Core Peripheral Structure and Regional Governance: Implications of Paul Krugman's New Economic Geography for Public Administration
Paul Krugman's work is much celebrated in the fields of international trade and economic geography, recognized with the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics. Although his work is less prominent in public administration, it has important implications for the study of political fragmentation, collaboration, economic development, and service delivery in metropolitan areas. The authors discuss how Krugman's core periphery model adds a critical piece to the regional governance puzzle by explaining the concentration and dispersion of economic activity and the productive advantages of spatial closeness. They summarize the central propositions of Krugman's work to identify its policy inferences for intergovernmental coordination and strategies for successful management of urban growth, as well as its implications for public administration theories of governance, collaboration, and institutional collective action.