International Trade, Technological Development, and Agglomeration

The paper focuses on how localized dynamic external economies of scale may cause uneven technological development internationally, and encourage regional agglomeration of industries. Location-specific technological progress depends on the absolute number of local innovating firms, and the relative number of innovating firms; i.e., the share of economic activity in a region that takes place within the innovating sector. The creation of industrial clusters contributes to explaining regional specialization, factor prices and welfare, and it appears that the critical size of a region regarding its ability to sustain an industrial cluster depends on whether factors of production are internationally mobile.