IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fth/harver/1646.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Trade and Circuses: Explaining Urban Giants

Author

Listed:
  • Glaeser, E.L.
  • Ades, A.F.

Abstract

Using theory, case studies, and cross-country evidence, we investigate the factors behind the concentration of a nation's urban population in a single city. High tariffs, high costs of internal trade, and low levels of international trade increase the degree of concentration. Even more clearly, politics (such as the degree of instability) determines urban primacy. Dictatorships have central cities that are, on average, 50 percent larger than their democratic counterparts. Using information about the timing of city growth, and a series of instruments, we conclude that the predominant causality is from political factors to urban concentration, not from concentration to political change.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Glaeser, E.L. & Ades, A.F., 1993. "Trade and Circuses: Explaining Urban Giants," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1646, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:fth:harver:1646
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Krugman, Paul & Elizondo, Raul Livas, 1996. "Trade policy and the Third World metropolis," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 137-150, April.
    2. Krugman, Paul, 1991. "Increasing Returns and Economic Geography," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(3), pages 483-499, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. The Economics of Skyscraper Height (Part II)
      by Jason Barr in Skynomics Blog on 2019-01-03 13:59:59

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rebecca Menes, 1999. "The Effect of Patronage Politics on City Government in American Cities, 1900-1910," NBER Working Papers 6975, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Alberto Alesina & Enrico Spolaore, 1997. "On the Number and Size of Nations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1027-1056.
    3. Zheng, Wei & Walsh, Patrick Paul, 2019. "Economic growth, urbanization and energy consumption — A provincial level analysis of China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 153-162.
    4. Paul Krugman, 1996. "Urban Concentration: The Role of Increasing Returns and Transport Costs," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 19(1-2), pages 5-30, April.
    5. Martijn J. Smit, 2017. "Cross-border agglomeration benefits," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 10(3), pages 375-383, October.
    6. Wei Zheng & Patrick Paul Walsh, 2018. "Economic growth, urbanization and energy consumption," Working Papers 201817, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    7. Alberto F. Ades & Edward L. Glaeser, 1994. "Evidence on Growth, Increasing Returns and the Extent of the Market," NBER Working Papers 4714, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Tsekeris, Theodore, 2016. "Interregional trade network analysis for road freight transport in Greece," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 132-148.
    9. Krugman, Paul & Elizondo, Raul Livas, 1996. "Trade policy and the Third World metropolis," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 137-150, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Behrens, Kristian & Gaigne, Carl & Ottaviano, Gianmarco I.P. & Thisse, Jacques-Francois, 2007. "Countries, regions and trade: On the welfare impacts of economic integration," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(5), pages 1277-1301, July.
    2. Alberto Díaz Dapena & Esteban Fernández Vázquez & Rafael Garduño Rivera & Fernando Rubiera Morollón, 2015. "Does Trade Imply Convergence? Analyzing The Effect of NAFTA on The Local Convergence in Mexico," Working Papers DTE 591, CIDE, División de Economía.
    3. Frederick van der Ploeg & Steven Poelhekke, 2008. "Globalization and the rise of mega-cities in the developing world," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 1(3), pages 477-501.
    4. Toshihiro Atsumi, 2017. "Agglomeration under money illusion," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(4), pages 2962-2969.
    5. Alberto Franco Pozzolo, 2004. "Research and Development, Regional Spillovers and the Location of Economic Activities," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 72(4), pages 463-482, July.
    6. Crozet, Matthieu & Koenig Soubeyran, Pamina, 2004. "EU enlargement and the internal geography of countries," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 265-279, June.
    7. Hans-Friedrich Eckey & Reinhold Kosfeld & Matthias Türck, 2007. "Regionale Entwicklung mit und ohne räumliche Spillover-Effekte," Review of Regional Research: Jahrbuch für Regionalwissenschaft, Springer;Gesellschaft für Regionalforschung (GfR), vol. 27(1), pages 23-42, February.
    8. Ikeda, Kiyohiro & Onda, Mikihisa & Takayama, Yuki, 2018. "Spatial period doubling, invariant pattern, and break point in economic agglomeration in two dimensions," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 129-152.
    9. Kristian Behrens & W. Mark Brown & Théophile Bougna, 2018. "The World Is Not Yet Flat: Transport Costs Matter!," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(4), pages 712-724, October.
    10. Vitor Joao Pereira Domingues Martinho, 2011. "Agglomeration and Interregional Mobility of Labor in Portugal," Papers 1110.5534, arXiv.org.
    11. Paluzie i Hernandez, Elisenda, 1999. "Trade policy and regional inequalities," ERSA conference papers ersa99pa231, European Regional Science Association.
    12. Andres Rodriguez-Pose & Javier Sánchez-Reaza, 2003. "Economic Polarization Through Trade: Trade Liberalization and Regional Growth in Mexico," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2003-60, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    13. Lessmann, Christian & Seidel, André, 2017. "Regional inequality, convergence, and its determinants – A view from outer space," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 110-132.
    14. Pflüger, Michael & Tabuchi, Takatoshi, 2010. "The size of regions with land use for production," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 481-489, November.
    15. Fabien Candau, 2011. "Is Agglomeration Desirable?," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 101-102, pages 203-227.
    16. Minoru Tabata & Nobuoki Eshima, 2023. "Approximation of a Continuous Core-periphery Model by Core-periphery Models with a Large Number of Small Regions," Networks and Spatial Economics, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 223-283, March.
    17. Anthony J. Venables, 2005. "Spatial disparities in developing countries: cities, regions, and international trade," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 5(1), pages 3-21, January.
    18. Marius Brülhart & Matthieu Crozet & Pamina Koenig, 2004. "Enlargement and the EU Periphery: The Impact of Changing Market Potential," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(6), pages 853-875, June.
    19. Paul Krugman, 1999. "The Role of Geography in Development," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 22(2), pages 142-161, August.
    20. Takahashi, Takaaki, 2022. "On the economic geography of an aging society," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    economic growth ; cities;

    JEL classification:

    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General
    • R10 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fth:harver:1646. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Thomas Krichel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ieharus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.