In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Alex Martelli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Bulba! <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> True. I have a bit of interest in economics, so I've seen e.g. >> this example - why is it that foreign branches of companies >> tend to cluster themselves in one city or country (e.g. > >It's not just _foreign_ companies -- regional clustering of all kinds of >business activities is a much more widespread phenomenon. Although I'm >not sure he was the first to research the subject, Tjalling Koopmans, as >part of his lifework on normative economics for which he won the Nobel >Prize 30 years ago, published a crucial essay on the subject about 50 >years ago (sorry, can't recall the exact date!) focusing on >_indivisibilities_, leading for example to transportation costs, and to >increasing returns with increasing scale. Today, Paul Krugman is >probably the best-known name in this specific field (he's also a >well-known popularizer and polemist, but his specifically-scientific >work in economics has mostly remained in this field). . . . clp actually dropped related names back in April <URL: http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/index/browse_frm/thread/ce749b848d1c33da/ >, but I think that was during one of your sabbaticals from the group.
The work of Vernon Smith, the unconventionally conventional Nobel co-recipient of 2002, can be viewed as a commentary on clustering and other non-homogeneities. Many US readers have encountered Jane Jacobs, who has made a career (and spawned a following) exploring the significance of cities as economic clusters. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list