Berlin Workshop Series 2009 : Spatial Disparities and Development Policy

Kochendorfer-Lucius, Gudrun ; Pleskovic, Boris

World Bank

关键词: ABSOLUTE ADVANTAGE;    ABUSE;    AGRICULTURE;    ALLOCATION OF RESOURCES;    AVERAGE COSTS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/978-0-8213-7723-9
RP-ID  :  49319

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The Berlin workshop series 2009 presentsa selection of papers from meetings held on September30-October 2, 2007, at the tenth annual Berlin workshop,jointly organized by InWent-Capacity Building International,Germany, and the World Bank in preparation for the WorldBank's World Development Report (WDR) 2009. Theworkshop brings diverse perspectives from outside the WorldBank, providing a forum in which to exchange ideas andengage in debate relevant to development of the WDR. Thereport will accordingly have three parts, each describing,explaining, or drawing lessons from the spatialtransformations that have been observed in both developedand developing countries. The first section of the reportwill be factual and present the stylized facts on economicconcentration and welfare disparities, for both developingand developed countries, over the last two centuries. Thesecond part of the report will identify the main drivers ofthese changes, distilling the insights provided by theadvances in economic thought over the last two decades. Thethird section of the report will discuss the policyimplications, in essence identifying the public policypriorities that help countries to realize the immediateeconomic benefits of greater concentration and the socialand long-term economic benefits of moderate spatialdisparities. In essence, the report will emphasize thatneighborhoods are important for development. This is truefor cities, for regions, and for countries: it is difficultfor a city to prosper in the middle of a squalidcountryside, it is difficult for a province to prosperrapidly when other provinces in the country are squalid, andit is difficult for a country to prosper for long when thecountries around it are mired in squalor. The report willpropose that the solution for cities, regions, and countriesis to invest in neighborhoods. The principle is to deepenintegration and not to attempt isolation.