Location Advantage: Emergent and Guided Co-Evolutions

Abstract

We analyze how location advantages created and developed at the country level. We argue that location advantage can be best understood as the result of the interaction between two distinct types of co-evolutionary processes: emergent, whereby location advantage is created as the result of agglomeration dynamics in product and factor markets; and guided, whereby location advantage is created as the result of infrastructure dynamics in institutions and endowments. We illustrate empirically the application of the co-evolutionary perspective and the differences between emergent and guided co-evolutionary processes with the analysis of the development of location advantage in the Costa Rican tourism industry.

Keywords: comparative advantage, location advantage, dynamics, agglomeration, tourism, Costa Rica

JEL Classification: M16, M21