Month: August 2019

Cities of Workers, Children or Seniors? Age Structure and Economic Growth in a Global Cross-Section of Cities

2019, Development Economics, Remi Jedwab, Uncategorized

August 2019

Remi Jedwab, Daniel Pereira, and Mark Roberts

IIEP working paper 2019-13

Abstract: A large literature documents the positive influence of a city’s skill structure on its rate of economic growth. By contrast, the effect of a city’s age structure on its economic growth has been a hitherto largely neglected area of research. We hypothesize that cities with more working-age adults are likely to grow faster than cities with more children or seniors and set out the potential channels through which such differential growth may occur. Using data from a variety of historical and contemporary sources, we show that there exists marked variation in the age structure of the world’s largest cities, both across cities and over time. We then study how age structure affects economic growth for a global cross-section of mega-cities. Using various identification strategies, we find that mega-cities with higher dependency ratios – i.e. with more children and/or seniors per working-age adult – grow significantly slower. Such effects are particularly pronounced for cities with high shares of children. This result appears to be mainly driven by the direct negative effects of a higher dependency ratio on the size of the working-age population and the indirect effects on work hours and productivity for working age adults within a city.

JEL: R10; R11; R19; J11; J13; J14; O11; N30

Keywords: Urbanization; Cities; Age Structure; Dependency Ratios; Children; Ageing; Demographic Cycles; Agglomeration Effects; Human Capital; Growth; Development

Divorce among European and Mexican Immigrants in the U.S

2019, Barry Chiswick, Development Economics, Ultra Poverty, Working Papers

August 2019

Barry Chiswick and Christina Houseworth

IIEP working paper 2019-12

Abstract: This paper analyzes the status of being currently divorced among European and Mexican immigrants in the U.S., among themselves and in comparison to the native born of the same ancestries. The data are for males and females age 18 to 55, who married only once, in the 2010-2014 American Community Surveys.

Among immigrants, better job opportunities, measured by educational attainment, English proficiency and a longer duration in the U.S. are associated with a higher probability of being divorced. Those who married prior to migration and who first married at an older age are less likely to be divorced. Those who live in states with a higher divorce rate are more likely to be divorced. Thus, currently being divorced among immigrants is more likely for those who are better positioned in the labor market, less closely connected to their ethnic origins, and among Mexican immigrants who live in an environment in which divorce is more prevalent.

Key Words: Marriage, Divorce, Minorities, Immigrants, Gender, Human Capital

JEL Codes: J12, J15, J16, J24

12th Annual Conference on China’s Economic Development and U.S.-China Relations

Chao Wei, Past Events, Research Conference, U.S.-China Economic Relations Events

Friday, November 8th, 2019

Lindner Family Commons, 6th Floor

Elliott School for International Affairs

1957 E Street, NW Washington DC 20052

Schedule of Events

08:15-08:50:  Coffee and Registration

08:50-09:00:  Welcoming Remarks: James Foster (IIEP Director, GWU)

09:00-09:45: Keynote:

Daniel Xu (Duke University): “Fiscal Policies and Firm Investment in China”

09:45-10:45: The Political Economy of Protests

Moderator: Bruce Dickson (GWU)

David Yang (Harvard University): “Persistent Political Engagement: Social Interactions and the Dynamics of Protest Movements”

Davin Chor (Dartmouth College): “The Political Economy Consequences of China’s Export Slowdown”. Chor’s work is available here.

10:45-11:15: Coffee Break

11:15-12:15: Capital Market Liberalization and Industrial Policy

Moderator: Chao Wei (GWU)

John Rogers (Federal Reserve Board): “The Effect of the China Connect”

Wenli Li (Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia): “Demographic Aging, Industrial Policy, and Chinese Economic Growth”. Li’s work is available here.

12:15-13:15: Lunch and Poster Session

13:15–14:30: Policy Keynotes:

Chad Bown (Peterson Institute for International Economics): “The U.S.-China trade relationship under the Trump administration”. Bown’s work is available here 

David Shambaugh (GWU): “Stresses and Strains in U.S.-China Relations: Origins, Consequences, and Outlook”

14:30-15:00: Coffee Break

15:00-16:00: Industrial Policy, Technology Transfer, and Financial Access

Moderator: Maggie Chen (GWU)

Jie Bai (Harvard University): “Quid Pro Quo, Knowledge Spillovers and Industrial Quality Upgrading”

Jing Cai (University of Maryland): “Direct and Indirect Effects of Financial Access on SMEs”

16:00-17:00: The Belt and Road Initiative

Moderator: Stephen Kaplan (GWU)

Jamie P. Horsley (Brookings Institution): “Belt & Road Governance Challenges and Developments”

Scott Morris (Center for Global Development): “Belt & Road’s Debt and Project Risks”

An archive of all previous Annual Conferences on China’s Economic Development and U.S.-China Economic Relations is available here.

For more information, please contact Kyle Renner at iiep@gwu.edu or 202-994-5320.

Cosponsored by:

South Africa: Rebuilding the Dream

Development Economics and Poverty Alleviation Events, Past Events, Stephen C. Smith

Monday, November 11th, 2019

2:00pm – 3:30pm

Lindner Family Commons, Room 602

Elliott School for International Affairs

1957 E Street, NW Washington DC 20052

Event Overview

Twenty-five years after the end of apartheid, South Africa’s economy is in crisis. Inequality in South Africa is the highest in the world; unemployment is on the rise; and economic growth (projected at 0.8 percent in 2019) has hovered precariously close to recession. In After Dawn: Hope After State Capture, former South African Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas, the man who first blew the whistle on corruption in the Zuma administration, offers a blunt assessment of the country’s economic woes and the failures of governance that caused it. He proposes a series of practical solutions to build a growing, job-creating economy that can begin to meet South African’s unfulfilled expectations of economic transformation.

Panelists 
 
Mcebisi Jonas, Author of After Dawn: Hope after State Capture and former Deputy Finance Minister of South Africa
Mcebisi Jonas is author of After Dawn: Hope after State Capture, and chairman designate of MTN, one of Africa’s largest techonology companies. He is the former Deputy Finance Minister of South Africa, a position he held from 2014 to 2016. In that position, he was an early whistle-blower in the “Gupta-Gate” state capture scandal, and was subsequently fired by President Jacob Zuma. He currently serves on President Cyril Ramphosa’s team of international trade and investment “ambassadors.” 
 
Stephen Smith, Professor of Economics and International Affairs and Chair, Department of Economics, GW
Stephen Smith’s work focuses on economic development, with a special focus on solutions to poverty. He also researches economic development strategies, developing country financing issues, and the economics of adaptation to climate change in low-income countries. He has also conducted extensive research on the economics of cooperatives, works councils, and codetermination. He is currently on sabbatical at the UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti, in Florence, Italy, where he is a UNICEF Senior Fellow.
 
Yusuf Shahid, Chief Economist, The Growth Dialogue
Shahid Yusuf is Chief Economist of the Growth Dialogue. Dr. Yusuf brings many decades of economic development experience to the Dialogue, having been intensively involved with the growth policies of many of the most successful East Asian economies during key periods of their histories. He has written extensively on development issues, with a special focus on East Asia and has also published widely in various academic journals. He has authored or edited 24 books on industrial and urban development, innovation systems and tertiary education.
 
Moderated by Jennifer Cooke, Director of the Institute for African Studies
Jennifer Cooke is formerly the director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where she led research and analysis on political, economic, and security dynamics in Africa. She is a frequent writer and lecturer on U.S.-Africa policy and provides briefings, testimony, and policy recommendations to U.S. policymakers, the U.S. Congress, and the U.S. military. 

This event is co-sponosored by the Institute for African Studies. 

The Venezuelan Migration Crisis: its Human and Economic Faces

Global Economic Governance Events, Past Events

Wednesday, November 13, 2019
5:30 p.m.- 7:00 p.m.* 
Linder Family Commons, Room 602
Elliot School of International Affairs
1957 E St NW, Washington, DC 20052

With a repressive regime and a collapsing economy driving millions of people out of Venezuela, the hemisphere is faced with the ramifications of this massive exodus. The tragic impact on the lives of Venezuelans living as refugees and migrants combined with the economic costs for the receiving countries makes this a crisis that is screaming for greater attention. This panel will examine these two different, yet overlapping, components by looking at the economic and human faces of this migration crisis. This discussion will be led by the following speakers:
 
Moderator/Commentator: Marie Price, Professor of Geography and International Affairs, George Washington University (GWU)
Oscar Valencia, Lead Specialist at the Fiscal Management Division of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB)
Francisco Quintana, Director of the Venezuelan Human Mobility Program and the Andean, North-American and Caribbean Region of the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL)

This event is co-sponosored by the Latin American & Hemispheric Studies Program (LAHSP), the Institute for International Economic Policy (IIEP at GWU), the International Development Studies Program (IDS), and LATAM@GW.

How Should We Measure City Size? Theory and Evidence Within and Across Rich and Poor Countries

2019, Anthony Yezer, Anthony Yezer, Development Economics and Poverty Alleviation Events, Remi Jedwab, Working Papers

August 2019

Remi Jedwab, Prakash Loungani, and Anthony Yezer

IIEP working paper 2019-11

Abstract: It is obvious that holding city population constant, differences in cities across the world are enormous. Urban giants in poor countries are not large using measures such as land area, interior space or value of output. These differences are easily reconciled mathematically as population is the product of land area, structure space per unit land (i.e., heights), and population per unit interior space (i.e., crowding). The first two are far larger in the cities of developed countries while the latter is larger for the cities of developing countries. In order to study sources of diversity among cities with similar population, we construct a version of the standard urban model (SUM) that yields the prediction that the elasticity of city size with respect to income could be similar within both developing countries and developed countries. However, differences in income and urban technology can explain the physical differences between the cities of developed countries and developing countries. Second, using a variety of newly merged data sets, the predictions of the SUM for similarities and differences of cities in developed and developing countries are tested. The findings suggest that population is a sufficient statistic to characterize city differences among cities within the same country, not across countries.

JEL Codes: R13; R14; R31; R41; R42; O18; O2; O33

Keywords: Urbanization; Cities; Urban Giants; Population; Standard Urban Model; Measurement; Urban Technology; Building Heights; Sprawl; Housing; Transportation

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