Agglomeration and Endogenous Capital

The new' economic geography focuses on the footloose-labor and the vertically-linked-industries models. Both are complex since they feature demand-linked and cost-linked agglomeration forces. I present a simpler model where agglomeration stems from demand-linked forces arising from endogenous capital with forward-looking agents. The model's simplicity permits many analytic results (rare in economic geography). Trade-cost levels that trigger catastrophic agglomeration are identified analytically, liberalization between almost equal-sized nations is shown to entail near-catastrophic' agglomeration, and Krugman's informal stability test is shown to be equivalent to formal tests in a fully specified dynamic model.