Similar looking Lorenz Curves can imply very different income density functions and potentially lead to wrong policy implications regarding inequality. This paper derives a relation between a Lorenz Curve and the modality of its underlying income density: Given a parametric Lorenz Curve, it is...

The emergence and growth of cities are shaped by both geographical features and institutional factors. We are able to analyze their interplay at different levels of the urban hierarchy by exploiting a unique data set on cities in imperial China from 221 BCE to 1911 CE, a geographically diverse...

In this paper, we take a global view at air pollution looking at countries and cities worldwide. In doing so, we revisit the relationship between population density and air pollution, using i) a large panel of countries with data from 1960 to 2010, and ii) a unique and large sample of more than...