Essays on Development and 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.