Skip Navigation


Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society Advance Access originally published online on July 21, 2008
Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 2008 1(3):411-437; doi:10.1093/cjres/rsm006
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
1/3/411    most recent
rsm006v1
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 Brakman, S.
Right arrow Articles by van Marrewijk, C.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Related Collections
Right arrow E00 - General
Right arrow F00 - General
Right arrow N00 - General
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy Society. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

This article appears in the following Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society issue: The World is not Flat; Putting Globalisation in its Place [View the issue table of contents]

It's a big world after all: on the economic impact of location and distance

Steven Brakmana and Charles van Marrewijkb

a Department of Economics, University of Groningen, PO Box 800, 9700 AV Groningen, The Netherlands. s.brakman{at}rug.nl
b Department of Economics and IHS, Erasmus University Rotterdam, H8-10, PO Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands. vanmarrewijk{at}few.eur.nl


  Abstract

Thomas Friedman, a very influential and widely read journalist (author of The World is Flat), argues that distance is no longer a dominant characteristic of the world economy. Competition is thought to be a race to the bottom, with the lowest wage countries as the big winners. In contrast, using various methods and data sets, we show that many threats of global competition for the position of the traditionally developed (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries are unwarranted, that distance still dominates all aspects of international trade and that there is little evidence of income convergence.

Keywords: income levels, convergence, trade, distance, leapfrogging

JEL Classifications:: E0, F0, N0, O0


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




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.