Regional impact of trade liberalization in a model with congestion costs à la Helpman

BLEANEY, MICHAEL

Regional Studies

Routledge

Año: 2010 vol. 44 p. 935 - 935

0034-3404

The effects of the liberalization of international trade are analyzed in a New Economic Geography model of a country with an asymmetric distribution of housing between regions. Labour is mobile between regions but not between countries. Trade liberalization tends to reduce inequalities in the distribution of population between the two regions, although population is more unequally distributed than housing.  Results are similar when there is a bias in preferences towards home-produced varieties of manufactures. If consumers care relatively little about housing and transport costs are high enough, an agglomerated equilibrium becomes stable.