New Developments in Spatial Economics and Economic Geography, edited by PhilipMcCann. 2013. Series: The International Library of Critical Writings in Economics. Cheltenham, U.K. and Northampton, Massachusetts: Edward Elgar. 514 + xiii. ISBN: 978‐1‐84844‐432‐4, $252
本书收录了1997至2011年间24篇论文，分为知识创新与地理、城市与集聚、劳动力与市场、实证方法四部分，综述了空间经济学和经济地理学近二十年的主要进展，适合希望了解该领域关键问题和共识的学者。
Edited by Philip McCann, this book is part of the collection “International Library of Critical Writings in Economics” published by Edward Elgar. It contains a selection of research articles with the aim of highlighting the major features and breakthroughs of spatial economics and economic geography for the last two decades. Twenty-four papers, ranging from 1997 to 2011, are organized within four sections of six papers each. The sections are entitled: “Knowledge, Innovation and Geography,” “Cities and Clustering,” “Labour and Markets,” and “Empirics.” A short introduction by McCann sets the tone of the volume: its purpose is to provide a sense of all the developments of the field, with its “foundations and framework for understanding where the field is currently going, what the key questions and challenges being addressed are, and what the current consensus and disagreements are” (p. xii). However, with a field as broad as this, some choices had to be made as to the topics chosen for the sections of the volume with a focus on innovation (part 1), cities (part 2) and land markets (part 3), and methods (part 4). The fundamental role played by geographical proximity in knowledge flows and innovation activities is investigated in the first part of the volume. Anselin, Varga, and Acs (chapter 1) provide evidence of the local geographical extent of spillovers between university research and high technology innovations, while Carlino, Chatterjee, and Hunt (chapter 3) show that patent intensity is positively related to the density of employment. However, as stated by Boschma in chapter 2, geographical proximity is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for learning but can strengthen the other dimensions of proximity. The factors behind innovative capacity are investigated in the following two chapters, with a comparative analysis between Europe and the United States undertaken by Crescenzi, Rodríguez-Pose, and Storper (chapter 4) and an assessment of the impact of variety by Frenken, Van Oort, and Verburg (chapter 5). Finally, in a somewhat disconnected paper, Shearmur and Polèse (chapter 6) focus on the factors explaining local employment growth. Because its focus is on agglomeration economies, this chapter would have been more appropriate in part 2. The second part of the book deals with cities, systems of cities, and linkages between economic activities. In an important contribution, Duranton (chapter 7) proposes a general model that accounts for the rapid location changes of industries across cities and the stability and skewed nature of the city size distribution. Specific aspects are then considered. On the one hand, the nature of the worldwide urban hierarchy is investigated in Henderson and Wang (chapter 11) with an attention to the role of institutions. On the other hand, the determinants of the location of industries and firms can be envisaged through the lens of Marshallian externalities. By constructing pairwise agglomeration indices for United States manufacturing industries, Ellison, Glaeser, and Kerr (chapter 8) show that all three of Marshall's theories of agglomeration are supported but that input–output linkages are particularly important. Industrial clusters stemming as a consequence from agglomeration externalities have attracted much attention as they have been seen as the basis for public intervention. The concept in itself is, however, ambiguous, as demonstrated by Gordon and McCann (chapter 9) and can be related to different models of processes (pure agglomeration, industrial complex, and social networks). Moreover, because of their specific properties, Storper and Venables (chapter 12) argue that face-to-face contacts should be considered as the most fundamental aspect of proximity. Hence, social interactions are facilitated in dense urban areas so that the resurgence of big cities is seen by Glaeser and Gootlieb (chapter 10) as resulting from an increased demand from these interactions. Labor and land markets and their interactions are considered in the third part of the volume. This part is relatively heterogeneous with several topics. The issue of migration is investigated in three chapters. Faggian and McCann (chapter 13) focus on interregional migration behavior of British university graduates and the role played by the labor market characteristics in these migrations. Other factors of migration are examined: community satisfaction in Mellander, Florida, and Stolarick (chapter 15) and the weather in Rappaport (chapter 17). In these two cases, the link with the title of the third part is not obvious. Two other papers focus on housing prices. A theoretical model of the growth of housing prices, including the effects of zoning and amenities, is proposed by Glaeser, Gyourko, and Saks (chapter 14). The role played by regulation is considered by Quigley and Raphael (chapter 16), who compare housing prices between more or less regulated cities and estimate the price elasticity of housing supply in regulated and unregulated cities. Finally, Shapiro (chapter 18) looks at the relationship between human capital and employment growth. The last part, “Empirics,” consists of a disparate set of papers. It starts with a methodological literature review of applied spatial econometrics by Elhorst (chapter 19). Bel and Fageda (chapter 20) examine the determinants of the location of large firms’ headquarters across European urban areas. Because of its topic, it could have been placed in the second part. Fingleton and Fisher (chapter 21) provide a range of estimations to test the comparative relevance of neoclassical theory and new economic geography to explain cross-regional variation in economic regional European development. The marginal benefits of public capital are estimated in Haughwout (chapter 22). A meta-analysis of urban agglomeration estimates is provided by Melo, Graham, and Noland (chapter 23). Finally, Rodrik, Subramanian, and Trebbi (chapter 24) estimate the respective contributions of institutions, geography, and trade. Unfortunately, there is no apparent logic in the organization of this part. With the explosion of theoretical, analytical, and empirical papers dealing with the spatial organization of economic activities, the determinants of location choices and the role played by geography in economic development, any volume providing a state of the art of spatial economics and economic geography should be a welcome addition. However, precisely because the field is large and encompasses many different traditions, it cannot be exhaustive, as acknowledged by the editor. The choices of the topics (innovation, cities, land market, and methods) are relevant in their own right but not justified with respect to other issues that could have been tackled, such as the structure of cities, sociospatial segregation, agglomeration, and regional growth or local public economics. Moreover, while it provides a good mix between theoretical and empirical papers, the normative dimension of economic geography is relatively absent. Each part is more or less homogenous but the last part on methods comprises articles without a clear link between them. Rather than grouping disparate empirical contributions, it could have been interesting to provide here more methodological literature reviews in the spirit of Elhorst. Probably, a less ambitious title combined with some thematic narrowing would have been preferable. Despite these limitations, the book will be of interest for people wanting to have available a selection of quality research on various aspects of spatial economics and economic geography.