Farmers markets can generate positive externalities by improving food access and negative externalities through pollution. The presence of both may influence people’s willingness to pay (WTP) for living nearby. This study employs spatial hedonic pricing models to estimate the WTP for living near farmers markets in Edmonton, Canada. We find an inverted U-shaped relationship between proximity to a farmers market and property values. Our results suggest that local governments might consider the economic impact of building new or relocating existing farmers markets on residential housing values, alongside the benefits of improved access to high-quality food sources.

This paper investigates the growth and clustering of craft breweries in New Jersey. We compiled a historical dataset from 1995 to 2020 that allows us to measure the degree of geographic clustering among craft breweries in New Jersey. The number of craft breweries in New Jersey grew 491% from 2012 to 2020 (from 22 to 130 craft breweries). An impetus for this growth was that New Jersey enacted legislation in 2012 that made opening and operating a craft brewery in the state more economically viable. Our analysis finds that craft breweries in New Jersey are clustering in specific parts of the state and that this is likely due to co-location benefits such as building a culture of craft beer that drives innovation, knowledge sharing, customer sharing, and a thicker labor market. While distinct craft beer clusters have formed in New Jersey, we find there is still significant opportunity for growth. Our analysis confirms this using data on planned craft brewery openings to measure changes in the size and density of clusters and where, in New Jersey, new clusters are likely to form.

The poultry industry is the most vertically integrated of U.S. agriculture and food production and is rapidly progressing toward being one of the most concentrated. In 2002, the top 15 broiler states accounted for 94.4% of U.S. production. From 1982–2002, the top four broiler firms had a fivefold increase in Ready-to-Cook (R-T-C) pounds, a tripling of plants and four- and eight-firm concentration ratio increases of 27.9% to 48.2% and 44.1% to 66.6%. In a broad sense, chicken became more affordable, appealing, and available; total R-T-C pounds increased from 234 to 663 million pounds between 1982 and 2002.

This article makes the first systematic attempt to analyse quantitatively the evolution of Spanish housing markets from 1904 to 1934, a period of dramatic changes in housing demand as a consequence of substantial income and demographic growth. In order to do so, we collect a new database on houses sold and their prices using data from the Registrar's Yearbooks. Furthermore, we construct a new hedonic index of real housing prices for Spain and its provinces. To our surprise, we found that real housing prices rose slightly over the entire period and, hence, that housing supply responded effectively to new demand for housing.

This paper provides a bird-eye overview of the history of spatial economic theory. It is organized around three main ideas (and authors): (i) land use and urban economics (Thünen), (ii) the nature of competition across space (Hotelling), and (iii) new economic geography and the emergence of economic agglomerations (Krugman).

Metropolization is not a new phenomenon: metropolises have been around for centuries. The prime and permanent function of a metropolis is the coordination of economic activities at a world scale. This function has been applied to different activities in history, depending on technological conditions and economic organization, and consequently it generated different forms of metropolises. The resulting continuities and discontinuities in the metropolises' evolution can be understood in terms of agglomeration economies. In the pre-industrial period, the trading metropolis coordinates long range trade. The industrial revolutions generate new needs for coordination of production and give rise to the manufacturing metropolis. Finally, the information revolution and the emergence of the post-industrial economy create the global metropolis.