Industrial organization (was: The Industry choice)

[Cameron Laird]

In article <1gpsbr7.1otvj5mkq1l96N%aleaxit at yahoo.com>,
Alex Martelli <aleaxit at yahoo.com> wrote:
>Bulba! <bulba at bulba.com> 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).
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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.