Some issues for a research agenda

A handbook paper is a place to offer research suggestions, as well as summarize the state of knowledge. While various avenues of research are noted throughout, here I summa­rize three key suggestions.

A second key research issue involves spatial inequality as it evolves with growth in a context where workers have different ability endowments and choose different human capital levels. In most spatial and urban models, workers are identical, except for their degree of mobility. But with urbanization, it may be that it is higher ability rural folks who urbanize and acquire modern skills, increasing real income gaps between high and low ability people. We have no models that directly address these issues and provide a comprehensive framework to evaluate spatial inequality, or cross-space income differ­ences.

Finally, we do not really have models that address the evolution of city production patterns with on-going technological change. While we have looked at parallel growth and urbanization, we know city functions also change over time. In less developed coun­tries, bigger cities may be focused on manufacturing, but somehow with growth and technological change, big cities tend to specialize more in service functions, purchased by manufacturers and retailers in smaller cities. While we have models of functional specialization, we haven not modeled this evolution in city roles over the development process.

Acknowledgement

I thank Diego Puga for very helpful comments on a preliminary draft of this chapter.

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