Klaus Desmet

The Stability and Breakup of Nations: A Quantitative Analysis

This paper quantitatively analyzes the stability and breakup of nations. The tradeoff between increasing returns in the provision of public goods and the costs of greater cultural heterogeneity mediates agents’ preferences over different geographical configurations, thus determining the likelihood of secessions and unions. After calibrating the model to Europe, we identify the regions prone to secession and the countries most likely to merge. We then estimate the implied monetary gains from EU membership. As a test of the theory, we show that the model can account for the breakup of Yugoslavia and the dynamics of its disintegration. We find that economic differences between the Yugoslav republics determined the order of disintegration, but cultural differences, though small, were key to the country’s instability. The paper also provides empirical support for the use of genetic distances as a proxy for cultural heterogeneity.

Urban Accounting and Welfare

This paper proposes a simple theory of a system of cities that decomposes the determinants of the city size distribution into three main components: efficiency, amenities, and frictions. Higher efficiency and better amenities lead to larger cities, but also to greater frictions through congestion and other negative effects of agglomeration. Using data on MSAs in the United States, we parametrize the model and empirically estimate efficiency, amenities and frictions. Counterfactual exercises show that all three characteristics are important in that eliminating any of them leads to large population reallocations, though the welfare effects from these reallocations are small. Overall, we find that the gains from worker mobility across cities are modest. When allowing for externalities, we find an important city selection effect: eliminating differences in any of the city characteristics causes many cities to exit. We apply the same methodology to Chinese cities and find welfare effects that are many times larger than in the U.S.

BIGGER IS BETTER: MARKET SIZE, DEMAND ELASTICITY, AND INNOVATION*

This article proposes a novel mechanism whereby larger markets increase competition and facilitate process innovation. Larger markets, in the sense of more people or more open trade, support a larger variety of goods, resulting in a more crowded product space. This raises the price elasticity of demand and lowers markups. Firms, therefore, become larger to break even. This facilitates process innovation, as larger firms can amortize R&D costs over more goods. We demonstrate this mechanism in a standard model of process and product innovation. In doing so, we question some important results in the new trade and endogenous growth literatures.

On Spatial dynamics

It has long been recognized that the forces that lead to the agglomeration of economic activity and to aggregate growth are similar. Unfortunately, few formal frameworks have been advanced to explore this link. We critically discuss the literature and present a simple framework that can circumvent some of the main obstacles we identify. We discuss the main characteristics of an equilibrium allocation in this dynamic spatial framework, present a numerical example to illustrate the forces at work, and provide some supporting empirical evidence.

The settlement of the United States, 1800 to 2000: the long transition towards Gibrat's law

This paper studies the long run development of U.S. counties and metro areas from 1800 to 2000. In earlier periods smaller counties converge whereas larger counties diverge. Over time, due to changes in the age composition of locations and net congestion, convergence dissipates and divergence weakens. Gibrats law emerges gradually without fully attaining it. Our findings suggest that orthogonal growth is a consequence of reaching a steady state population distribution, rather than an explanation of that distribution. A simple one-sector model, with entry of new locations, a growth friction, and decreasing net congestion closely matches these and related dynamics.

A Simple Dynamic Model of Uneven Development and Overtaking

This paper extends the Brezis, Krugman and Tsiddon (1993) Ricardian leapfrogging model, allowing for a wider variety of development patterns. In a two-region two-sector economy localized leaming-by-doing causes specialization and uneven development. Technological change reverses the existing development pattern if the new technology locates in the lowwage region. However, in contrast to Brezis et al., the development pattern may also get reinforced if spillovers between the old and the new technology make the leading region a more attractive location. The results are not affected by including capital and extending the model to a two-factor Heckscher-Ohlin framework.

Nation Formation and Genetic Diversity

This paper presents a model of nation formation in which culturally heterogeneous agents vote on the optimal level of public spending. Larger nations benefit from increasing returns in the provision of public goods, but bear the costs of greater cultural heterogeneity. This tradeoff induces agents? preferences over different geographical configurations, thus determining the likelihood of secession and unification. We provide empirical support for choosing genetic distances as a proxy of cultural heterogeneity. By using data on genetic distances, we examine the stability of the current map of Europe and identify the regions prone to secession and the countries that are more likely to merge. Our framework is further applied to estimate the welfare gains from European Union membership.

Accounting for the Mexican banking crisis

Abstract The Mexican banking crisis of 1994–1995 has widely been interpreted as the victim of the balance-of-payments crisis, rather than its cause. After all, Mexican banks had been enjoying high capitalization ratios, deemed to be more than sufficient to deal with the increased risk of non-performing loans. This paper, however, suggests that to a large extent Mexican accounting practices — rather than sound principles — were responsible for the apparent good health of the banking system. The role of banks in causing the Mexican crisis may therefore have been greater than previously thought.

A perfect foresight model of regional development and skill specialization

A perfect foresight model of a two-region two-sector economy with a continuum of overlapping agents is developed, where there are positive externalities in the acquisition of manufacturing skills. These externalities cause specialization, and over time the economy gets divided into a rich manufacturing region and a poor agricultural region. The introduction of a new manufacturing technology either reinforces or reverses this development pattern. Wealth differences are reinforced if, in spite of higher wages, the new technology locates in the advanced region, attracted by skills similar to the needs of the new industry. Otherwise the new technology locates where wages are lower, in which case the lagging region overtakes the leading one. History alone determines the outcome in this economy; there is no role for self-fulfilling expectations.

The Geography of Development Within Countries

This chapter describes how the spatial distribution of economic activity changes as economies develop and grow. We start with the relation between development and rural-urban migration. Moving beyond the coarse rural-urban distinction, we then focus on the continuum of locations in an economy and describe how the patterns of convergence and divergence change with development. As we discuss, these spatial dynamics often mask important differences across sectors. We then turn our attention to the right tail of the distribution, the urban sector. We analyze how the urban hierarchy has changed over time in developed countries and more recently in developing countries. The chapter reviews both the empirical evidence and the theoretical models that can account for what we observe in the data. When discussing the stylized facts on geography and development, we draw on empirical evidence from both the historical evolution of todays developed economies and comparisons between todays developed and developing economies.