Mobility of resources, accessibility of knowledge, and economic growth

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the role of public phenomena like knowledge and research and development in the economic growth process of a spatially extended economy. It deals with the organizational level of living systems (regions) and the societal level, and with monetary information flows, chiefly in the decider and channel and net subsystems. Accessibility to knowledge pools is used as a way of connecting regions with each other. It is shown with analytical methods as well as with simulation that improving information networks will generally lead to a higher rate of growth in all regions if the economies behave according to the neoclassical paradigm. Superimposing an accessibility function with spatial frictions in the information flows on a technology with economies of scale leads to uneven but realistic dynamics. In this case there is an increasing inequality of income per capita between regions with different centrality up to a point of maximum inequality with a subsequent convergence thereafter. The analysis demonstrates that increasing research and development activities can, under certain probable technologies, lead to increasing inequalities between rich and poor regions.