China proposed the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013 to improve connectivity and cooperation on a transcontinental scale. This study, by a team of World Bank Group economists led by Michele Ruta, analyzes the economics of the initiative. It assesses the connectivity gaps between economies along...

This paper examines how cities and regions within countries are likely to adjust to trade openness and improved connectivity driven by large transport investments from China's Belt and Road Initiative. The paper presents a quantitative economic geography model alongside spatially detailed...

This paper provides the first systematic empirical assessment of the pace at which housing investment has responded to rising demand from urbanization. The assessment used national accounts statistics to build a data set of residential housing investment for more than 90 countries. The data set...

This paper illustrates how the capabilities of GIS and satellite imagery can be harnessed to explore and better understand the urban form of several large African cities (Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Kigali, Dar es Salaam, and Dakar). To allow for comparability across very diverse cities, this work...

Well-functioning cities reduce the economic distance between people and economic opportunities. Cities thrive because they enable matchmaking -- among people, among firms, and between people and job opportunities. This paper examines employment accessibility in Nairobi, Kenya and evaluates...