The New Science of Cities by Michael Batty: The Opinion of an Economist

2014 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 805-819 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacques-François Thisse

Cities are the cradle of a wide range of cultural, social, and technological innovations that are at the heart of modern economic growth and development. Half of humanity today lives in cities but, until the last two decades, economists have paid much less attention to cities than have other social scientists. By contrast, geographers have long studied the role of cities in human affairs. Michael Batty, a distinguished scholar in the field of human geography, has recently written The New Science of Cities, a synthesis of his work and of some other prominent urban geographers. A review of his book is the first objective of this essay. The second is to discuss and compare the tools and concepts developed by urban economists with those of urban geographers in the hope of triggering a fruitful debate between those two groups of social scientists. (JEL R10, R23, R30, R40, R58)

Investment in capital, both physical and financial, and innovation in its uses are often considered the linchpins of modern economic growth, while credit and credit markets now seem to determine the wealth—as well as the fate—of nations. This book asks whether it always thus, and whether the Roman economy—large, complex, and sophisticated as it was— looked anything like today’s economies in terms of its structural properties. Through consideration of the allocation and uses of capital and credit and the role of innovation in the Roman world, the contributors to this volume go to the heart of the matter. How was capital in its various forms generated, allocated, and employed in the Roman economy? Did the Romans have markets for capital goods and credit? Did investment in capital lead to innovation and productivity growth? The authors consider multiple aspects of capital use in agriculture, water management, trade, and urban production, and of credit provision, finance, and human capital in different periods of Roman history, in Italy and elsewhere in the Roman world. Using many different types of written and archaeological evidence, and employing a range of modern theoretical perspectives and methodologies, the contributors, an international team of historians and archaeologists, have produced the first book-length contribution to focus exclusively on (physical and financial) capital in the Roman world, a volume that is aimed at experts in the field as well as at economic historians and archaeologists specializing in other periods and places.


2018 ◽  
Vol 65 (01) ◽  
pp. 81-102
Author(s):  
OLUWOLE OWOYE ◽  
OLUGBENGA A. ONAFOWORA

This paper postulates that highly educated leaders matter in economic growth and development and that this is one of the fundamental causes of the differences in income between countries. To verify this assertion, we examine Central African Republic and Singapore within the neoclassical growth model that incorporates educational attainments of leaders as the functionally relevant explanatory variable. We found the mean years of schooling of educated leaders to be statistically and significantly different in both countries, but more importantly, educational attainments of leaders have a positive and statistically significant effect on economic growth in Singapore, but negative in Central African Republic.


Author(s):  
Domingos Santos ◽  
Nuno Caseiro

This chapter explores the relation between the concepts of entrepreneurial universities (EU) within the framework of Smart Specialization Strategies (S3). The latter is arising as a new competitive paradigm and universities can be of great importance for its successful implementation because of their contribution both as a partner institution, policy actor and producer of knowledge and social capital that can affect the potential for economic growth and development of regions. The links and contributions of both dimensions are presented and explored. As a final point, the concept of entrepreneurial ecosystem is presented as a consequence and future development of the dynamics resulting S3 and entrepreneurial universities interactions.


Author(s):  
Paul Erdkamp ◽  
Koenraad Verboven ◽  
Arjan Zuiderhoek

Investment in capital, both physical and financial, and innovation in its uses are often considered the linchpin of modern economic growth, while credit and credit markets now seem to determine the wealth—as well as the fate—of nations. Yet was it always thus? The Roman economy was large, complex, and sophisticated, but in terms of its structural properties, did it look anything like the economies we know today? Through consideration of the allocation and uses of capital and credit and the role of innovation in the Roman world, this volume explores how capital in its various forms was generated, allocated, and employed in the Roman economy; whether the Romans had markets for capital goods and credit; and whether investment in capital led to innovation and productivity growth.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 925-947 ◽  
Author(s):  
JUAN PABLO COUYOUMDJIAN ◽  
CRISTIÁN LARROULET

AbstractInstitutions matter for economic growth. Thus, the leaders who help to develop institutions, and their ideas and beliefs, must play a central role in any narrative that seeks to explain such growth. This leads to the appearance of institutional entrepreneurs, who act in a given cultural and political environment. We focus on the problem of state building, where formal institutions designed by leaders must be consistent with a given society's existing informal institutions. We consider an analytical narrative focusing on the Chilean experience in the 19thcentury. This serves as an interesting quasi-natural experiment on the role of ideas, leaders, and institutions in the problem of economic growth and development.


1975 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 446-472 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Manuel Peláez

This study analyzes the Brazilian experience as a case study in the role of banking in the early stages of economic growth and development.


2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 88-98
Author(s):  
Martaleni Martaleni ◽  
Ernani Hadiyati ◽  
Yussi Isna Pertiwi ◽  
Ni Nyoman Kerti Yasa

The tourism sector has become a truly global force for promoting economic growth and development. Therefore, the study of tourism has become an interesting topic for researchers lately. On the other hand, local tourism, generally in developing countries, is often neglected by academics and policymakers. For this reason, this study aims to examine and analyze the role of tourist motivation in mediating accessibility, amenities, and attractions on visiting decisions. This study is a survey research with an explanatory method. The population is tourists who visit the tourism village of Bumiaji, Indonesia, in the low and busy seasons. The population is infinite and the number of respondents who were interviewed is 100 respondents; data were collected by distributing questionnaires to domestic tourists who came from outside the tourist village of Bumiaji, then the data were processed and analyzed using Warp Partial Least Squares. The findings indicate that the effect of accessibility on visiting decisions is not mediated by tourist motivation. This shows that the decision of tourists to visit can be directly influenced by the time and means of transportation available. Meanwhile, the influence of amenities and attractions on the decision to visit is mediated by the motivation of tourists. This means that amenities and attractions can influence a tourist’s decision to visit if there is an urge from tourist to relax or make friends or enjoy the culture at tourist attractions, etc.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document