Trade and Circuses: Explaining Urban Giants

Alberto F. Ades and Edward Glaeser

No 4715, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

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.

JEL-codes: O40 R10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1994-04
Note: EFG
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Published as Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 110, no. 1 (1995): 195-227.

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Working Paper: Trade and Circuses: Explaining Urban Giants (1993)
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