Labour Specialization and City Formation

Marcus Berliant () and Yves Zenou ()

No 1270, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: This paper explores the formation of cities through labour specialization, gains to trade, a fixed cost for the transportation network, imperfect competition between firms, and the commuting costs of consumers. The model uses a very general setting, allowing a multidimensional location space and multiple firms using different types of labour to produce different outputs. Locations of all agents are endogenous as are prices and quantities. Firms play a Nash location game among themselves, anticipating the locations of consumers, but taking prices as given. Within this framework, we characterize the spatial configuration of firms in equilibrium. Whether or not equilibrium exists and whether or not it is locally unique depends crucially on the relative numbers of outputs, types of labour and firms. Finally, both welfare theorems fail in this model.

Keywords: Endogenous City Formation; General Equilibrium; Labour Specialization; Transportation Network (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D50 J24 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: Written
View citations in EconPapers

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.cepr.org/pubs/dps/DP1270.asp (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Working Paper: Labor Specialization and City Formation (1995)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:1270

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.cepr.org/pubs/dps/DP1270.asp

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers
Address: Centre for Economic Policy Research, 53--56 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DG
Series data maintained by ().