Search Growth Lab
Search
Policy Area
Research Project
Content type
Country/Region
Research Type
Author
-
Teaching Case
Leveraging the Lakefront: Spurring Inclusive Growth in Cleveland, Ohio Through Urban Redevelopment
How can a newly elected mayor leverage a redevelopment project to drive inclusive growth in a city facing entrenched disparities? Mayor Justin Bibb of Cleveland, Ohio, prioritized revitalizing the city’s […]
How can a newly elected mayor leverage a redevelopment project to drive inclusive growth in a city facing entrenched disparities? Mayor Justin Bibb of Cleveland, Ohio, prioritized revitalizing the city’s North Coast waterfront as part of a broader strategy to address social and economic inequity. The project sought to integrate cultural landmarks while navigating financial constraints and competing priorities such as public safety, underperforming schools, and revitalizing underserved neighborhoods. How can mayors balance visionary planning with practical coalition-building and what strategies can ensure that transformative projects meet the needs of all residents?
-
Working Papers
New Mexico’s Economy Over Time and Space
This report examines New Mexico’s economy over more than a century to inform statewide and regional economic development efforts. By mapping both long-term trajectories and recent changes, the analysis is […]This report examines New Mexico’s economy over more than a century to inform statewide and regional economic development efforts. By mapping both long-term trajectories and recent changes, the analysis is designed to support effective strategies for state and local leaders as they seek to address persistent challenges, respond to new risks, and leverage unique opportunities across the state’s diverse economies.
Long-Term Perspective (1900–2020)
The first section of this report provides an overview of New Mexico’s longer-term growth path to understand how the past influences the present and future of the state economy. New Mexico’s population never accelerated like some of its neighbors and peers. Slowdowns and uneven growth meant that New Mexico never attracted people in the way that Arizona, Colorado, or Utah did. Recent population growth has been the slowest in the last 120 years for New Mexico, indicating important economic problems that have made people “vote with their feet” to leave the state. Population growth and migration patterns are always co-evolving with what is happening in the state economy. Early in the 20th century, New Mexico’s economy was centered on agriculture, and over the next century, New Mexico saw a uniquely precipitous drop in employment in this sector. New Mexico missed early waves of manufacturing-led industrialization that benefited other states. This likely indicates a limit on how much manufacturing growth is possible moving forward, as the state has fewer latent capabilities and assets than other states that historically had larger manufacturing sectors. Mining, including the extraction of oil and gas, grew to be a critical part of the New Mexican economy and government revenues, but never accounted for more than 10% of jobs. Government activity also grew to be a uniquely large part of the state economy in New Mexico because of both state and federal funding.
Beneath the long-term statewide trends, New Mexico’s economy is striking for the variation of economic performance and drivers across the state. From a long-term perspective, many rural areas are still responding to major economic shocks to their sources of tradable income that often happened many decades ago. In an ideal world, major urban hubs would absorb the outmigration from regions that are losing population. However, as rural communities navigate these challenges, urban areas have not been in a strong enough position to absorb displaced populations from other parts of the state or in-migration from other states. As the state economy has evolved from industries that are rooted in place (such as agriculture and mining) to industries that thrive in more urban settings (such as professional services), the weaknesses of urban economies in New Mexico in comparison to other states stand out.
Medium and Short-Term Perspective (1997-2024)
Several of the challenges of New Mexico over the long-term have continued to play out over the last 25 years. New Mexico’s per capita growth has been relatively low, and its income level has fallen further behind other states, especially within the region. The period of 2005-17 was exceptionally weak, marked by several years of per capita contraction that cannot be explained by national patterns. Arguably, the most important problem over 2005-17 was that state and local government activity followed a procyclical pattern that made the downturn worse when fiscal policy could have been designed to partially offset the pain of the downturn. The decline in the state government activity appears to be driven by a significant drop in tax collection that was only partially cushioned by increased federal spending at the time. While New Mexico is now enjoying a period of more robust growth, an economic upswing since 2018 has yet to offset the effects of a prolonged stagnation. Past dynamics suggest that today’s “boom” in growth will likely be followed by a period of “bust”. Whether the current higher growth trajectory should be expected to continue hinges on the sustainability of current growth drivers and the potential for others to emerge.
Again, beneath these state patterns, there is significant variation in economic performance across New Mexico’s regions. A few urban counties, most of all Bernalillo County, drive the state’s overall economic activity, and their growth has lagged national trends. Counties across the state have growth patterns that are largely uncorrelated with each other. One can see the effects of state-level downturns across many counties, but state growth does not translate equally in all counties. In fact, some counties have grown in a negatively correlated way with statewide growth over the last 25 years. Depending on their local economic drivers, some counties are currently growing rapidly — for example, Lea and Eddy counties, which benefit directly from current oil and gas expansion in the Permian Basin. Several rural counties have seen growth, driven by different sectors in recent years, even as they face long-term pressures. Meanwhile, several urban economies are struggling to absorb population and labor. A deep dive into Albuquerque’s growth finds that an undersupply of housing is the most binding constraint today.
Implications for Economic Strategy and Policy
New Mexico is building on several strengths in its economic development strategy. Recent successes, including major business investments in Albuquerque and Las Cruces and the expansion of universal childcare and tuition-free college, mark important steps forward. The state has channeled a great part of its oil and gas windfalls into permanent funds, ensuring increased reserves for use in education, early childhood, and future flexibility. Annual distributions from these reserves now account for major shares of education spending, and they are projected to become an even larger part of the state budget. New Mexico has also had some success in targeting sectors for investment attraction and in a public push in site development and site readiness for investment. The state also faces new and recurring stressors, and this report has several implications for strategy moving forward. As federal funds recede, the state’s reserves are increasingly needed to offset cuts in healthcare, higher education, and other urgent areas, narrowing available fiscal space for new priorities. New Mexico has improved its ability to save revenues generated during the current resource boom, but it will also have to navigate spending tradeoffs. We suggest more deployment of the state’s fiscal resources to expand regional capacity to attract investment and actions to better address housing supply constraints in urban areas — both of which are small budget items in relation to existing priorities but with large potential gains. While New Mexico is moving in the right direction by targeting sectors and identifying key sites for development, the diversity of regional challenges and opportunities calls for greater regional tailoring. County-by-county analyses of diversification opportunities, using economic complexity methods, are available in this online repository. As for addressing labor supply constraints, investments in childcare and higher education effectively target long-term pressures on talent retention and attraction. However, the principal obstacle remains housing. There are state and local actions that can be taken to allow housing supply to better meet growing demand.
-
Book Chapter
Economic Prosperity With Environmental Preservation
Cities in Amazonia: People and Nature in Harmony, 165-167.
The publication sheds light on the ongoing urbanization in Amazonia and emphasizes the need for urgent action to guide it towards sustainability, improving both forest protection and the well-being of its residents.
This book explores the complex and rapidly evolving urbanization of Amazonia, a vast, diverse, and ecologically critical region undergoing a profound transformation. Amazonia is now home to nearly 41 million urban residents across 895 settlements — and yet its urbanization remains poorly understood, underestimated in scale, fragmented in form, and frequently overlooked in policy.
Through multidisciplinary perspectives and contributions from more than 50 experts, this book examines how urban growth intersects with environmental degradation, social inequality, and gaps in governance. Despite these challenges, cities in Amazonia are also places of promising innovations, from tailored healthcare services and environmental monitoring to community-led planning and cross-border cooperation.
Rooted in both local insight and regional coordination frameworks, including the Amazonia Forever program, this work offers a holistic and evidence-based understanding of urbanization in Amazonia. It argues for urgent, coordinated action to guide sustainable, inclusive development — before current urbanization trajectories lead to irreversible ecological and social consequences. The book invites researchers, policymakers and practitioners to recognize Amazonia’s cities not only as sites of vulnerability but as key agents in shaping the region’s — and the planet’s — future.
Chapter four highlights successful practices and innovative approaches that address this region’s urban challenges. Some focus on people, improving healthcare, and mapping needs for riverine communities. Others emphasize environmental care, with cities leading sustainability efforts, nature-based solutions, partnerships and ecosystem restoration to boost resilience. It also stresses the importance of increasing prosperity by finding opportunities even under difficult, cross-border conditions
Keywords: urbanization, cities, urban areas, sustainability, climate, productivity, well-being, infrastructure, Amazonia, urban development
JEL Codes: R11; R12; O18; R58; J24; R42; Q54; Z13
-
Journal Articles
The Coherence of US Cities
Diversified economies are critical for cities to sustain their growth and development, but they are also costly because diversification often requires expanding a city’s capability base. We analyze how cities […]
Diversified economies are critical for cities to sustain their growth and development, but they are also costly because diversification often requires expanding a city’s capability base. We analyze how cities manage this trade-off by measuring the coherence of the economic activities they support, defined as the technological distance between randomly sampled productive units in a city. We use this framework to study how the US urban system developed over almost two centuries, from 1850 to today. To do so, we rely on historical census data, covering over 600M individual records to describe the economic activities of cities between 1850 and 1940, as well as 8 million patent records and detailed occupational and industrial profiles of cities for more recent decades. Despite massive shifts in the economic geography of the United States over this 170-year period, average coherence in its urban system remains unchanged. Moreover, across different time periods, datasets, and relatedness measures, coherence falls with city size at the exact same rate, pointing to constraints to diversification that are governed by a city’s size in universal ways.
-
Web Articles
Lessons from Andalusia: How Can Policymakers Promote Economic Growth?
Amid rapid technological change and heightened competition, Europe must re-ignite economic growth. Evidence from Andalusia – Spain’s poorest region – highlights the need to make full use of a region’s […]Amid rapid technological change and heightened competition, Europe must re-ignite economic growth. Evidence from Andalusia – Spain’s poorest region – highlights the need to make full use of a region’s productive capabilities to forge new competitive advantages and raise living standards.
-
Working Papers
Una Estrategia de Crecimiento Económico para Hermosillo
Hermosillo se está quedando atrás en materia de crecimiento económico y diversificación productiva. Históricamente la ciudad se ha beneficiado de una fuerte presencia manufacturera, liderada por Ford, y un capital […]Hermosillo se está quedando atrás en materia de crecimiento económico y diversificación productiva. Históricamente la ciudad se ha beneficiado de una fuerte presencia manufacturera, liderada por Ford, y un capital humano de alta calidad; sin embargo, se quedó rezagada con respecto a ciudades comparativas en términos de creación de empleo y diversificación económica entre 2010-2020. Este bajo desempeño se deriva principalmente de un menor crecimiento y diversificación de la industria manufacturera en comparación con ciudades mexicanas más dinámicas. Es importante destacar que Hermosillo mantiene importantes ventajas competitivas, sobre todo en infraestructura logística, costos de y acceso a electricidad, y calidad del capital humano. Pero también enfrenta retos en materia de sustentabilidad del agua, de asequibilidad y de oferta de vivienda, así como de movilidad urbana. Hermosillo debe encontrar una combinación de políticas públicas que le permitan capitalizar en sus ventajas, así como solucionar las potenciales restricciones al crecimiento que va a enfrentar.
Hermosillo tiene claras oportunidades para acelerar su crecimiento económico. Hay tres cambios importantes en el contexto global que Hermosillo puede aprovechar: la transición energética, la relocalización de las cadenas de suministro y el boom del comercio internacional de servicios digitales. Estas tres tendencias se alinean particularmente con algunas de las ventajas competitivas existentes de Hermosillo. La ubicación estratégica de la ciudad cerca del mercado estadounidense, la mano de obra calificada, sus instituciones educativas y los abundantes recursos solares la ponen en buena posición para capitalizar estos cambios a través de acciones de política pública.
Las oportunidades económicas de Hermosillo podrían desbloquearse si la ciudad resuelve estratégicamente sus principales limitaciones. La gestión sostenible del agua y la mejora de su planificación urbana, particularmente en vivienda y transporte público, son las restricciones más urgentes que, una vez atendidas, permitirían a la ciudad crecer a un ritmo más cercano a su potencial. El incremento de la oferta vivienda y el desarrollo de un sistema de transporte público eficiente reduciría los costos de vida y los costos laborales para las empresas, haciendo a Hermosillo más atractiva para trabajadores e inversionistas. A su vez, es necesario establecer un modelo sostenible de gestión del agua que permita garantizar el crecimiento futuro de la ciudad. La resolución de estas limitaciones es esencial para posicionar a Hermosillo como un centro importante para las cadenas de suministro de manufactura avanzada, de la industria verde y de servicios digitales en el norte de México. La ciudad tiene muchos elementos a su favor para prosperar, pero requiere abordar estas limitaciones de manera coordinada para desbloquear su próxima fase de crecimiento económico.
-
Working Papers
Supply-Side Economics of a Good Type: Supporting and Expanding South Africa’s Informal Economy
This paper argues that South Africa’s persistently high unemployment is in part explained by abnormally low levels of informal sector activity compared to other developing countries. Using cross-country data, it […]This paper argues that South Africa’s persistently high unemployment is in part explained by abnormally low levels of informal sector activity compared to other developing countries. Using cross-country data, it shows that South Africa is an outlier, with low informality and high unemployment relative to its income level. If South Africa had informality rates consistent with its income level, unemployment would be much lower at around 7% instead of over 25%. The paper explores regulatory barriers, spatial constraints, lack of infrastructure, and crime as key factors inhibiting the growth of the informal sector. To boost informal activity and employment, it recommends a firm-size based policy matrix addressing these constraints, with a focus on regulatory changes to expand market access, zero-rating of licensing fees, provision of critical infrastructure like storage facilities, and transport vouchers and subsidies to connect informal businesses to markets. Implementing such supply-side policy changes could demonstrate the employment potential of the informal sector and build momentum for broader deregulation.
-
Working Papers
The Missing Economic Diversity of the Colombian Amazon
Alarming rates of forest loss in the Colombian Amazon have created a perceived trade-off that the only means of achieving economic prosperity is by sacrificing the forest. This study finds […]Alarming rates of forest loss in the Colombian Amazon have created a perceived trade-off that the only means of achieving economic prosperity is by sacrificing the forest. This study finds little evidence of this trade-off; rather, we find that economic development and forest protection are not an either-or choice. Forest clearing is driven by extensive cattle-ranching as a means to secure land titles. In essence, the loss of some of the world’s richest biodiversity is the result of some of the least economically complex activities that fail to achieve economic prosperity in the region. If anything, the acceleration in deforestation has accompanied a period of economic stagnation.
The existing economic model in the Amazon – centered on agrarian colonization and mineral extraction – has not generated prosperity for the people, all while failing the forest. The exceptional diversity of the Amazon’s biome is not reflected in the region’s economy. The Amazonian economy is best characterized by its low diversity and low complexity. A significant proportion of employment is linked to public administration – more than in other departments of the country. Very little of the production in the departments is destined to be consumed outside the departments (“exported”).
This study seeks to define an alternative economic model for the Colombian Amazon from the perspective of economic complexity with environmental sustainability. Economic complexity research finds that the productive potential of places depends not only on the soil or natural resources, but on the productive capabilities—or knowhow—held by its people. This research finds that the Colombian Amazon will not become rich by adding value to its raw materials or by specializing in one economic activity. Rather, economic development is best described as a process of expanding the set of capabilities present to be able to produce a more diverse set of goods, of increasingly greater complexity. This model starts from the base of understanding the existing productive capabilities in Caquetá, Guaviare, and Putumayo, to identify high-potential economic sectors that build off those capabilities to achieve new, sustainable pathways to shared prosperity.
Achieving shared prosperity in the Amazon depends on the connectivity and opportunity in its urban areas. The primary drivers of greater economic complexity – and prosperity – are the cities in the Amazon. Even in the remote areas of the Amazon, the majority of people in Caquetá, Guaviare, and Putumayo live in urban areas. The low prosperity in the Colombian Amazon is driven by the lack of prosperous cities. The report finds that Amazonian cities are affected by the lack of connectivity to major Colombian cities that limit their ability to ‘export’ things outside the department to then expand the capacity to ‘import’ the things that are not produced locally as a means to improve well-being.
-
Working Papers
Housing in Wyoming: Constraints and Solutions
Quantitative evidence supports the contention that Wyoming’s housing market is constrained, to a greater degree than many other parts of the US. Prices are persistently above expectations given economic fundamentals […]Quantitative evidence supports the contention that Wyoming’s housing market is constrained, to a greater degree than many other parts of the US. Prices are persistently above expectations given economic fundamentals in most parts of the state, and the supply of new housing in Wyoming is on average less responsive to price increases than in other US counties. This has undermined natural population growth and contributed to a low amount of population density close to city centers in Wyoming, as compared to other US cities with comparable population levels. Importantly, this phenomenon is not simply the result of pandemic-era economic frictions. The evidence shows that these constraints have durably persisted in Wyoming.
This housing constraint weighs heavily on the broader Wyoming economy, and chokes off growth in new industries that could add to the Wyoming economy beyond its natural resource base. Businesses consistently report a lack of access to workforce as a leading problem that ultimately results from a lack of housing. Some businesses have even tried to create their own housing for employees, and news reports abound of teachers and nurses who secure jobs in Wyoming communities but then have to leave because they cannot find housing.
Key problems behind Wyoming’s housing constraints include excessive regulations concerning housing density and insufficient investment in arterial infrastructure. For example, there is evidence that over-regulated minimum lot sizes in Wyoming are blocking the creation of supply to match free-market demand for houses with smaller amounts of land. Other areas of over-regulation include those concerning allowable housing types, building height, parking spaces per dwelling, and the housing approval process itself. This may be seen as surprising given Wyoming’s reputation as a low-regulation state, but Wyoming maintains restrictions that other states and countries have discarded as outdated and highly counterproductive. Besides outright restrictions on housing development, we find that the most common cost driver undermining the housing development has to do with low public investment in needed arterial infrastructure, especially water systems. Land supply as well as material and construction costs are not primary constraints to housing development across the state, but may matter for select communities.
We suggest a portfolio of policy changes for the state of Wyoming to explore in order to solve its housing constraints. One category of changes is regulatory, and focuses on deregulation, reducing bureaucratic overhead, and shifting from veto-cratic to democratic housing approval procedures. Another category is focused on investment on infrastructure to support housing, and exploration of state-local funding structures to facilitate continuous infrastructure improvement. If implemented, these changes will not only help to solve Wyoming’s housing constraints but also facilitate housing development in a way that combats urban sprawl, and in doing so protects open spaces outside of cities that Wyomingites value.
Related project: Pathways to Prosperity in Wyoming
-
Working Papers
Una historia de la economía de dos Amazonias: Lecciones sobre generar prosperidad compartida mientras se protege la selva en Perú y Colombia
A menudo se piensa que alcanzar la prosperidad económica en la selva amazónica es incompatible con la protección del ambiente. Los investigadores ambientales suelen advertir, con razón, que la velocidad […]A menudo se piensa que alcanzar la prosperidad económica en la selva amazónica es incompatible con la protección del ambiente. Los investigadores ambientales suelen advertir, con razón, que la velocidad de la deforestación actual está llevando a la Amazonía a un potencial punto de quiebre a partir del cual la selva no podrá dejar de deteriorarse hasta convertirse en una sábana herbácea. Pero se habla menos de lo que hay que hacer para generar prosperidad compartida en las comunidades amazónicas. La deforestación suele tratarse como algo inevitable a la hora de atender las necesidades humanas, locales y globales. Este reporte sintetiza los hallazgos de dos proyectos del Laboratorio de Crecimiento de Harvard University, que estudian la naturaleza del crecimiento económico en dos contextos amazónicos: el departamento de Loreto, en Perú, y los departamentos de Caquetá, Guaviare y Putumayo, en Colombia. La meta de estas colaboraciones es valerse de la investigación de alcance global que ha hecho el Growth Lab sobre la naturaleza del crecimiento económico para aplicar esos métodos al reto único de desarrollar rutas hacia la prosperidad en la Amazonía, de manera que no se perjudique a la selva. Este reporte compara y contrasta los hallazgos en la Amazonía peruana y colombiana para evaluar hasta qué punto hay lecciones que se puedan generalizar sobre la relación entre crecimiento económico y protección del bosque en la Amazonía.