"Localities in developed countries often restrict construction and population growth through regulations governing land usage, lot sizes, building heights, and frontage requirements. In developing countries, such policies are less effective because of the existence of unregulated, informal...

GDP growth is often measured poorly for countries and rarely measured at all for cities. We propose a readily available proxy: satellite data on lights at night. Our statistical framework uses light growth to supplement existing income growth measures. The framework is applied to countries with...

Using three waves of survey data from fishing villages in Aceh, Indonesia for 2005-2009, we examine the determinants of local volunteer labor after the tsunami. Pre-existing social capital and the form of aid delivery (but not trauma) strongly affect village volunteerism initially, but these...

This paper quantifies the causal effects of various types of investments in the road and railroad networks on economic growth in Chinese cities and regions. We separate out the influences of changes in access to markets that have come through better inter-regional and international transport...