We summarize recent methods to study optimal spatial policies. We center the discussion on policies that implement the optimal distribution of population in the presence of spatial spillovers, spatial transfers to optimally tackle redistribution between rich and poor regions, and optimal...

We revisit the rationale for place-based policies using a canonical urban framework with agglomeration spillovers. We derive six main lessons. First, the spatial allocation is inefficient even when spillover elasticities are constant across regions. Second, under constant and positive spillover...

Nearly half of all transactions in the $5 trillion market for manufactured goods in the United States were intermediated by wholesalers in 2012, up from 32 percent in 1992. Seventy percent of this increase is due to the growth of "superstar" firms - the largest one percent of wholesalers....

Most economic activity occurs in cities. This creates a tension between local increasing returns, implied by the existence of cities, and aggregate constant returns, implied by balanced growth. To address this tension, we develop a theory of economic growth in an urban environment. We show that...

The received economic wisdom is that cities are too big and that public policy should limit their sizes. This wisdom assumes, unrealistically, that city sites are homogeneous, migration is unfettered, land is given freely to incoming migrants, and federal taxes are neutral. Should those...

Faster technological progress has long been considered a key potential benefit of agglomeration. Physical proximity to others may help inventors adopt new ideas in their work by increasing awareness about which new ideas exist and by enhancing understanding of the properties and usefulness of...

This paper studies the sources of agglomeration economies in cities. We begin by introducing a simple dynamic spatial equilibrium model that incorporates spillovers within and across industries, as well as city-size effects. The model generates a dynamic panel-data estimation equation. We...

Urban economies are often heavily reliant on a small number of dominant industries, leaving them vulnerable to negative industry-specific shocks. This paper analyzes the long-run impacts of one such event: the large, temporary, and industry-specific shock to the British cotton textile industry...

If one ranks cities by population, the rank of a city is inversely related to its size, a well-documented phenomenon known as Zipf's Law. Further, the growth rate of a city's population is uncorrelated with its size, another well-known characteristic known as Gibrat's Law. In this paper, I show...

We consider the distribution of economic activity within a country in light of three leading theories - increasing returns, random growth, and locational fundamentals. To do so, we examine the distribution of regional population in Japan from the Stone Age to the modern era. We also consider the...