In this paper, we examine the determinants of Brazilian city growth between 1970 and 2000. We consider a model of a city, which combines aspects of standard urban economics and the new economic geography literatures. For the empirical analysis, we constructed a dataset of 123 Brazilian...

Bribes by firms in Indonesia arise principally from regulations --licenses and levies --imposed by local government officials. Regulations generate direct revenues (fees) plus indirect revenues in the form of bribes. The expected value of the latter is capitalized into lower salaries needed by...

Using extensive data on 1970 and 1987 urban characteristics, the paper analyzes changes in employment in specific manufacturing industries in cities between 1970 and 1987. Two sets of questions are the focus. First, what present or past characteristics of a city's economic environment are...

We investigate the effects of the recently constructed Chinese national highway system on local economic outcomes. On average, roads that improve access to local markets have small or negative effects on prefecture economic activity and population. However, these averages mask a distinct pattern...

We study the distribution of economic activity, as proxied by lights at night, across 250,000 grid cells of average area 560 square kilometers. We first document that nearly half of the variation can be explained by a parsimonious set of physical geography attributes. A full set of country...

This paper analyzes how different organizational structures between funding and implementing agencies affect the quality of aid delivered and social agendas pursued across neighboring villages in a set disaster context. We model the implied objective functions and trade-offs concerning aid...

This paper focuses on three interrelated questions on urbanization and the geography of development. First, although we herald cities with their industrial bases as “engines of growth,” does industrialization in fact drive urbanization? While such relationships appear in the data, the...