On the Disentanglement of an Economic Union
研究一个地区单方面退出经济联盟如何影响经济活动的空间分布和社会福利，发现退出地区工业份额最低时整体福利最大。
ABSTRACT We study how the unilateral withdrawal of a region from an economic union affects the spatial distribution of economic activity and social welfare. We explore a three‐region economic geography model under the assumption that this withdrawal can be expressed as a higher transportation cost between the leaving party and the remaining union members. We find that it is not stable for industry to become concentrated only between the remaining union regions and that asymmetric equilibria—in which the withdrawn region has the lowest share of industry—arise. We show that the share of industry in the withdrawn region increases as the differential in transportation costs and the global immobility of workers decrease. Finally, we also conclude that the economy as a whole attains its maximum social welfare when most of the industry is not in the withdrawn region.