Essays on Development and Urban Economics

发展与城市经济学论文集

• 批准号: 2480056
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: London School of Economics and Political Science
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2480056
• 关键词: Essays; Development; Urban; Economics

The past decades of unprecedented economic growth have led to an increased concentration of economic activity, opportunities and people in cities and urban areas worldwide. While world population has increased by more than 150% since 1960, the share of people living in cities and urban areas has risen from 34% to 55% in the same time period, with the UN projecting that this share will increase to over 68% by 2050. This growth has put incredible pressures on urban areas and created new challenges for policymakers. Among these, two that are particularly crucial are how cities can deal with the congestions caused by urban sprawling and how they can integrate all their inhabitants in such a way that everyone can benefit from the gains of agglomeration economies. One of the most common tools policymakers have to deal with these challenges is the construction of mass-transport systems such as subways and bus rapid transit (BRT) systems. However, the design and construction of such systems usually take a long time and are very expensive and complex. High-quality evidence to guide such efforts is currently almost non-existent. The evaluation of the impact of mass-transport systems is very difficult due to several reasons. First, as the location of these systems is not randomly selected, simply comparing areas with and without access to the system would be erroneous, as these areas could be inherently different and thus not directly comparable. Second, it is likely that such large-scale projects have an effect on a wide-array of factors (which interact with each other in complex ways) across a whole city/area, making the analysis of separate factors in isolation difficult. Third, it is likely that the construction of mass-transport systems generates complex spillovers and externalities that are difficult to correctly take into account in any analysis.

过去几十年前所未有的经济增长导致经济活动、机会和人口越来越集中在世界各地的城市和城市地区。自1960年以来，世界人口增长了150%以上，而同期居住在城市和城市地区的人口比例从34%上升到55%，联合国预计到2050年这一比例将增加到68%以上。这种增长给城市地区带来了巨大的压力，也给政策制定者带来了新的挑战。其中，两个特别重要的问题是，城市如何应对城市扩张造成的混乱，以及如何整合所有居民，使每个人都能从聚集经济的收益中受益。决策者应对这些挑战的最常用工具之一是建设地铁和快速公交系统等大众交通系统。然而，这种系统的设计和建造通常需要很长时间，并且非常昂贵和复杂。目前几乎没有指导这种努力的高质量证据。由于几个原因，对大众运输系统的影响进行评估非常困难。首先，由于这些系统的位置不是随机选择的，简单地比较有和没有系统的地区将是错误的，因为这些地区可能本质上不同，因此不能直接比较。其次，这种大型项目可能会对整个城市/地区的各种因素（这些因素以复杂的方式相互作用）产生影响，因此难以孤立地分析单独的因素。第三，公共交通系统的建设可能会产生复杂的溢出效应和外部效应，在任何分析中都难以正确考虑。