Resource information
The most striking fact about the
economic geography of the world is the uneven spatial
distribution of economic activity, including the coexistence
of economic development and underdevelopment. High-income
regions are almost entirely concentrated in a few temperate
zones, half of the world's GDP is produced by 15
percent of the world's population, and 54 percent of
the world's GDP is produced by countries occupying just
10 percent of the world's land area. The poorest half
of the world's population produces only 14 percent of
the world's GDP, and 17 of the poorest 20 nations are
in tropical Africa. The unevenness is also manifest within
countries and within metropolitan concentrations of
activity. Why are these spatial differences in land rents
and wages not bid away by firms and individuals in search of
low-cost or high-income locations? Why does economic
activity cluster in centers of activity? And what are the
consequences of remoteness from existing centers? The
authors argue that understanding these issues is central for
understanding many aspects of economic development and
underdevelopment at the international, national, and
subcontinental levels. They review the theoretical and
empirical work that illuminates how the spatial relationship
between economic units changes and conclude that geography
matters for development, but that economic growth is not
governed by a geographic determinism. New economic centers
can develop, and the costs of remoteness can be reduced.
Many explicit policy instruments have been used to influence
location decisions. But none has been systematically
successful, and many have been very costly-in part because
they were based on inappropriate expectations. Moreover,
many ostensibly nonspatial policies that benefit specific
sectors and households have spatial consequences since the
targeted sectors and households are not distributed
uniformly across space. These nonspatial policies can
sometimes dominate explicitly spatial policies. Further work
is needed to better understand these dynamics in developing countries.
