1. WG1 Presentation Summary of Year 1 Activities Looking ahead to Year 2 Lisbon, 26-28 March 2013

2. Scientific Programme IS1104 WG1 Meeting - 2 Social and economic networks Multi-level interactions and location decisions Nonlinear dynamics Networks Heterogeneous interacting agents Statistics and econometrics Effects of multi-level policy action Financial and labour markets Multi-regional economic geography modeling Scientific coordination Economic Geography Modeling WG1 Institutions and markets WG2 WG3 Social and industrial interactions WG4 Math. and comput. methods and tools

3. The main objective of WG1 to put forward a representation of the EU as a multi-level complex evolving system that will provide the theoretical and conceptual basis for the research work of the other WGs.

4. WG1- 4 year work plan In broad terms, the work plan includes the following steps: i)a throughout assessment of the literature on economic geography modeling (year 1); ii)building multiregional NEG models (year 2); iii)in collaboration with the other WGs, incorporate results and outcomes originated from the various lines of research (year 3) iv)in collaboration with the other WGs, validate the results through empirical analyses and computational calibrations (year 4).

5. WG1 Meetings WG1 formed in Brussels March 2012 at the kick-off meeting. Leader: Pasquale Commendatore Co-leader: Saime Suna Kayam WG1 met at the Urbino meeting for the second time. Promoted the production of a collected volume to meet the task of «a throughout assessment of the literature on economic geography modeling» as the first year output.

6. Collected Volume Springer «Dynamic Modeling and Econometrics in Economics and Finance Series» edited by Prof. Semmler und Prof. Mittnik PART 1 Economic Geography 1.New economic geography [Pasquale Commendatore, Ingrid Kubin, Theresa Grafeneder-Weissteiner] 2.Empirical methods applied to regional economics [Diana Mendes, Vivaldo Mendes] 3.Diffusion of Growth and Cycles in Continuous Time and Space[Tönu Puu]

7. MoU (E2. Working Groups) WGs will organize Training Schools and Conferences that will be dedicated specifically to their research themes under the supervision of the MC. The MC appoints the WG Leaders who will be responsible for:  The internal organization of the WGs;  Setting and monitoring specific research goals in accordance with the main objectives of the Action;  Appointing of a team within the WG that will organize one or more of the main Action Events, i.e. Training Schools and Conferences, dedicated to the WG research theme; etc.

8. Second Year Set-up Working Group Research Units on specific topics related to the Action According to the MoU of the Action and «on the basis of the Scientific Programme, the following is a synthetic and extensible list of the research tasks: a) development of a new theoretical approach to economic geography modeling based on complex, multi-level, evolving geographical systems; b) empirical analyses to discover the topological properties of the EU regional trade network; c) calibrations to validate the theoretical framework; d) computational simulations of different economic policy scenarios; e) evaluations of the impact of regional policies on the spatial distribution of economic activities and on economic welfare.»

9. RESEARCH TOPICS FROM URBINO

10. Research ideas (Urbino) 1.Differentiated modeling of space (impact of Asian economies on regional imbalances-through FDI and trade), 3+ asymmetric regions, continuous space, network structure, etc. 2.Modeling market structure (oligopoly etc.) in NEG 3.Changing trading costs 4.Mobility of firms: how financial markets and labour markets affect mobility? (small businesses- institutions, etc.) 5.Labour mobility as a result of: access to credit/social networks & social capital 6.Construct the relationship between spatial economic theory and spatial econometrics as Anderson & van Wincoop (2003) have done for gravity equations 7.Trade Services being off-shored 8.Trading sector (wholesales, retail)

11. Please contact Pasquale or Saime if you want to work on a specific topic and produce a WP(to start with) that will turn into publication and is related to the WG1 task. you would like to organise conferences, training schools, other events related to WG1 thema. THANK YOU