Asymmetric inter-regional transportation costs, industrial location and growth

This paper incorporates asymmetric inter-regional transportation costs into the two-region endogenous growth model in Martin and Ottaviano (1999) to investigate the growth effects of an increase in the cost of transporting goods from the Sough (North) to the North (South). We show that with local research and development spillovers, an increase in the transportation cost to the North (South) increases (decreases) the world growth rate through an increase (decrease) in the concentration of firms in the North.