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220 million Americans crowd together in the 3% of the country that is urban. 35 million people live in the vast metropolis of Tokyo, the most productive urban area in the world. The central city of Mumbai alone has 12 million people, and Shanghai almost as many. We choose to live cheek by jowl, in a planet with vast amounts of space. Yet despite all of the land available to us, we choose to live in proximity to cities. Using economics to understand this phenomenon, the urban economist uses the tools of economic theory and empirical data to explain why cities exist and to analyze urban issues such as housing, education, crime, poverty and social interaction.
Drawing on the success of his Lindahl lectures, Edward Glaeser provides a rigorous account of his research and unique thinking on cities. Using a series of simple models and economic theory, Glaeser illustrates the primary features of urban economics including the concepts of spatial equilibrium and agglomeration economies. Written for a mathematically inclined audience with an interest in urban economics and cities, the book is written to be accessible to theorists and non-theorists alike and should provide a basis for further empirical work.

A compelling theory on the rationale for the changing fortunes of nations

This pithy and engaging volume shows that economists may be better equipped to predict the future than science fiction writers. Economists' ideas, based on both theory and practice, reflect their knowledge of the laws of human interactions as well as years of experimentation and reflection. Although perhaps not as screenplay-ready as a work of fiction, these economists' predictions are ready for their close-ups. In this book, ten prominent economists -- including Nobel laureates and several likely laureates -- offer their ideas about the world of the twenty-second century. In scenarios that range from the optimistic to the guardedly gloomy, these thinkers consider such topics as the transformation of work and wages, the continuing increase in inequality, the economic rise of China and India, the endlessly repeating cycle of crisis and (projected) recovery, the benefits of technology, the economic consequences of political extremism, and the long-range effects of climate change. For example, Daron Acemoglu offers a thoughtful discussion of how trends of the last century -- including uneven growth, technological integration, and resource scarcity -- might translate into the next; 2013 Nobelist Robert Shiller provides an innovative view of future risk management methods using information technology; 2012 Nobelist Alvin Roth projects his theory of Matching Markets into the next century, focusing on schools, jobs, marriage and family, and medicine; 1987 Nobelist Robert Solow considers the shift away from remunerated labor, among other subjects; and Martin Weitzman raises the intriguing but alarming possibility of using geoengineering techniques to mitigate the nevitable effects of climate change. In a 1930 essay mentioned by several contributors, "Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren," John Maynard Keynes offered predictions that, read today, range from absolutely correct to spectacularly wrong. This book follows in Keynes's path, hoping, perhaps, to better his average.

A revealing collection from the intellectual titan whose work shaped the modern world. As an economist and public intellectual, Gary S. Becker was a giant. The recipient of a Nobel Prize, a John Bates Clark Medal, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom, Becker is widely regarded as the greatest microeconomist in history. After forty years at the University of Chicago, Becker left a slew of unpublished writings that used an economic approach to human behavior, analyzing such topics as preference formation, rational indoctrination, income inequality, drugs and addiction, and the economics of family. These papers unveil the process and personality—direct, critical, curious—that made him a beloved figure in his field and beyond. The Economic Approach examines these extant works as a capstone to the Becker oeuvre—not because the works are perfect, but because they offer an illuminating, instructive glimpse into the machinations of an economist who wasn’t motivated by publications. Here, and throughout his works, an inquisitive spirit remains remarkable and forever resonant.

Not-for-profit organizations play a critical role in the American economy. In health care, education, culture, and religion, we trust not-for-profit firms to serve the interests of their donors, customers, employees, and society at large. We know that such firms don't try to maximize profits, but what do they maximize?
This book attempts to answer that question, assembling leading experts on the economics of the not-for-profit sector to examine the problems of the health care industry, art museums, universities, and even the medieval church. Contributors look at a number of different aspects of not-for-profit operations, from the problems of fundraising, endowments, and governance to specific issues like hospital advertising.
The picture that emerges is complex and surprising. In some cases, not-for-profit firms appear to work extremely well: competition for workers, customers, and donors leads not-for-profit organizations to function as efficiently as any for-profit firm. In other contexts, large endowments and weak governance allow elite workers to maximize their own interests, rather than those of their donors, customers, or society at large.
Taken together, these papers greatly advance our knowledge of the dynamics and operations of not-for-profit organizations, revealing the underexplored systems of pressures and challenges that shape their governance.

This volume explores how consumption and entertainment change cities, but it reverses the 'normal' causal process. That is, many chapters analyze how consumption and entertainment drive urban development, not vice versa. People both live and work in cities and where they choose to live shifts where and how they work. Amenities enter as enticements to bring new residents or tourists to a city and so amenities have thus become new public concerns for many cities in the U.S. and much of Northern Europe. Old ways of thinking, old paradigms - such as 'location, location, location' and 'land, labor, capital, and management generate economic development' - are too simple. So is 'human capital drives development'. To these earlier questions we add, 'How do amenities and related consumption attract talented people, who in turn drive the classic processes which make cities grow?' This new question is critical for policy makers, urban public officials, business, and non-profit leaders who are using culture, entertainment, and urban amenities to enhance their locations - for present and future residents, tourists, conventioneers, and shoppers. The City as an Entertainment Machine details the impacts of opera, used bookstores, brew pubs, bicycle events, Starbucks' coffee shops, gay residents, and other factors on changes in jobs, population, inventions, and more. It is the first study to assemble and analyze such amenities for national samples of cities (and counties). It interprets these processes by showing how they add new insights from economics, sociology, political science, public policy, and geography. Considerable evidence is presented about how consumption, amenities, and culture drive urban policy by encouraging people to move to or from different cities and regions.

When firms and people are located near each other in cities and in industrial clusters, they benefit in various ways, including by reducing the costs of exchanging goods and ideas. One might assume that these benefits would become less important as transportation and communication costs fall. Paradoxically, however, cities have become increasingly important, and even within cities industrial clusters remain vital.
"Agglomeration Economics" brings together a group of essays that examine the reasons why economic activity continues to cluster together despite the falling costs of moving goods and transmitting information. The studies cover a wide range of topics and approach the economics of agglomeration from different angles. Together they advance our understanding of agglomeration and its implications for a globalized world.

An incisive, unconventional assessment of general equilibrium theory; with a previously unpublished paper. Fischer Black is known for his brilliance as well as his sometimes controversial opinions. Highly respected for his scholarly writings in finance, he now moves into different territory with this incisive, unconventional assessment of general equilibrium theory and what that theory reveals about business cycles, growth, and labor economics. The general equilibrium approach, Black asserts, can be used to explain most of the economy's behavior. It can explain business cycles and growth without using sticky prices, irrationality, economies of scale, or imperfect competition. It can explain the volatility of consumption, output, sales, investment, and inventories with axiomatic utility and constant-returns-to-scale production. It can explain temporary layoffs, job changes with and without intervening unemployment, and the behavior of vacancies. It can explain lower wages in part-time jobs, wages that increase rapidly with time on the job, and the forces that cause migration from poor to rich countries. Although the general equilibrium approach can't be tested in conventional ways, it can be used to generate examples that explain stylized facts-generalized observations from the real world-that have preoccupied macroeconomists for the last decade. Black contrasts his interpretation of these facts with conventional interpretations. Finally, he reviews a substantial body of literature on these topics.