Competition and Human Capital Accumulation: A Theory of Interregional Specialization and Trade

Julio Rotemberg () and Garth Saloner

No 3228, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We consider a model with several regions whose technological ability and factor endowments are identical and in which transport costs between regions are nonnegligible. Nonetheless, certain goods are sometimes produced by multiple firms all of which are located in the same region. These goods are then exported from the regions in which their production is agglomerated. Regional agglomeration of production and trade stem from two forces. First, competition between firms for the services of trained workers is necessary for the workers to recoup the cost of acquiring industry-specific human capital. Second, the technology of production is more efficient when plants are larger than a minimum efficient scale and local demand is insufficient to support several firms of that scale. We also study the policy implications of our model.

Date: 1990-01
Note: LS ITI IFM
View list of references View citations in EconPapers

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w3228.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html.

Related works:
Journal Article: Competition and human capital accumulation: a theory of interregional specialization and trade (2000)
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:nbr:nberwo:3228

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w3228
The price is Paper copy available by mail.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc
Address: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by ().