Five essays in economics of location.

Summary We study successively five developments in the economics of location. The first one concerns the economics of transportation and shows by application of the Pigou principle that the equilibrium conditions on a road network are equivalent to a convex maximization program. The second paper deals with economic calculation from a land use planning perspective and introduces the concept of effective externalities. The third deals with decentralization under the assumption that local authorities behave cooperatively: it is shown that even in this case state intervention can be justified. The fourth development establishes the principle of minimal differentiation in a context of horizontal differentiation where prices are set collusively. Finally, the fifth development characterizes the optimal form of organizations when they are constrained by the costs of coordination.