This paper develops a dynamic model that explains the pattern of population and production allocation in an economy with an urban location and a rural one. Agglomeration economies make urban dwellers benefit from a larger population living in the city and urban firms become more productive when...

We find a positive and strong correlation between financial development and subsequent city growth in the Northeastern United States between 1790 and 1870. The correlation is robust to controls for geographical characteristics of the city, the percentage of population working in different...

This paper shows that historical variables can explain a significant part of discretionary government spending across countries. We argue that these results provide evidence in favor of Besley and Persson’s (2009) hypothesis that institutional quality or state capacity is historically...

This paper studies the effect of the Spanish Reconquest, a military campaign that aimed to expel the Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula, on the population of its most important cities. The almost four centuries of Reconquest offer a “quasi-natural” experiment to study the persistence of...

Strong evidence indicates that in most countries cities tend to develop sequentially, with the initially largest cities growing first. This paper presents a model of city growth that rationalizes this pattern. Increasing returns to scale constitute the force that favors agglomeration of...

There is strong evidence showing that in most countries cities develop sequentially, with the initially largest cities being the first to grow. This paper presents a growth model of optimal city size that rationalizes this growth pattern. Increasing returns to scale is the force that favors...

There exists convincing evidence that democratic countries are less volatile. This conclusion is usually reached with respect to volatility as measured by the standard deviation of annual growth rates of per capita GDP which includes both low and high frequency fluctuations. However, recently...

There is much evidence that less democratic countries experience more high-frequency growth volatility. In this paper we report a similar finding about volatility in the medium term: we find evidence that reversals of trend-growth are sharper and more frequent in non-democracies. Motivated by...

This paper analyzes the process of Internet diffusion across the world using a panel of 199 countries during the time interval 1990-2004. We group countries in two categories, low and high income countries, and show that the Internet diffusion process is well characterized by an S-shape curve...

There is strong evidence showing that in most countries cities develop sequentially, with the initially largest city being the first to grow. This paper presents a growth model of optimal city size that rationalizes this particular growth pattern. Increasing returns to scale is the force that...