Abstract
A new political economy-based approach to urban and regional development puts the NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) interests of urban “insiders” centre stage. Based on the analysis of Gehr and Pflüger (2025), we show that a quantitative model sheds new light on German cities and regions, and receives strong external validation. As this approach implies welfare differentials between cities and regions, new perspectives and levers for regional policy emerge. These contrast with some of the central insights of the paradigm of spatial equilibrium with free labour mobility that currently dominates regional analysis and policy advice.
© 2025 Katja Gehr, Michael Pflüger, published by ZBW – Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.