Trade and Cities

Karayalcin, Cem ; Yilmazkuday, Hakan

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: AGGLOMERATION ECONOMIES;    AVERAGE TARIFF;    BENCHMARK;    BENCHMARKS;    CAPACITY BUILDING;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-6913
RP-ID  :  WPS6913

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Many developing countries displayremarkably high degrees of urban concentration that areincommensurate with their levels of urbanization. The costof excessively high levels of urban concentration can bevery high in terms of overpopulation, congestion, andproductivity growth. One strand of the theoreticalliterature suggests that such high levels of concentrationmay be the result of restrictive trade policies that triggerforces of agglomeration. Another strand of the literature,however, points out that trade liberalization itself mayexacerbate urban concentration by favoring the furthergrowth of those large urban centers that have better accessto international markets. The empirical basis for judgingthis question has been weak so far; in the existingliterature, trade policies are poorly measured (or are notmeasured, as when trade volumes are used spuriously). Here,new disaggregated tariff measures are used to empiricallytest the hypothesis. A treatment-and-control analysis ofpre- versus post-liberalization performance of the cities isalso employed in liberalizing and non-liberalizingcountries. It is found that (controlling for the largestcities that have ports and, thus, have better access toexternal markets) liberalizing trade leads to a reduction inurban concentration.