The
Economic Geography of Europe: Measurement, Testing and Policy Simulations
Research
Training Network
Summary
Deeper economic integration is the chosen path to an ever-closer union among the peoples of Europe. Yet many regions – rich and poor, core and periphery – fear that integration may lead to declining competitiveness, de-industrialisation, and de-location. This creates political obstacles to continued integration: in response, Europe spends billions each year in an attempt to address the fears of de-industrialisation and de-location. Europe is unlikely to achieve deeper integration, in particular with the Associated Countries, without a better understanding of how integration affects the economic geography of Europe, however.
Yet we know relatively little about the impact of integration on location (especially the impact of the single market programme). And we know even less about how Europe's various policies affect the spatial distribution of economic activity. Recent years have seen the emergence of ‘breakthrough technologies’ (both modelling and empirical tools) as scholars return to location issues with fresh excitement. This burgeoning field, the so-called new economic geography, enjoys the happy conflux of new data, new theory and pressing policy relevance. Europe boasts some of the leaders in this field. The time is ripe for this exciting new programme of research capable not only of achieving important scientific advances but also of training a new generation of young researchers in the field.
This network is currently pursuing an innovative and exciting programme of research exploring the impact of integration and technological change on the location of activity, and promoting training-through-research of young economists in Europe. The network includes teams from the ‘core’ (France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Switzerland and UK), and from the 'periphery' (Ireland and Norway) as well as a mixture of senior researchers with younger colleagues. The network allows young and established researchers to profit from the cross-fertilisation of different ‘technologies’, competencies and perspectives. More detailed objectives are:
To develop the microfoundations of agglomeration theory to provide more precise guidance for testing, measurement, and computer simulation of the location effects of European integration;
to enhance our understanding of empirical observations via industry case studies and computer simulations;
to econometrically test theoretical predictions on European data;
to assess the impact of existing policies and to evaluate proposals for new policy initiatives.
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Summary