THE EVOLUTION OF SPATIAL ECONOMICS: FROM THUNEN TO THE NEW ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

This paper presents a review of the evolution of spatial economics over the past two centuries. The focus is on the evolution of what I consider to be the most fundamental theory of spatial economics, i.e., general location theory. The paper starts with a review of Thunen (1826), and ends with a review of the New Economic Geography initiated by Paul Krugman in the early 1990s. It is shown that the study of general location theory has been successful at shedding light on many important features of actual spatial economies.