Urbanization and Growth
Edited by Michael Spence, Patricia Clarke Annez,
and Robert M. Buckley
Contributions by
Michael Spence
Patricia Clarke Annez and Robert M. Buckley
Richard Arnott
Gilles Duranton
Dwight M. Jaffee
Sukkoo Kim
John M. Quigley
Anthony J. Venables
COMMISSION ON GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT

 

Contents
Preface ix
Workshop Participants xvii
Chapter Summaries xix
About the Editors and Contributors xxiii
Acknowledgments xxvii
Abbreviations xxix
1 Urbanization and Growth: Setting the Context 1
Patricia Clarke Annez and Robert M. Buckley
2 Rethinking Economic Growth in a Globalizing
World: An Economic Geography Lens 47
Anthony J. Venables
3 Are Cities Engines of Growth and Prosperity
for Developing Countries? 67
Gilles Duranton
4 Urbanization, Agglomeration, and Economic
Development 115

5 Spatial Inequality and Economic Development:
Theories, Facts, and Policies 133
Sukkoo Kim
6 Housing Policy in Developing Countries:
The Importance of the Informal Economy 167
Richard Arnott
7 The U.S. Subprime Mortgage Crisis:
Issues Raised and Lessons Learned 197

 

Preface

The Commission on Growth and Development was established in April
2006 as a response to two insights: we do not talk about growth enough,
and when we do, we speak with too much confi dence. Too often, people
overlook economic growth when thinking about how to tackle the world’s
most pressing problems, such as poverty, illiteracy, income inequality,
unemployment, and pollution. At the same time, our understanding of economic
growth is less defi nitive than commonly thought—even though
advice is often given to developing countries with great confi dence. Consequently,
the Commission’s mandate is to “take stock of the state of theoretical
and empirical knowledge on economic growth with a view to drawing
implications for policy for the current and next generation of policy
makers.”
To help assess the state of knowledge, the Commission invited leading
academics and policy makers from around the world to a series of 12 workshops,
held in 2007 and 2008 in Washington, D.C., New York, and New
Haven, and commissioned a series of thematic papers. These papers
reviewed areas such as monetary and fi scal policy, climate change, inequality,
growth, and urbanization—the subject of this volume. In addition, 25
case studies were commissioned to explore the dynamics of growth in specifi
c countries. Each presentation benefi ted from comments by members of
the Commission and other workshop participants from the worlds of policy,
theory, and practice.