Skip Navigation



Journal of Economic Geography Advance Access published online on February 24, 2005
Journal of Economic Geography, doi:10.1093/jnlecg/lbh050
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
5/3/305    most recent
lbh050v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by McCann, P.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author (2005). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oupjournals.org
Revised January 9, 2003
Accepted August 10, 2004

Article

Transport costs and new economic geography

Philip McCann 1*

1 Department of Economics, University of Reading, RG6 6AW, UK

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Philip McCann, E-mail: p.mccann{at}reading.ac.uk


  Abstract

This paper uncovers some little-known properties of the iceberg transport cost functions which are employed in some new economic geography models. In particular the behaviour of the delivered prices generated by the Krugman iceberg specification is very different to those generated by the original Samuelson iceberg model, and these differences require careful interpretation of the outcomes of the explicitly spatial versions of new economic geography models. If the iceberg model is viewed simply as transport costs, then these properties can be shown to be largely implausible when compared with a wide range of empirical evidence. At the same time, even if the iceberg model is viewed as capturing a range of different distance costs, there are still grounds for cautiousness in the way that inferences are madefrom thesemodelswhenmoving from theory to reality or policy analysis.

Keywords: Transport costs; distance economic geography.
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Cambridge J Regions Econ SocHome page
S. Christopherson, H. Garretsen, and R. Martin
The world is not flat: putting globalization in its place
Cambridge J Regions Econ Soc, November 1, 2008; 1(3): 343 - 349.
[Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 J ECON GEOGRHome page
M. H. Grote
Foreign banks' attraction to the financial centre Frankfurt--an inverted 'U'-shaped relationship
J. Econ. Geogr., March 1, 2008; 8(2): 239 - 258.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.