We discuss regional disparities in economic performance and living standards. We first set out some key facts, and provide a conceptual framework to help analyze whether such disparities are efficient, or instead reflect market and/or policy failures. We examine whether policy attempts to reduce...

We provide empirical evidence of the dynamics of city size distribution for the whole of the twentieth century in U.S. cities and metropolitan areas. We focus our analysis on the new cities that were created during the period of analysis. The main contribution of this paper, therefore, is the...

This paper explores the transmission of non-capital shocks through banking networks. We develop a methodology to construct non-capital (idiosyncratic) shocks, using labor productivity shocks to large firms. We document a change in the relationship between foreign idiosyncratic shocks and...

This paper explores the transmission of non-capital shocks through banking networks. We develop a methodology to construct non-capital (idiosyncratic) shocks, using labor productivity shocks to large firms. We document a change in the relationship between foreign idiosyncratic shocks and...

The paper provides historical perspectives on spatial economic inequalities in Brazil making use of a database on Brazilian municipalities from 1872 to 2000. A suit of maps and graphs describe the geographic factors shaping the historical development of the Brazilian economy highlighting the...

This paper summarizes and expands the state-of-the-art understanding of the urbanization, development, environment, and inequality nexus. Economic growth/development, urbanization, and energy/electricity consumption are all highly correlated. While urbanization may be more evidence of economic...

The purpose of the current paper is to analyze the impact of regional potentials on the process of growth. How are different types of regions (e.g. medium sized [city] regions, rural regions, urban regions or metropolitan and high-tech cluster regions) affected by improved performance, and to...

This paper analyses the different factors that explain the pattern of economic growth in Spain along the last two decades, where has stood out the rapid growth of per capita income, capital accumulation and creation of employment. However, the most important structural phenomenon of the strong...

Since 1980, economic growth in the U.S. has been fastest in its largest cities. We show that a group of skill- and information-intensive service industries are responsible for all of this new urban bias in recent growth. We then propose a simple explanation centered around the interaction of...

The Black Death killed 40% of Europe's population between 1347-1352, making it one of the largest shocks in the history of mankind. Despite its historical importance, little is known about its spatial effects and the effects of pandemics more generally. Using a novel dataset that provides...