This paper investigates China's influence on local economic development in 37 African countries between 1997 and 2007. The analysis compares the average changes in economic growth, migration, spatial inequality, and welfare for mineral-rich districts, pre- and post-accession, to the...

Although many studies consider the spatial pattern of manufacturing plants in developing countries, the role of services as a driver of urbanization and structural transformation is still not well understood. Using establishment level data from India, this paper helps narrow this gap by...

Despite its rapid growth in recent decades, GDP per capita in India remains at a relatively low level by international standards, and the country continues to be marked by large subnational disparities in levels of well-being. These large disparities naturally lead to interest in India?s spatial...

What are the socioeconomic impacts of resource abundance? Are these effects different at the national and local levels? How could resource booms benefit (or harm) local communities? This paper reviews a vast literature examining these questions, with an emphasis on empirical works. First, the...

In Localizing Development, Mansuri and Rao survey theory and evidence for development strategies based on local community empowerment. This note extends their theoretical argument by focusing on local government as a vital source of new leadership. Local leaders who provide better public service...

The differences in financial development across Indian states, while seeming substantial, have a minor effect on firm lifecycle and growth. These results hold controlling for differences in labor regulations across states, capital intensity, and for firms born before and after the major reforms....

This paper studies the impact of the rapid expansion of the Brazilian road network, which occurred from the 1960s to the 2000s, on the growth and spatial allocation of population and economic activity across the country's municipalities. It addresses the problem of endogeneity in infrastructure...

Nearly one billion people worldwide live in rural areas without access to the paved road network. This paper measures the impacts of India's $40 billion national rural road construction program using regression discontinuity and data covering every individual and firm in rural India. The main...

In this paper we develop a computable general equilibrium model of the regions of Russia to assess the impact of accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on the regions of Russia. We estimate that the average gain in welfare as a percentage of consumption for the whole country is 7.8...

Despite the increasing attention in recent years to the spatial dimensions of economic development, consideration of the importance of space and the recognition that macro, aspatial perspectives can prove to be misleading are not new. Around the world, much of the disappointment with the...