This is a follow-up by Vladimir Popov, to the blog post Two Cities.
Another perspective on whether to build a new city or not: in some papers land scarcity is seen as a factor that stimulates urbanization and industrialization. For instance, it is argued that “during the Song Dynasty, despite the fact that China lost a significant amount of arable land to invading nomads as its population peaked, China witnessed a higher urbanization level, more prosperous commerce and international trade, and an explosion of technical inventions and institutional innova...
ISET Economist Blog
A blog about economics in the South Caucasus.
May
31
May
23
This research paper by Tony Venables has some interesting implications for the South Caucasus:
Better integration with a resource-rich economy is extremely valuable for the resource-poor. Remote and land-locked developing countries have very limited export potential with the external world … Regional integration enables them to earn foreign exchange via their exports to the resource-rich partner. The benefits arise as the prices of these regionally traded goods are bid up, raising wages and creating a terms of trade gain for the resource poor ...
May
17
A new discussion paper by Jeffrey Frankel, via Economic Logic:
The large economies have each, in sequence, offered "models" that once seemed attractive to others but that eventually gave way to disillusionment. Small countries may have some answers. They are often better able to experiment with innovative policies and institutions and some of the results are worthy of emulation. This article gives an array of examples. Some of them come from small advanced countries: New Zealand's Inflation Targeting, Estonia's flat tax, Switze...
May
11
Another Friday – another post with interesting links on economics.
1. Let’s keep the tradition and start with a link from Michael Fuenfzig – property rights and internal migration in Russia. 2. Economics Blog tells us how austerity could be self-defeating. 3. For any Star War fans out there – was Death Star really worth all the fuss? 4. From The Atlantic – how being kidnapped by pirates is just something from game theory. 5. Noah Smith has an interesting post on the essence of financial crisis. 6. Again from Noah ...
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