There is a wide consensus among international institutions and national governments in favor of compact (i.e. densely populated) cities as a way to improve the ecological performance of the transport system. Indeed, when both the intercity and intra-urban distributions of activities are given, a...

New economic geography (NEG) has proven to be very useful in dealing with a large number of issues. Yet, in this paper we do not discuss the canonical NEG models and their vast number of extensions. Rather, we provide an overview of recent developments in the NEG literature that build on the...

We study how political boundaries and fiscal competition interact with the labor and land markets to determine the economic structure and performance of metropolitan areas. Contrary to general belief, institutional fragmentation need not be welfare-decreasing, and commuting from the suburbs to...