On the game-theoretic foundations of spatial economic models

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25885020
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Economic theory
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: FUJISHIMA Shota 東京大学, 空間情報科学研究センター, 講師 (50706835)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-08-30 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 理論経済学 / 都市・地域経済学 / 進化ゲーム理論 / 経済成長 / 人口集積 / 地域間所得格差 / スピルオーバー / ネットワーク

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We study a multi-regional economic growth model in which people can freely choose their locations. We characterize the stability of regional population distributions at stationary equilibria with the optimization problem of a function called a potential function. We show that people's time preference crucially affects the stable stationary equilibrium through the trade-offs between spatial agglomeration's positive productivity-enhancing effects and negative congestion effects.

We also apply our model to issues of the regional inequality and network. Regarding the first issue, we show that regions where the income perpetually grows and regions where the income stops growing can coexist at a stable stationary equilibrium. Regarding the second issue, we study how the network structure of inter-regional spillovers in production affects the stable stationary equilibrium.

Free Research Field

都市・地域経済学