Infrastructure and City Competitiveness in India

Do local improvements in infrastructure provision improve city competitiveness? What public finance mechanisms stimulate local infrastructure supply? And how do local efforts compare with national decisions of placing inter-regional trunk infrastructure? In this paper, we examine how the combination of local and national infrastructure supply improve city competitiveness, measured as the city’s share of national private investment. For the empirical analysis, we collect city-level data for India, and link private investment decisions to infrastructure provision. We find that a city’s proximity to international ports and highways connecting large domestic markets has the largest effect on its attractiveness for private investment. In comparison, the supply of local infrastructure services – such as municipal roads, street lighting, water supply, and drainage – enhance competitiveness, but their impacts are much smaller. Thus, while local efforts are important for competitiveness, they are less likely to be successful in cities distant from the country’s main trunk infrastructure. In terms of financing local infrastructure, we find that a city’s ability to raise its own source revenues by means of local taxes and user fees increases infrastructure supply, whereas as inter governmental transfers do not have statistically significant effects.urbanization, cities, India, infrastructure

Determinants of city growth in Brazil

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 agglomerations and estimate aspects of the demand and supply side, as well as a reduced form specification that describes city sizes and their growth. Their main findings are that increases in rural population supply, improvements in interregional transport connectivity, and education attainment of the labor force have strong impacts on city growth. They also find that local crime and violence, measured by homicide rates, impinge on growth. In contrast, a higher share of private sector industrial capital in the local economy stimulates growth. Using the residuals from the growth estimation, the authors also find that cities that better administer local land use and zoning laws have higher growth. Finally, their policy simulations show that diverting transport investments from large cities toward secondary cities does not provide significant gains in terms of national urban performance.Economic Theory&Research,City Development Strategies,Municipal Financial Management,Achieving Shared Growth,Economic Growth

Examining the growth patterns of Brazilian cities

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 agglomerations. Incomes are higher in larger agglomerations and in the South, but there is some indication of regional convergence with higher rates of income growth in poorer areas. In particular, agglomerations in the North and Central-West are growing faster than the more established urban centers in the South. Economic dynamics point to a process of increased diversification among larger cities, and greater specialization among medium-sized agglomerations. In bigger centers there is a trend toward deconcentration toward the periphery. The paper provides a simple analysis of correlates of labor supply, as measured by population growth and economic productivity, which is proxied by changes in per capita income.

Aspects of the rural-urban transformation of countries

This paper models the rural-urban spatial transformation that occurs with urbanization, as driven by economic and population growth. This transformation involves the agglomeration of populations into cities, with increasing numbers of cities and increasing populations of individual cities. The paper focuses on the forces that drive this transformation, how this transformation proceeds, and what are the potential traps and inefficiencies are that may inhibit it. We also examine the issue of evolving spatial inequality under urbanization, between the rural and urban sectors and potentially within the urban sector distinguishing true inequality, from observed inequality in nominal incomes and wages. Copyright 2005, Oxford University Press.

Urbanization and city growth: the role of institutions

This paper examines how urbanization is accommodated by increases in numbers and in sizes of cities. Political institutions play a key role. Estimation uses a worldwide data set on all metro areas over 100,000 from 1960 to 2000. The degree of democratization and technological advances strongly affect growth in both city numbers and individual city sizes. Effects on city sizes are heterogeneous. Technology improvements help bigger cities relative to smaller ones. Increasing democratization levels the playing field across the urban hierarchy, helping smaller cities. Given these opposing effects, the overall relative size distribution of cities worldwide is unchanged over the time period

Crop production and road connectivity in Sub-Saharan Africa : a spatial analysis

This study examines the relationship between transport infrastructure and agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa using new data obtained from geographic information systems (GIS). First, the authors analyze the impact of road connectivity on crop production and choice of technology. Second, they explore the impact of investments that reduce road travel times. Finally, they show how this type of analysis can be used to compare cost-benefit ratios for alternative road investments in terms of agricultural output per dollar invested. The authors find that agricultural production is highly correlated with proximity (as measured by travel time) to urban markets. Likewise, adoption of high-productive/high-input technology is negatively correlated with travel time to urban centers. There is therefore substantial scope for increasing agricultural production in Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in more remote areas. Total crop production relative to potential production is 45 percent for areas within four hours’ travel time from a city of 100,000 people. In contrast, it is just 5 percent for areas more than eight hours away. Low population densities and long travel times to urban centers sharply constrain production. Reducing transport costs and travel times to these areas would expand the feasible market size for these regions. Compared to West Africa, East Africa has lower population density, smaller local markets, lower road connectivity, and lower average crop production per unit area. Unlike in East Africa, reducing travel time does not significantly increase the adoption of high-input/high-yield technology in West Africa. This may be because West Africa already has a relatively well-connected road network.Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Crops&Crop Management Systems,Climate Change and Agriculture,Regional Economic Development,Economic Theory&Research