Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/30148 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2009
Series/Report no.: 
MAGKS Joint Discussion Paper Series in Economics No. 2009,04
Publisher: 
Philipps-University Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Marburg
Abstract: 
The notion of face-to-face contacts has recently become very popular in regional economics and in economic geography. This is the most obvious way to explain why firms still locate in proximity to others after the death of distance, i.e., the shrinking costs for transportation, especially transportation of messages' pure information content. While this is intuitive, controlled laboratory experiments provide much more direct and reliable evidence on the importance of face-to-face contacts. They tackle the question what personal contacts are good for, and in which cases their effects are negligible. To the best of my knowledge, regional economists and geographers are not aware of this new and developing string of literature; it is the purpose of this paper to survey and to organize the relevant experimental research with a special focus on its importance for regional economics. However, the paper might also serve to alert more experimentalists to the importance of their work for current regional science, of which they seem not to be aware either.
Subjects: 
Cooperation
death of distance
face-to-face
localized spillovers
trust
JEL: 
C90
D83
R19
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.