"Globalization, Localization of Production Activities and Income Distribution in the Advanced Countries: An Overview"

This paper intends to analyze the implications of globalization, in terms of income distribution, for the advanced countries on the basis of recent literature on the so-called “new economic geography” (NEG).1 This theoretical approach has underlined, among other things, how the drive toward the unification of markets due to the progressive reduction of both “natural” and trade barriers to international transactions has been increasingly fostering, through the different forms of outsourcing, the fragmentation and dispersion of production activities that stand in contrast with the well-known concentration and agglomeration processes.