Borders and Markets: Do Economists Study Borders?

Economics is a major social science, but not a major discipline in border studies. Over the last ten years, approximately 6 percent of the articles published in the Journal of Borderlands Studies can be considered economics papers. The share of economics books reviewed in the journal was an even smaller 1.1 percent. Political science, anthropology, geography sociology, and their subfields all have a much greater presence in border studies. There are three hypothesized explanations for the relative absence of economics from border studies. One, economics and its subfields assume a unit of analysis that is a nation-state, or a subnational region, and thereby unintentionally limit the questions to be asked. Two, economists are relatively reluctant to engage in interdisciplinary research. Three, borders introduce a number of conditions that undermine some key assumptions of economic theory, such as international public goods, market failures, coordination problems, incomplete information, and the absence of risk and capital markets. Border regions contradict many of the assumptions of mainstream economic theory and leave market-based economic outcomes as sub-optimal. Economic analysis of borders and border regions requires greater openness to interdisciplinary research and a willingness to address issues of power, identity, and institutional heterogeneity.