What Makes Cities More Productive? Evidence on the Role of Urban Governance from Five OECD Countries

Abstract

This series is designed to make available to a wider readership selected studies on regional development issues prepared for use within the OECD. Authorship is usually collective, but principal authors are named. The papers are generally available only in their original language English or French with a summary in the other if available.OECD Working Papers should not be reported as representing the official views of the OECD or of its member countries. The opinions expressed and arguments employed are those of the author(s).This document has been produced with the financial assistance of the European Union. The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Union.

Urbanization, cities and economic growth: trends, recent evidence and policy implications

“…Castells-Quintana (2017), for instance, shows that in countries with insufficiently developed urban infrastructure, urban concentration is growth inhibiting instead of growth promoting. Other authors (Ahrend et al, 2014;Frick and Rodriguez-Pose, forthcoming;Glaeser, 2014) highlight the importance of institutional capacity, in order to reduce negative externalities, which arise following rapid city growth. Cities of the same size thus do not necessarily have the same productivity inducing effect given that these factors differ city by city.…”

The OECD Metropolitan Governance Survey

“…Исключением является об-зор 2014 года, подготовленный ОЭСР [1], который, согласно их оценкам, является первым трудом по оценке влияния институциональных факторов на производительность тру-да. Среди институциональных факторов нас интересует в первую очередь модель управ-ления ГА.…”

“…ОЭСР [1] Рост численности населения города в два раза приводит к росту производительности труда на 2-5%.…”

Metropolitan Governance of Transport and Land Use in Chicago

“…Metropolitan fragmentation can hinder the smooth movement of people and goods over the metropolitan areas and thus hinders growth. For a given population size, a metropolitan area with twice the number of municipalities is associated with around six per cent lower productivity, an effect that is mitigated by almost half by the existence of a governance body at the metropolitan level (Ahrend et al 2014). This case study of Chicago forms part of an OECD project on Urban Trends and Governance, together with five other case studies that focus on metropolitan transport and land use governance.…”