Road infrastructure and intra-community trade in the Central African Economic and Monetary Community

We examine the contribution of domestic and interstates road infrastructures to trade flow between member countries of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC). Theories of international economics as well as those of the new economic geography suggest a positive contribution of both road infrastructures to intraregional trade. A gravity model of international trade is estimated to evaluate this theoretical prediction in the CEMAC zone. Results confirm a positive contribution of interstate road infrastructure to intra-Community trade, but show no evidence of a positive contribution of domestic road infrastructure to intra- CEMAC trade.

Development Model of China’s Regional Economic Cooperation Based on Network Analysis and Multimedia Data Visualization

As for the problem of large amount and complex structure of network forum data, we analyze the means of data visualization and association analysis, explain the specific interpretation of association rules, explain the feelings and objectives of multimedia data visualization, and explain the corresponding technical application. This paper uses the relevant theories of new economic geography to analyze and compare China’s unique economic development. In particular, it studies the development and changes of the World Trade Organization. Through the results, it can be seen that, after China’s accession to the WTO, the industrial location coefficient shows a downward trend, and the change of economic differences is slow.

Research on China interregional industrial transformation slowdown and influencing factors of industrial transformation based on numerical simulation

This paper, based on the numerical simulation research, has come out with findings, such as the sluggish interregional industrial transformation in China and the factors responsible for that, the need to define the new economic geography from the angle of geographic view, the need to have a theoretical model based on implementing development centre periphery, the use of element resources endowment system reference analysis, and the need for implementation of the numerical simulation of the model, and finally the need to clear the factors that influence the sluggish industrial transfer. The final results show that the factor resource endowment, transportation cost, and labour price are still impediments affecting industrial transfer. Since the development level of the manufacturing industry in eastern China has not reached the critical point of industrial transfer, it is necessary to to find out a pragmatic solution to achieve development.

Spatial Spillover Effects of Agricultural Transport Costs in Peru

The role of agricultural transport costs in core-periphery structures has habitually been ignored in New Economic Geography (NEG) models. This is due to the convention of treating the agricultural good as the numéraire, thus implying that agricultural transportation costs are assumed to be zero in these models. For more than three decades, this has been the standard setting in spatial equilibrium analysis. The paper examines the effects of agricultural transport costs on the spatial organisation of regional structures in Peru. In doing so, the Krugman’s formulation of iceberg transport costs is modified to introduce the agricultural transport costs into the dynamic of the NEG models. We use exploratory spatial flow data analysis methods and non-spatial and spatial origin-destination flow models to explore how the regional spatial structure change when real transportation data for agricultural goods is included into the iceberg transport costs formulation. We show that agricultural transport costs generate flows that are systematically associated with flows to or from nearby regions generating thus the emergence of spatial spillovers across Peruvian regions. The results of the paper support the contention that NEG models have overshadowed the role of agricultural transport costs in determining the spatial configuration of economic activities.

Spatial Interactions in Business and Housing Location Models

The paper combines theoretical models of housing and business locations and shows that they have the same determinants. It evidences that classical, behavioural, new economic geography, evolutionary and co-evolutionary frameworks apply simultaneously, and one should consider them jointly when explaining urban structure. We use quantitative tools in a theory-guided factors induction approach to show the complexity of location models. The paper discusses and measures spatial phenomena as distance-decaying gradients, spatial discontinuities, densities, spillovers, spatial interactions, agglomerations, and as multimodal processes. We illustrate the theoretical discussion with an empirical case of interacting point-patterns for business, housing, and population. The analysis reveals strong links between housing valuation and business location and profitability, accompanied by the related spatial phenomena. It also shows that assumptions concerning unimodal spatial urban structure, the existence of rational maximisers, distance-decaying externalities, and a single pattern of behaviour, do not hold. Instead, the reality entails consideration of multimodality, a mixture of maximisers and satisfiers, incomplete information, appearance of spatial interactions, feed-back loops, as well as the existence of persistence of behaviour, with slow and costly adjustments of location.

A theoretical foundation for investigating the spatial economic attributes of airport-centric developments

Among the various areas of interest on the topic of airports and the geographical distribution of land use, one pertinent theme is the spatial economic analysis of airports and their environs. However, the existing literature predominantly focuses on describing the land-use composition of airport-centric developments, without unpacking the spatial economic forces at play. This gap brings to the fore the need to employ an appropriate theoretical lens to guide the spatial economic analysis of airports and their environs. The aim of this theoretical review paper is thus to identify concepts that are relevant to the analysis of airports and their environs; and to use those concepts to systematically identify the existing theory that is most suitable for investigating the spatial economic forces that drive airport-centric developments. Against the background of globalisation, we scrutinise classical location theories, regional science, growth pole theory and new economic geography against their relational interpretations of the concepts of space, proximity, firm, scale and pattern. Given that it portrays a relational perspective of the aforesaid concepts, the paper concludes that growth pole theory is suitable as the main framework for analysing airport-centric developments. It is therefore recommended that growth pole theory be empirically used to guide the analysis of airports and their environs, and subsequently be used as the basis for developing a theoretical framework tailored for airport-centric developments.