Trade and Circuses: Explaining Urban Giants / Alberto F. Ades, Edward L. Glaeser.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ades, Alberto F.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Glaeser, Edward L.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w4715.

NBER working paper series no. w4715

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Trade and Circuses

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1994.

Summary:

Using theory, case studies, and cross-country evidence, we investigate the factors behind the concentration of a nation's urban population in a single city. High tariffs, high costs of internal trade, and low levels of international trade increase the degree of concentration. Even more clearly, politics (such as the degree of instability) determines urban primacy. Dictatorships have central cities that are, on average, 50 percent larger than their democratic counterparts. Using information about the timing of city growth, and a series of instruments, we conclude that the predominant causality is from political factors to urban concentration, not from concentration to political change.

Notes:

Print version record

April 1994.