What factors influence community participation in the delivery of urban services? In particular, does security of tenure enhance the probability of participation as it provides individuals with incentives to act collectively in pursuit of a common objective? And are collective efforts less...

How effective are public interventions in addressing significant regional disparities in formal manufacturing concentration in a developing economy? The authors examine the aggregate and sectoral geographic concentration of manufacturing industries for Indonesia, and estimate the impact of...

Strategies to help the one billion people worldwide who live in informal settlements have mainly focused on slum upgrading, sites and services programs, and tenure security. In contrast, there has been less attention on what enables slum dwellers to transition into the formal housing sector,...

The authors examine the determinants of Brazilian city growth between 1970 and 2000. They consider a model of a city that combines aspects of standard urban economics and the new economic geography literatures. For the empirical analysis, the authors construct a dataset of 123 Brazilian...

The share of urban population in Brazil increased from 58 to 80 percent between 1970 and 2000 and all net population growth over the next 30 years is predicted to be in cities. This paper explores population growth and its implications for economic dynamics and income generation among 123 urban...

The task of urban managers is to ensure the provision of basic urban services, such as water, waste removal, security, transport, and an environment conducive to economic activity, while maintaining fiscal sustainability of city operations. City managers in developing countries face increasing...

Citizen feedback is considered an effective means for improving the performance of public utilities. But how well does such information reflect the actual quality of service delivery? Do so-called scorecards or report cards measure public service delivery accurately, or do personal and community...

"New" economic geography theory, and the development of innovative methods of analysis have renewed interest in the location, and spatial concentration of economic activities. The authors examine the extent to which agglomeration economies contribute to economic productivity. They distinguish...

There are large and sustained differences in the economic performance of sub-national regions in most countries. The authors examine the economic structure and productivity in Southern Mexico and compare it with the rest of the country. The authors use firm level data from Mexican manufacturing...

An important infrastructure policy issue for rapidly growing cities in developing countries is how to raise fiscal revenues to finance basic services in a fair and efficient manner. This paper applies hedonic analysis that explicitly accounts for spatial spillovers to derive the value of...