Today, 370 million people live in cities in earthquake prone areas and 310 million in cities with high probability of tropical cyclones. By 2050, these numbers are likely to more than double. Mortality risk therefore is highly concentrated in many of the world’s cities and economic risk even...

Economic geography has become a mantra for many economists, geographers, and regional scientists. Previous studies have tested the importance of economic geography for production activities and found a significant association between them. Most of these studies, however, have not taken into...

There are large and sustained differences in the economic performance of sub-national regions in most countries. The authors examine the economic structure and productivity in Southern Mexico and compare it with the rest of the country. The authors use firm level data from Mexican manufacturing...

The authors analyze the determinants of firm productivity in a group of Mexican firms. In particular, they test the contribution of external factors such as trade and knowledge diffusion, the availability of infrastructure, informal knowledge exchange, competitive environment, and business...

How can policies improve the welfare of people in economically lagging regions of countries? Should policies help jobs follow people? Or should they enable people to follow jobs? In most countries, market forces have encouraged the geographic concentration of people and economic activities -...

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....

Unemployment rates for tertiary-educated youth in Jordan are high, as is the duration of unemployment. Two randomized experiments in Jordan were used to test different theories that may explain this phenomenon. The first experiment tested the role of search and matching frictions by providing...

This paper analyzes the dynamic nature of rainfall insurance purchasing decisions, specifically looking at whether and why receiving an insurance payout induces a greater chance of purchasing insurance again the next year. This analysis uses customer data from the Indian micro-finance...

Trade liberalizations have been shown to improve domestic firms'performance through the new varieties of imported intermediate inputs. This paper uses a unique, representative sample of Bangladeshi garment firms to highlight that local intermediate inputs may also enhance domestic...

This paper develops a dynamic model that explains the pattern of population and production allocation in an economy with an urban location and a rural one. Agglomeration economies make urban dwellers benefit from a larger population living in the city and urban firms become more productive when...