Krugman's New Economic Geography and Industrial Localisation: A Case Study of Sankrail Food Park, Howrah, West Bengal, India

Abstract

One of the most important aspects of regional as well as economic geography is determining the location of industries, which is the oldest subject of economic geography. In the past, many geographers and economists have given various theoretical insights about the location of industries: among them Hoover, Rawstron, Weber, Christaller, Losch, and Isard are popular. Hoover, Weber, Rawstron, and Fitter emphasized the least cost factor in the industrial location, on the other hand, Losch and Isard talked about profit maximization and the principle of substitution. In the 1990s, with Krugman's New Economic Geography, the concept of the location of industry was redefined. He emphasized the importance of spatial aspects of the economy and transportation for industrial locations. He also discussed the urban agglomeration for industrial locations on a small scale based on Marshallian external economies. Many researchers have used the concept of this theory to explain the location of any industry. Among different manufacturing industries food processing industry is one of the most important and distinctive industries in West Bengal, and the food park is an extended part of this industry. Our purpose in this paper is to discuss the applicability of Krugman's theory for the location of food parks with special reference to Sankrail food park. In this paper, we used the mixed method, which includes both qualitative and quantitative techniques. It is observed that pure external economies, a good transportation system, large market size, spatial agglomeration, and good political economy contributed to the formation of this food park in the semi-urban part of Sankrail. However, all factors (technology spillover, knowledge spillover) of Krugman's theory are not fully applicable in the case of this Food Park.