Urbanisation and the Onset of Modern Economic Growth
研究提出城市化本身驱动技术进步和生产力增长，而非相反，从而开启持续经济增长，解释了18世纪西欧特别是英国城市化率空前上升与工业革命的关系。
Abstract A large literature characterises urbanisation as resulting from productivity growth attracting rural workers to cities. Incorporating economic geography elements into a growth model, we suggest that causation runs the other way: when rural workers move to cities, the resulting urbanisation produces technological change and productivity growth. Urban density leads to knowledge exchange and innovation, thus creating a positive feedback loop between city size and productivity that initiates sustained economic growth. This model is consistent with the fact that urbanisation rates in western Europe, most notably England, reached unprecedented levels by the mid-eighteenth century, the eve of the Industrial Revolution.