Increasing Returns and Transport costs - The fundamental Trade-off of a spatial economy

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject Economics - Micro-economics, grade: 2,0 (B), University of Paderborn, course: Research and Independent Studies, 15 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: In this study I want to provide an overview of different research areas according to the topic 'Increasing Returns and Transport Costs: The Fundamental Trade-Off of a Spatial Economy'. Transport costs are a monetary measure of what the transport provider must pay to produce transportation services. They depend on a variety of conditions related to geography, infrastructure, administrative barriers, economies of scale, competition and regulation. First, I will figure out the benefits and cost of transport to show barriers, which confront the policy strategy in the following model of marginal external cost pricing. Further models investigate the impact of transport costs on production organization, city formation and spatial competition under different model-configurations and -perspectives.