TY  - JOUR
AU  - Ades,Alberto F.
AU  - Glaeser,Edward L.
TI  - Trade and Circuses: Explaining Urban Giants
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 4715
PY  - 1994
Y2  - April 1994
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w4715
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w4715.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Alberto Ades
Goldman Sachs & Co.
85 Broad Street
25th Floor
New York, NY  10004
E-Mail: no email available

Edward L. Glaeser
Department of Economics
315A Littauer Center
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-0575
Fax: 617/495-7730
E-Mail: eglaeser@harvard.edu
AB  - Using theory, case studies, and cross-country evidence, we investigate the factors behind the concentration of a nation's urban population in a single city.  High tariffs, high costs of internal trade, and low levels of international trade increase the degree of concentration.  Even more clearly, politics (such as the degree of instability) determines urban primacy.  Dictatorships have central cities that are, on average, 50 percent larger than their democratic counterparts.  Using information about the timing of city growth, and a series of instruments, we conclude that the predominant causality is from political factors to urban concentration, not from concentration to political change.
ER  -