Urban sustainability, agglomeration forces and the technological deus ex machina

Konferenzbeitrag

This paper addresses the issue of spatial environmental externalities from a spatial general equilibrium perspective. We present a general equilibrium model of an island economy, with one city and a rural hinterland. Apart from market-internal interactions such as those governing trade and locational choice, the small economy considered encompasses a number of spatial external effects. Agglomeration externalities explain why industrial production is concentrated in a city, where land prices are higher than elsewhere. Industrial production however leads to environmental pollution, which negatively affects the quality of life within the city and rural agricultural production elsewhere. The paper explores the welfare properties of market-based spatial general equilibria compared to efficient configurations. The conclusions allow a welfare economic assessment of the currently popular concept of ‘ecological footprints’ from a spatial general equilibrium viewpoint.

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• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: 41st Congress of the European Regional Science Association: "European Regional Development Issues in the New Millennium and their Impact on Economic Policy", 29 August - 1 September 2001, Zagreb, Croatia

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Nijkamp, Peter ; Verhoef, Erik Teodoor
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): European Regional Science Association (ERSA)
• (where): Louvain-la-Neuve
• (when): 2001

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/115300