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Even a simple human foraging system has a large number of moving parts. Foragers require a complex decision making process to effectively exploit the spatially and temporally variable resources in an environment. Here we present an agent-based modelling framework, based in optimal foraging theory, for agent foragers to make mobility and foraging decisions by weighing expected caloric returns against geographic and social factors, and forecasted future return rates. We apply our Paleoscape model to a spatially explicit South African coastal landscape to better understand the human foraging system of the Middle Stone Age, when foragers began systematically exploiting a wide variety of flora and fauna in both terrestrial and inter-tidal environments. We also discuss the broader importance of agent-based models of foraging systems for a wide variety of archaeological research questions.

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Agglomeration economies reflect proximity and are an important explanation for industrial location. They feature prominently in the theories of location, including intermediate inputs and labour of the new economic geography and knowledge spillovers in the new growth theory. However, while there is a good supply of theories, there is much less evidence on the relative importance of these explanations for location. In this paper, the relative strength of agglomeration economies on industrial location is examined by adopting a new approach to measure the non-intermediate goods at a sub-national industry level. It is based on an Input-Output transaction table, which not only incorporates the ‘core Input-Output table’, showing the exchange of goods and services between industries, but the flow of goods and services to or from agents outside of the industrial sector. An advantage of the approach is that it permits all possible non-intermediate goods to be included, and measures these on a comparable basis to the intermediate goods. Further, it is shown that basing the basing the measurement of the intermediate goods solely on the core Input-Output table yields biased estimates. The empirical investigation utilises data on 13,000 investments by foreign-owned plants across the regions of Great Britain over the period 1985-2007. These data are available for manufacturing and service industries, and they relate to the location decision. The paper distinguishes between intermediate and non-intermediate goods that are backward or forward in nature to explore the relative importance of production linkages and knowledge spillovers. Calculated as elasticities, the paper finds that backward intermediate goods are relatively more important for manufacturing and forward intermediate goods for services, but that the opposite is the case for non-intermediate goods. Overall, knowledge spillovers are of less importance, but indicate a greater transferability of knowledge across service industries. The empirical results are plausible and consistent with the literature, and show that care should be taken in the construction of the input-output terms. They indicate that when discriminating between competing theories it is important to distinguish between the broad industrial sector, where different processes appear to be at work that reflect the intrinsic nature of these. Keywords: Industrial location; agglomeration economies; intermediate goods; FDI. JEL classification: H3, O2, L2, R3.

The paper decomposes a geographical concentration index to examine the temporal scope of a spillover, which is the period of time over which one firm’s activity directly affects the location of other firms’ activities. Natural advantages are fixed over reasonably long time periods, but if spillovers have a limited temporal scope then this can be used to identify these agglomeration economies. To operationalize the index decomposition the paper proposes an empirical methodology that is based on frequency estimator approach, which is applied across time periods. The approach is tested by numerical simulation and by application to a dataset on the location of new economic activity across British regions in the form of investment by foreign-owned plants. Overall, the results support the approach and indicate that the temporal scope of a spillover is on average about five years.

Ellison and Glaeser's (1997) index of geographical concentration distinguishes between natural advantages and spillovers as a source of industrial agglomeration, but the well-known 'observational equivalence' means little is known about the relative importance of these. This paper uses the difference in the temporal scope of the agglomeration source to decompose the index, and sets out a methodology for measuring each of these using the frequency estimator approach of Maurel and Sédillot (1999). When applied to a dataset on foreign investment it shows spillovers decay and on average extend over three to five years. An implication is that the geographic concentration index will mainly reflect natural advantages, revealing comparatively little about spillovers.

The paper examines the relative importance for industrial location of production linkages and knowledge spillovers, distinguishing between intermediate and non-intermediate goods that are backwards or forwards in nature. A novel approach is used to construct proxies for non-intermediate goods at a sub-national industry level based on an Input-Output transaction table. Taking data on location decisions by foreign-owned plants across British regions over 1985-2007, the paper finds support for the new economic geography explanation of location based on linkages over that due to spillovers. However, the importance of intermediate and non-intermediate linkages differs between manufacturing and service industries.

The paper uses the framework of Markov chains to examine convergence in the location of inward foreign direct investment across the regions of Great Britain over 1985-2005. An analysis is undertaken by industry group that disaggregates manufacturing and services. It finds convergence in regional FDI shares, both overall and by industry, which supports agglomeration. As explanations, a weakening of regional policy has led manufacturing FDI to spread-out from ‘north’ to ‘south’, but in services there is a shift in FDI location within the ‘south’ from core to contiguous regions, suggesting diseconomies at the core. The paper finds different spatial processes and draws implications for regional policy.

The theory and empirical evidence on FDI location emphasise agglomeration economies over classical location factors, such as grants. This paper uses panel data to analyse the effect of the main instrument of inward investment policy, the UK regional policy grants, on the distribution of FDI projects across British regions over 1985-05. Using a GMM estimator the paper finds grants have a significant effect on FDI, even when agglomeration terms are included, but that its effect diminished over the 1990s. This is attributed to a redrawing of the eligible areas map. It concludes that in relation to foreign investment regional policy is no longer able to affect the regional distribution of FDI, so the grants are an instrument of national development policy.

Foreign-owned plants have higher conditional exit rates, but this paper tests the hypothesis that re-investment "embeds" these plants, leading to significantly longer survival time durations. A unique dataset is used for 265 plants that commenced in foreign ownership after 1985 in North East England, distinguishing between start-up ("greenfield") and acquisition plants. Survival is measured at 2000, and the paper analyses the duration to the first reinvestment and survival, allowing for selection into the multiple investment state. It finds that re-investment increases the lifetime of start-up plants, but this is insignificant once selection is controlled for, while for acquisition plants there is no difference. Grants affect selection, but not the survival of start-up plants. The paper offers little support for re-investment as a source of "embeddedness".

This paper's purpose is to review the recent experience of foreign direct investment (FDI) in North East England, and to explore the implications of this for the region's prospective economic development. Foreign-owned plants are reckoned to account for more than half the North East's employment in manufacturing, so that the future economic prospects of the region rest heavily on the performance of this stock of FDI plants. Further, the attraction of FDI continues to be a vital component of the region's economic strategy (One NorthEast, 2005), while the Regional Development Agency (RDA) supports initiatives to both develop and "embed" these plants in the region.