Urbanisation in China has long been held back by various restrictions on land and internal migration but has taken off since the 1990s, as these impediments started to be gradually relaxed. People have moved in large numbers to richer cities, where productivity is higher and has increased...

Modern (endogenous) growth theory tells us that knowledge is crucial for the sustained growth of high-income economies. Against this background, the paper provides a survey of theoretical and empirical findings highlighting the question of how geographically limited knowledge diffusion can help...

This paper emphasises the importance of the political-institutional dimension in the understanding of the spatial distribution of economic activity. We introduce the notion of Territorial Authority Scale, which refers to the degree of devolution (towards sub-national tiers of government)...

Productivity and wages tend to be higher in cities. This is typically explained by agglomeration economies, which increase the returns associated with urban locations. Competing arguments of specialization and diversity undergird these claims. Empirical research has long sought to confirm the...

This paper develops a model for analysing problems related to centralisation and decentralisation. The model is of the new economic geography type, in which there are agglomeration gains in cities but not in rural areas. These gains are counteracted by residential preferences. We show that, even...

This paper estimates agglomeration benefits across five OECD countries, and represents the first empirical analysis that combines evidence on agglomeration benefits and the productivity impact of metropolitan governance structures, while taking into account the potential sorting of individuals...

In estimating agglomeration benefits across five OECD countries, this paper represents the first empirical analysis that contrasts cross-country evidence on agglomeration benefits with the productivity impact of metropolitan governance structures, while taking into account the potential sorting...

This article introduces a social planner version of a model central to the New Economic Geography for explicitly answering whether the symmetric equilibrium outcome of the decentralized market economy is socially desirable. We find that savings incentives are too weak, resulting in an...

This paper estimates agglomeration benefits based on city productivity differentials across five OECD countries (Germany, Mexico, Spain, United Kingdom, and United States). It highlights the relationship between cities’ governmental fragmentation and productivity, and represents the first...

We identify negative spillovers exerted by large, successful manufacturing plants on other local production facilities in China. A short-lived alliance between the U.S.S.R. and China led to the construction of 150 "Million-Rouble plants" in the 1950s. Our identification strategy exploits the...