Title

Brand Agriculture and Economic Geography: When Are Highly Differentiated Products Sustainable
in the Remote Periphery?

Abstract

This paper presents a general equilibrium model of new economic geography, incorporating brand agriculture that produces differentiated agricultural products. Focusing on the core-periphery space, we show that highly differentiated brand agriculture can be sustained in the periphery even when access to the core market is not particularly good. This result supports the promotion of innovative products in rural areas in order to avoid direct price competition in generic commodities markets under unfavorable conditions.

Keywords: Product Differentiation, New Economic Geography, Core-periphery.

JEL Classification: O12, O18, R12


Masahisa FUJITA
The Kyoto Institute of Economic Research, Kyoto University

Nobuaki HAMAGUCHI
Research Institute for Economics and Business Administration
Kobe University
Rokkodai-cho, Nada-ku, Kobe
657-8501 Japan
Phone: (81) 78 803 7036
Fax: (81) 78 803 7059