International integration and regional inequalities: how important is national infrastructure ?

Kristian Behrens ()

No 2004066, LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE from Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE)

Abstract: We investigate how international trade and trade policy possibly affect the regional distribution of economic activities within a country involved in a process of economic integration. Our analysis reveals that the impact of decreasing international trade costs on the spatial distribution of economic activities strongly depends on the structure of trade flows and the value of transport costs internal to the country. Whereas trade liberalization in developing countries with poor infrastructure and mostly autarkic regions may exacerbate spatial inequalities, countries with better infrastructure and larger volumes ofinterregional trade may experience a more balanced geographical development.

Keywords: trade liberalization; regional integration; transport costs; trade costs; economic geography (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D11 F12 L13 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004-09
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
https://sites.uclouvain.be/core/publications/coredp/coredp2004.html (text/html)

Related works:
Journal Article: INTERNATIONAL INTEGRATION AND REGIONAL INEQUALITIES: HOW IMPORTANT IS NATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE? (2011)
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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cor:louvco:2004066

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE from Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE) Voie du Roman Pays 34, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium). Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Alain GILLIS ().