A Regional Core, Adjacent, Periphery Model for National Economic Geography Analysis

objective is to present a model at the national regional level within which these forces can
subsequently be examined.

This national regional model is a new contribution to the economic geography literature and is
significant for a number of reasons. First, since the model is national in scope, it is consistent with the
assumption of Krugman’s (1991b) core periphery model of imperfect competition and perfect
interregional mobility of manufacturing labour within a country (as in Davis and Weinstein, 1999).
Second, the model serves empirical research objectives and allows for the application of Fujita,
Krugman, and Venables’ (1999) theoretical multi-region models of industrial development and
manufacturing concentration. Third, it classifies regions within and across countries according to
uniform criteria. This classification facilitates subsequent comparisons of economic development and
manufacturing structures in homogenous and heterogeneous domestic and international regions.

The paper is organised into the following sections. Section 2 develops a common nomenclature
for national regions. In Section 3, the origin of the term ‘an agglomerate’ is discussed and defined. In
Section 4, von Thünen’s (1842) concentric circle theory is used to develop a national regional model.
In Section 5, the national regions are classified by region type and a number of stylised facts are
examined by applying the model to the individual member countries of the European Union. In
Sections 6, the core regions that define the EU geographic core are identified. Section 7, identifies the
EU independent core-regions. In Section 8, a simple statistical analysis is undertaken to examine
whether the CAP structure supports the theoretical forces of the ‘new’ economic geography theory.
The conclusions are presented in Section 9.

2 A Nomenclature for National Regions

In past studies by regional economists, countries are divided into national regions (Paelinck
and Nijkamp, 1975). In these studies, regions are geographical areas of unequal size whose boundaries
are determined either by their geography or by an administrative area. A region has a vector of
measurable and quantifiable characteristics such as natural resource endowments, population
demographics, industrial structures, infrastructure, institutions, villages, towns, cities, and

<<   1   2   3   4   5   6   >>

More intriguing information