Modelling the geography of economic activities on a continuous space

In the present article we propose a spatial micro econometric approach for studying the geographical concentration of economic activities. We analyse the incentives to use this approach rather than the traditional one based on regional aggregates. As an example, we present our prototypical theoretic model – to be seen as a continuous space version of Krugman's concentration model – that includes birth, survival and growth components. We present a numerical estimation of the birth model for a set of data referring to the concentration of the manufacturing industries in the San Marino Republic. Received: 18 May 1998 / Accepted: 12 March 2001