The Vital City

Professor Michael Storper

Michael Storper is Professor of Economic Sociology at the Institute of Political Studies (“Sciences Po”) in Paris, where he is the Academic Director of the Master of Public Affairs.  He also holds appointments as Professor of Economic Geography at the London School of Economics, and as Professor of Regional and International Development in the School of Public Affairs at UCLA.  He received his PhD in Economic Geography at the University of California at Berkeley.   Michael’s research concentrates on regional economic development and policy.  A good amount of his research is comparative, concentrating on western Europe and Brazil.  Recent research has especially concentrated on the role of face-to-face contact in the contemporary economy; on the social structures of growth in different regions around the world; on the way that regions face globalization processes, and on institutional forces in economic development of regions and nations; and on trade costs and the location of production.

Recent Publications

Storper, M. and Rodriguez-Pose, A. (2006)  Better Rules or Stonger Communities?  On the Social Foundations of the Institutional Change and Its Economic Effects, Economic Geography 82,1, pp.1–25.

Storper, M. and Manville, M. (2006) Behaviour, Preferences and Cities, Urban Studies July 2006.

Storper, M. and Lavinas, L., Mercado, A. (2005) Society, Community, and Development: a Tale of Two Regions, in Polenske, K. (ed) Geographies of Innovation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Storper, M. (2005) Society, Community and Economic Development, Studies in Comparative International Development 39,4 pp.30–57.

Storper, M. and Venables, A.J. (2004) Buzz:  Face-to-Face Contact and the Urban Economy, Journal of Economic Geography 4, pp351–370.

Storper, M. and Scott, A. (2003) Regions, Globalization, Development, Regional Studies 37, 6–7, pp.579–593.

Storper, M., Chen, Y., and De Paolis, F. (2002) Trade and the Location of Industries in the OECD and the European Union, Journal of Economic Geography 2, pp.73–107.

Storper, M. and Leamer, E. (2001) The Economic Geography of the Internet Age, Journal of International Business Studies 32,4: Fourth Quarter, pp.641–666, and as NBER Working Paper 8450 (Cambridge, MA, National Bureau of Economic Research).

Address: IEP-CSO; 10 rue de la Chaise; F-75007; Paris; France

Email:  772m.storper@lse.ac.uk