throughout the country, for which the national and regional governments should improve how public investments are managed and the institutional framework – including the rule of law, bureaucracy and red tape, conflict of interest, transparency, and governance – so that private investment (both local and foreign) may substantially increase.

The unequal distribution of economic activities, transposed in economic, social and territorial disparities is the general characteristic of the European economy. Gaps increased in the context of European Union (EU) enlargement towards Eastern and Central Europe and of the economic crisis, thus bringing new differentiations among member states’ economies. The main aim of the chapter is to emphasise the centre-periphery differentiations in the European economy, by using a composite index of peripherality, in order to better understand the determinants of growth and convergence in Central and Eastern European countries and to reach normative conclusions for increasing Cohesion Policy (CP) effectiveness. The first part of the chapter provides a short overview of the main theories and models of the peripherality analysis and the relationships between the centre and the periphery, in order to find out how this analysis relates to the research in the field. The second part provides a comparative analysis of the evolution of European economies during 2003–2014, in order to find out whether the EU enlargement process stabilised the EU core-periphery pattern or, on the contrary, the process of core-periphery structural convergence occurred. The third part includes the suggested model of analysis (methodology, data, and main results) from a multidisciplinary perspective, underlining the centre-periphery differentiations on the two axes, North–South and West–East. The results have been interpreted in conclusions, with a focus on their relevance for the European CP challenges.

This chapter discusses the ongoing transformations of the French defence support. Considering the importance of economic activities related to defence support, this contribution aims at discussing the evolution of defence support and its costs for the State. The literature in defence economics presents very little analysis of defence support in its different forms. Neither space nor base locations have been deeply analysed in such a literature. We try to bridge this gap in an original research framework. We focus on the Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) of defence platforms. More particularly, we focus on the array of measures that surround French defence support in MRO since the end of the 1990s. Considering both economic and spatial leverages, how can the organisation of MRO be optimised? With concepts from spatial economics, we propose a new look on the defence support system. We examine new economic interconnections (e.g. Public Private Partnerships and outsourcing) between military and civilian activities. More broadly speaking, this path of research could help us to better understand the new type of economic interrelations between defence organisation and ‘territory’ as a social fabric.