Stef Proost - Böcker

An authoritative and cutting-edge exploration of how land, transportation, and economic forces shape cities, regions, and the distribution of economic activities from a local to a global scale.Land, by its very nature, is immobile and unproduced, creating competition for prime locations that drives disparities in economic outcomes. Transportation, meanwhile, serves as the mechanism for overcoming spatial frictions but imposes costs that influence where firms and individuals choose to locate. Together, these factors explain the emergence and persistence of cities, regional disparities, and even global patterns of economic concentration. In Spatial Economics, Hans R.A. Koster, Stef Proost, and Jacques-François Thisse explore how cities, regions, and the global economy are shaped by the interplay between location, land use, and transportation. The authors examine why economic activities are clustered in large metropolitan areas and dispersed in vast areas, driven by the balance between the gains from concentration and various congestion and pollution costs. Blending classical theories with modern data and modeling approaches, the book addresses urbanization, spatial inequality, and the effects of policies like infrastructure investments and land regulations. Accessible yet rigorous, it offers valuable insights for understanding the geographic organization of economic activity in today's interconnected world.

An authoritative and cutting-edge exploration of how land, transportation, and economic forces shape cities, regions, and the distribution of economic activities from a local to a global scale.Land, by its very nature, is immobile and unproduced, creating competition for prime locations that drives disparities in economic outcomes. Transportation, meanwhile, serves as the mechanism for overcoming spatial frictions but imposes costs that influence where firms and individuals choose to locate. Together, these factors explain the emergence and persistence of cities, regional disparities, and even global patterns of economic concentration. In Spatial Economics, Hans R.A. Koster, Stef Proost, and Jacques-François Thisse explore how cities, regions, and the global economy are shaped by the interplay between location, land use, and transportation. The authors examine why economic activities are clustered in large metropolitan areas and dispersed in vast areas, driven by the balance between the gains from concentration and various congestion and pollution costs. Blending classical theories with modern data and modeling approaches, the book addresses urbanization, spatial inequality, and the effects of policies like infrastructure investments and land regulations. Accessible yet rigorous, it offers valuable insights for understanding the geographic organization of economic activity in today's interconnected world.

This timely book deals with the problem of pricing passenger and freight transportation within Europe. The contributors argue that current legislation affecting pricing and regulation is increasingly less successful in dealing with market failures and externalities such as congestion, air pollution, noise and accidents. Technological progress and greater European co-operation has brought increased scope for the reform of transport policies.Reforming Transport Pricing in the European Union includes an economic diagnosis of the pricing problem, proposals for new pricing and regulation structures together with a quantified assessment of the likely impact for several European cities and countries. The effects of traffic volume, cost, and overall economic welfare are computed for all forms of passenger and freight transport in urban and non-urban areas. The book analyses various alternative policies including combinations of higher fuel excise, alternative parking policies, cordon pricing, electronic road pricing and emissions regulation. The research is based on a set of formal models which facilitate the analysis and comparison of results. The range of policies studied and the variety of methodologies employed, will ensure that this book will be of great benefit to European and national transport policymakers, transport economists and transport consultants.

The complexity of a multi-layered system of government yields a wealth of issues concerning environmental policy making. This important book presents new original work on the problems that arise from the existence of more than one level of government, and discusses the responsibility of federal, state and local government policy making.This theme of government responsibilty for environmental regulation is expanded to consider the coordination of environmental policy across different levels of government. This is directly related to the question of which level of government should bear the costs of implementing environmental policy, if agreement can be reached between various levels of government. Furthermore the contributors discuss whether the policy targets for environmental quality should be uniform or regionally differentiated. They conclude that there is a role for both a federal government and for regional coordination in the design and application of environmental policies. Moreover, that economic integration through a federal system can result in better and more efficient environmental regulation.The Economic Theory of Environmental Policy in a Federal System will be an invaluable resource for academics, policymakers and government officials.

This important new book presents a state-of-the-art assessment of how economic models can be used by different levels of government to combat environmental problems. It considers policies for climate change and transport that can be used at federal and confederal levels of government.The authors examine the unique aspects of environmental policy making in a multi-layered government using empirical case studies covering Europe and the US. They consider the causes of pollution at three levels - federal government, local government and industries and firms. Concentrating on greenhouse gas abatement and the transport sector, they use quantitative techniques to compare alternative policy solutions. This quantitative approach overcomes problems of some inconclusive theoretical prescriptions, which often depend on combinations of particular parameter values. In addition, this method makes it possible to investigate the costs and benefits of a particular solution, and the distribution effects between different groups. This approach also provides insights into the economic consequences of the application of local versus national or federal policies. Climate Change, Transport and Environmental Policy provides the necessary analysis required for environmental policy making in that it uses a quantitative approach to balance the costs and benefits of alternative policy options.Climate Change, Transport and Environmental Policy is an important addition to the literature and will be welcomed by environmental policymakers at the local, regional, national and international level as well as scholars and postgraduate students in environmental economics and public policy.