Teaching

Economic Geography, Regional and Urban Economics

Instructors: Mina Taniguchi
Shortname: Econ. Geography
Course No.: 03.897.1130
Course Type: Vorlesung

Requirements / organisational issues

Prerequisites: Students should be familiar with intermediate microeconomics and basic international trade theory.

Recommended reading list

Books and articles used in this course (optional):

  1. Economic Geography, by Pierre-Philippe Combes, Thierry Mayer, and Jacques-François Thisse (2008)
  2. Economic Geography and Public Policy, by Richard Baldwin, Rikard Forslid, Philippe Martin,Gianmarco Ottaviano, and Frederic Robert-Nicoud (2003)
  3. The Costs of Remoteness: Evidence from German Division and Reunification, by Stephen J. Redding and Daniel M. Sturm (2008), American Economic Review 98(5): 1766-1797
  4. Zipf’s Law for Cities: An Explanation, by Xavier Gabaix (1999), Quarterly Journal of Economics 14(3): 739-767

Contents

Content and objectives: In 2021-2027, European Union funds allocated to regional and cohesion policy represent almost one third of its total long-term budget. Why does the EU correct social, territorial and economic disparities on such a large scale? This course uses theory and empirical approaches to understand the geographic distribution of economic activity and the consequences of regional clustering.
In the lecture, we will shed light on two fundamental models in international economics, the coreperiphery and the gravity model. Students will also learn about empirical strategies that can be used to examine aspects of these models. To complete the picture, we will also look at several other models and related empirical studies, such as local labor market models and quantitative spatial equilibrium models, which are also actively used to analyze spatial dispersion in economic activities.
We will shed light on the following and more questions. Why is economic activity unequally distributed in space? Which factors determine the international distribution of production, trade and investment? What are the welfare effects thereof? Why do agglomerations emerge, and what are the factors that lead to their emergence? Why is economic activity unequally distributed within cities and agglomerations? See below for a detailed outline.

Grading: E-exam (60 minutes) covering the lecture content and similar to the problem sets covered in the tutorials. A mock exam will be provided. Successful students will receive 6 ECTS. Active participation in the class is highly acknowledged.

Additional information

Extra Help: We will make the materials available to all enrolled students via LMS Moodle. Do not hesitate to reach out by email or during office hours to discuss your questions concerning the course. You can obtain R and RStudio via the ZDV apps. You do not need to be familiar with R to take this course. There are also many online tutorials, for instance here: https://ignaciomsarmiento.github.io/2017/02/07/An-Introduction-to-Spatial-Econometrics-in-R.html.

Dates

Date (Day of the week) Time Location
04/30/2024 (Tuesday) 14:15 - 15:45 00 211 HS I
1121 - Haus Recht und Wirtschaft II
05/07/2024 (Tuesday) 14:15 - 15:45 00 211 HS I
1121 - Haus Recht und Wirtschaft II
05/14/2024 (Tuesday) 14:15 - 15:45 00 211 HS I
1121 - Haus Recht und Wirtschaft II
05/21/2024 (Tuesday) 14:15 - 15:45 00 211 HS I
1121 - Haus Recht und Wirtschaft II
05/28/2024 (Tuesday) 14:15 - 15:45 00 211 HS I
1121 - Haus Recht und Wirtschaft II
06/04/2024 (Tuesday) 14:15 - 15:45 00 211 HS I
1121 - Haus Recht und Wirtschaft II
06/11/2024 (Tuesday) 14:15 - 15:45 00 211 HS I
1121 - Haus Recht und Wirtschaft II
06/18/2024 (Tuesday) 14:15 - 15:45 00 211 HS I
1121 - Haus Recht und Wirtschaft II
06/25/2024 (Tuesday) 14:15 - 15:45 00 211 HS I
1121 - Haus Recht und Wirtschaft II
07/02/2024 (Tuesday) 14:15 - 15:45 00 211 HS I
1121 - Haus Recht und Wirtschaft II
07/09/2024 (Tuesday) 14:15 - 15:45 00 211 HS I
1121 - Haus Recht und Wirtschaft II
07/16/2024 (Tuesday) 14:15 - 15:45 00 211 HS I
1121 - Haus Recht und Wirtschaft II