About the Origin of Cities

Jacques Thisse, André de Palma, Yorgos Y. Papageorgiou and Philip Ushchev

No 13181, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: We provide a bare--bones framework that uncovers the circumstances which lead either to the emergence of equally-spaced and equally-sized central places or to a hierarchy of central places. We show how these patterns reflect the preferences of agents and the efficiency of transportation and communication technologies. Under one class of agents, the economy is characterized by a uniform distribution or by a periodic distribution of central places having the same size. Under two asymmetric classes of agents, the interaction between agents may give rise to a hierarchy of settlements with one or several primate cities.

Date: 2018-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo
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Related works:
Journal Article: About the origin of cities (2019)
Working Paper: About the origin of cities (2019)
Working Paper: About the Origin of Cities (2018)
Working Paper: About the Origin of Cities (2016)
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