Space and Economics

The subject area Regional Economics is becoming more and more topical. This means that in economic analyses the production factor 'space' is of increasing importance. This study book aims at integrating space in the area of General Economics in an analytical way. This is different from an economic geographical approach where the latter is less analytical and more descriptive in nature. In our approach, models and their applications play a major role. The spreadsheet programme Excel is used as a convenient tool for the computation of model results. The description of major applications of Excel is included in the book, which makes it self contained. The book contains basic and more advanced subjects; to study the latter advanced subjects fruitfully the student should be familiar with the basic principles of economics.An important feature of the book is its European character. Where most textbooks in the area are US-based, by far the majority of the applications here are from Europe. Therefore, the regional statistical data and maps available in Eurostat have been used abundantly.The area of regional economics contains two broad fields: the theory of location, including the basic principles of the economic theory of land use, which has a microeconomic character, and regional economic development, including spatial equilibrium theory, which is mainly macroeconomic in nature. In the book, both fields will be elaborated in detail.