Results

Journal article

Journal of Economic Perspectives:

Urbanization in the developing world: Too early or too slow?

We describe patterns of urbanization in the developing world and the extent to which they differ from the developed world. We consider the extent to which urbanization in the developing world can be explained by conventi...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Urban Economics:

Does investment in national highways help or hurt hinterland city growth?

We investigate the effects of the recently constructed Chinese national highway system on local economic outcomes. On average, roads that improve access to local markets have small or negative effects on prefecture econo...Read more...

Journal article

Review of Economics and Statistics:

Roads, railroads, and decentralization of Chinese cities

We investigate how urban railroad and highway configurations have influenced urban form in Chinese cities since 1990. Each radial highway displaces 4% of central city population to surrounding regions, and ring roads dis...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Investing in roads

Between 1990 and 2010, China constructed an extensive modern road network, including a national system of limited access highways. Vernon Henderson and colleagues investigate the impact on the growth of Chinese cities an...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Highways, Market Access and Urban Growth in China

We investigate the effects of the construction of the national highway system in China on local economic outcomes. The analysis employs three main approaches. The first is based on a structural model of Ricardian trade t...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Subways and Urban Growth: Evidence from Earth

We investigate the relationship between the extent of a city’s subway network, its population and its spatial configuration. To accomplish this investigation, for the 632 largest cities in the world, we construct panel d...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Transportation costs and the spatial organization of economic activity

This paper surveys the theoretical and empirical literature on the relationship between the spatial distribution of economic activity and transportation costs. We develop a multi-region model of economic geography that w...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion: Evidence from US Cities

We investigate the relationship between interstate highways and highway vehicle kilometres travelled (VKT) in US cities. We find that VKT increases proportionately to highways and identify three important sources for thi...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Decomposing the Growth in Residential Land in the United States

This paper decomposes the growth in land occupied by residences in the United States to give the relative contributions of changing demographics versus increases in the land area used by individual households. Between 19...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Fat City: The Relationship Between Urban Sprawl and Obesity

We study the relationship between urban sprawl and obesity. Using data that tracks individuals over time, we find no evidence that urban sprawl causes obesity. We show that previous findings of a positive relationship mo...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Urban sprawl

New research by Henry Overman and colleagues provides a detailed picture of how land is used in US cities – and challenges conventional wisdom about urban sprawl....Read more...

Journal article

The Quarterly Journal of Economics:

Causes of sprawl: a portrait from space

We study the extent to which US urban development is sprawling and what determines differences in sprawl across space. Using remote-sensing data to track the evolution of land use on a grid of 8.7 billion 30 x 30 metre c...Read more...