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7 books match the query 'Regional economics'

cover of Agglomeration Economics

Agglomeration Economics

Edited by Edward L. Glaeser

University of Chicago Press, 2010

When firms and people are located near each other in cities and in industrial clusters, they benefit in various ways, including by reducing the costs of exchanging goods and ideas. One might assume that these benefits would become less important as transportation and communication costs fall. Paradoxically, however, cities have become increasingly important, and even within cities industrial clusters remain vital.

Agglomeration Economics brings together a group of essays that examine the reasons why economic activity continues to cluster together despite the falling costs of moving goods and transmitting information. The studies cover a wide range of topics and approach the economics of agglomeration from different angles. Together they advance our understanding of agglomeration and its implications for a globalized world.
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cover of Cores, Peripheries, and Globalization

Cores, Peripheries, and Globalization

Peter Hanns Reill

Central European University Press, 2011

Deals with the intersection of issues associated with globalization and the dynamics of core-periphery relations. It places these debates in a large and vital context asking what the relations between cores and peripheries have in forming our vision of what constitutes globalization and what were and are its possible effects. In this sense the debate on globalization is framed as part of a larger and more crucial discourse that tries to account for the essential dynamics—economic, social, political and cultural—between metropolitan areas and their peripheries.
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cover of Hinterland: America's New Landscape of Class and Conflict

Hinterland

America's New Landscape of Class and Conflict

Phil A. Neel

Reaktion Books, 2018

Over the last forty years, the human landscape of the United States has been fundamentally transformed. The metamorphosis is partially visible in the ascendance of glittering, coastal hubs for finance, infotech, and the so-called creative class. But this is only the tip of an economic iceberg, the bulk of which lies in the darkness of the declining heartland or on the dimly lit fringe of sprawling cities. This is America’s hinterland, populated by towering grain threshers and hunched farmworkers, where laborers drawn from every corner of the world crowd into factories and “fulfillment centers” and where cold storage trailers are filled with fentanyl-bloated corpses when the morgues cannot contain the dead.

Urgent and unsparing, this book opens our eyes to America’s new heart of darkness. Driven by an ever-expanding socioeconomic crisis, America’s class structure is recomposing itself in new geographies of race, poverty, and production. The center has fallen. Riots ricochet from city to city led by no one in particular. Anarchists smash financial centers as a resurgent far right builds power in the countryside. Drawing on his direct experience of recent popular unrest, from the Occupy movement to the wave of riots and blockades that began in Ferguson, Missouri, Phil A. Neel provides a close-up view of this landscape in all its grim but captivating detail. Inaugurating the new Field Notes series, published in association with the Brooklyn Rail, Neel’s book tells the intimate story of a life lived within America’s hinterland.
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cover of Regional Economic Institutions and Conflict Mitigation: Design, Implementation, and the Promise of Peace

Regional Economic Institutions and Conflict Mitigation

Design, Implementation, and the Promise of Peace

Yoram Z. Haftel

University of Michigan Press, 2014

In addition to the explicit goal of advancing mutual economic interests, regional economic organizations (REOs) are intended to foster regional cohesion and peace. Drawing on a data set detailing the institutional features of 25 REOs established during the 1980s and 1990s, complemented by a case study of ASEAN, Yoram Z. Haftel investigates the factors that affect REOs' ability to mitigate interstate military conflict. He finds fewer interstate conflicts among REO members who have developed high levels of economic integration and who cultivate regular interaction among member-states' representatives. Haftel concludes that, with an appropriate institutional design and fully implemented agreements, an REO can indeed play a role in mitigating interstate conflict and make a meaningful contribution to regional peace.

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cover of The Economics of Place-Based Policies

The Economics of Place-Based Policies

Edited by Cecile Gaubert, Gordon H. Hanson, and David Neumark

University of Chicago Press, 2026

A wide-ranging collection of research examining the intricate economics of place-based policies.

After decades of skepticism about place-based policies, recent initiatives such as Opportunity Zones and elements of the Inflation Reduction Act signal renewed policy interest in targeting economically distressed areas. This volume surveys empirical findings from the US and Europe on the effectiveness of these policies, explores new theoretical rationales for geographic targeting, and examines the institutional contexts that shape policy design and implementation. The contributors evaluate major place-based initiatives and consider nontraditional approaches to supporting regional economies, including large-scale industrial interventions, public employment reallocation, and economic development on Native American reservations.

This collection is not limited to empirical policy impact evaluations as it takes a broader-ranging perspective. The contributors present evaluation evidence while also emphasizing the features, implementation processes, and institutional settings that shape policy effectiveness. They address critical questions such as: What new insights from economic theory can inform the design of place-based policies? What lessons from past policies are reflected—or ignored—in current approaches? How does US policymaking compare with European practices, and what takeaways can be derived from the comparison of the two?

The Economics of Place-Based Policies provides policymakers with evidence-based guidance on the design of effective interventions while offering researchers a comprehensive foundation for future study of how public policy can address geographic economic disparities.

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cover of The Political Economy of Regional Peacemaking

The Political Economy of Regional Peacemaking

Edited by Steven E. Lobell and Norrin M. Ripsman

University of Michigan Press, 2016

In The Political Economy of Regional Peacemaking, scholars examine the efficacy of trade agreements, economic sanctions, and other strategies of economic statecraft for the promotion of peace both between rival states and across conflict-ridden regions more generally. In the introduction, Steven E. Lobell and Norrin M. Ripsman pose five central questions: (1) What types of economic statecraft, including incentives and sanctions, can interested parties employ? (2) Who are the appropriate targets in the rival states—state leaders, economic and social elites, or society as whole? (3) When should specific economic instruments be used to promote peace—prior to negotiations, during negotiations, after signature of the treaty, or during implementation of the treaty? (4) What are the limits and risks of economic statecraft and economic interdependence? (5) How can economic statecraft be used to move from a bilateral peace agreement to regional peace?

The chapters that follow are grouped in three sections, corresponding to the three stages of peacemaking: reduction or management of regional conflict; peacemaking or progress toward a peace treaty; and maintenance of bilateral peace and the regionalization of the peace settlement. In each chapter, the contributors consider the five key questions from a variety of methodological, historical, cultural, and empirical perspectives, drawing data from the Pacific, the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and Latin America. The conclusion expands on several themes found in the chapters and proposes an agenda for future research.

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cover of The Wealth and Poverty of Regions: Why Cities Matter

The Wealth and Poverty of Regions

Why Cities Matter

Mario Polèse

University of Chicago Press, 2009

As the world becomes more interconnected through travel and electronic communication, many believe that physical places will become less important. But as Mario Polèse argues in The Wealth and Poverty of Regions, geography will matter more than ever before in a world where distance is allegedly dead.

This provocative book surveys the globe, from London and Cape Town to New York and Beijing, contending that regions rise—or fall—due to their location, not only within nations but also on the world map. Polèse reveals how concentrations of industries and populations in specific locales often result in minor advantages that accumulate over time, resulting in reduced prices, improved transportation networks, increased diversity, and not least of all, “buzz”—the excitement and vitality that attracts ambitious people. The Wealth and Poverty of Regions maps out how a heady mix of size, infrastructure, proximity, and cost will determine which urban centers become the thriving metropolises of the future, and which become the deserted cities of the past. Engagingly written, the book provides insight to the past, present, and future of regions.

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