Person:
Roberts, Mark
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Urban economics,
Urban development,
Spatial economics,
Regional development
Degrees
Departments
Urban, Resilience and Land Global Practice, The World Bank
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
Mark Roberts is a senior urban economist with the Urban, Resilience and Land Global Practice of the World Bank, where his work currently focuses on the East Asia and Pacific region. Prior to joining the World Bank, Mark was a lecturer in spatial economics at the University of Cambridge and a fellow in economics at Murray Edwards College, a member college of the University of Cambridge. Mark has published widely in leading peer-reviewed journals on the topic of spatial economic development and is a former coeditor of the journal Spatial Economic Analysis. He is coauthor of the World Bank’s South Asia Region Flagship Report, Leveraging Urbanization in South Asia, and its Latin America and Caribbean Flagship Report, Raising the Bar for Productive Cities in Latin America and the Caribbean. He has also worked on both the Europe and Central Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa regions, and acts as an advisor to Bank teams working on the analysis of processes of urban and spatial development. A native of the United Kingdom, Mark holds a PhD in land economy and an MA in economics from the University of Cambridge as well as an MS in economics from Warwick University.
Publication Search Results
1 - 10 of 16
-
Publication
The Connectivity of South Asian Cities in Infrastructure Networks
(Taylor and Francis, 2013-11-05)This map summarizes information on the connectivity of 67 important South Asian cities concerning infrastructure networks. The map combines four information layers to reveal a city's overall stature in the region's infrastructure networks, i.e. rail, road, air, and information technology networks. Three dimensions of connectivity are shown: edge thickness reflecting tie strength between pairs of cities; node size reflecting a city's betweenness centrality; and node color reflecting the dominant geographical orientation of a city's connections. A threshold is used for the edges to ensure the map does not appear clogged. The map shows that major connections tend to be within-country linkages between large cities. There are five communities in South Asia's urban infrastructure networks, which largely follow national borders. Delhi, Mumbai, Lahore, Karachi, Chennai, Colombo and Dhaka are shown to be important nodes for the infrastructural integration of South Asia, as these cities mediate flows between relatively unconnected communities and cities. -
Publication
Cities of Workers, Children, or Seniors? Age Structure and Economic Growth in a Global Cross-Section of Cities
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-10)A large literature documents the positive influence of a city's skill structure on its rate of economic growth. By contrast, the effect of a city's age structure on its economic growth has been a hitherto largely neglected area of research. This paper hypothesizes that cities with more working-age adults are likely to grow faster than cities with more children or seniors. The paper sets out the potential channels through which such differential growth may occur. Using data from a variety of historical and contemporary sources, it shows that there exists marked variation in the age structure of the world's largest cities, across cities and over time. It then studies how age structure affects economic growth for a global cross-section of mega-cities. Using various identification strategies, the analysis finds that mega-cities with higher dependency ratios, that is, with more children and/or seniors per working-age adult, grow significantly slower. Such effects are particularly pronounced for cities with high shares of children. This result appears to be driven mainly by the direct, negative effects of a higher dependency ratio on the size of the working-age population and the indirect effects on work hours and productivity for working-age adults within a city. -
Publication
Hukou and Highways: The Impact of China’s Spatial Development Policies on Urbanization and Regional Inequality
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-06)China has used two main spatial policies to shape its geographic patterns of development: restricted labor mobility through the Hukou residential registration system and massive infrastructure investment, notably a 96,000 kilometer national expressway network. This paper develops a structural new economic geography model to examine the impacts of these policies. Fitting the model to available data allows simulating counterfactual scenarios comparing each policy’s respective impact on regional economic development and urbanization patterns across China. The results suggest large overall economic benefits from constructing the national expressway network and abolishing the Hukou system. Yet, the spatial impacts of the two policies are very different. The construction of the national expressway network reinforced existing urbanization patterns. The initially lagging regions not connected to the network have not benefitted much from its construction. By contrast, removal of the Hukou restrictions, which Chinese policy makers are considering, would result in much more widespread welfare gains, allowing everyone to gain by moving to where he or she is most productive. Removal of the Hukou restrictions would also promote urbanization in currently lagging (inland) regions, mostly by stimulating rural to urban migration. -
Publication
Leveraging Urbanization in South Asia: Managing Spatial Transformation for Prosperity and Livability
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2016)The number of people in South Asia's cities rose by 130 million between 2000 and 2011--more than the entire population of Japan. This was linked to an improvement in productivity and a reduction in the incidence of extreme poverty. But the region's cities have struggled to cope with the pressure of population growth on land, housing, infrastructure, basic services, and the environment. As a result, urbanization in South Asia remains underleveraged in its ability to deliver widespread improvements in both prosperity and livability. Leveraging Urbanization in South Asia is about the state of South Asia's urbanization and the market and policy failures that have taken the region’s urban areas to where they are today--and the hard policy actions needed if the region’s cities are to leverage urbanization better. This publication provides original empirical and diagnostic analysis of urbanization and related economic trends in the region. It also discusses in detail the key policy areas, the most fundamental being urban governance and finance, where actions must be taken to make cities more prosperous and livable. -
Publication
A Free, Open-Source Tool for Identifying Urban Agglomerations Using Point Data
(Taylor and Francis, 2015-10-29)This paper describes a software tool for identifying urban agglomerations in low-information settings. The framework outlined in this paper is designed to work using point data. Our tool and all required data are provided free and in open-source format. This paper describes the advantages and disadvantages of using point-based geographies in regional analysis, discusses the practical and ethical challenges of distinguishing urban from rural regions, details the function of our software, and directs the interested reader to the source code. The paper also examines the tool's outputs for Sri Lanka and compares them with published United Nations urbanization figures. Our outputs indicate that Sri Lanka's urban population is significantly undercounted in official statistics. -
Publication
Identifying the Economic Potential of Indian Districts
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-04)Despite its rapid growth in recent decades, GDP per capita in India remains at a relatively low level by international standards, and the country continues to be marked by large subnational disparities in levels of well-being. These large disparities naturally lead to interest in India’s spatial landscape of potential for economic development. Against this backdrop, this paper presents the results of an analysis of underlying variations in economic potential across Indian districts, where economic potential is defined as the extent to which a district possesses factors that are important determinants of the ability to experience a high level of productivity. The analysis is based on a simple composite Economic Potential Index, which is constructed from variables for which robust evidence exists of their importance as determinants of local productivity. From the analysis, a picture emerges of a heterogeneous landscape of economic potential characterized by strong geographic clustering of districts. The paper also reveals particularly high levels of underperformance, relative to potential, for districts in Uttar Pradesh. -
Publication
Tracking Economic Activity in Response to the COVID-19 Crisis Using Nighttime Lights: The Case of Morocco
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-02)Over the past decade, nighttime lights have become a widely used proxy for measuring economic activity. This paper examines the potential for high frequency nighttime lights data to provide “near real-time” tracking of the economic impacts of the COVID-19 crisis in Morocco. At the national level, there exists a strong correlation between quarterly movements in Morocco’s overall nighttime light intensity and movements in its real GDP. This finding supports the use of lights data to track the economic impacts of the COVID-19 crisis at higher temporal frequencies and at the subnational level, for which GDP data are unavailable. Consistent with large economic impacts of the crisis, Morocco experienced a large drop in the overall intensity of its lights in March 2020, from which it has subsequently struggled to recover, following the country’s first COVID-19 case and the introduction of strict lockdown measures. At the subnational level, while all regions shared in March’s national decline in nighttime light intensity, Rabat – Salé – Kénitra, Tanger – Tetouan – Al Hoceima, and Fès – Meknès suffered much larger declines than others. Since then, the relative effects of the COVID-19 shock across regions have largely persisted. Overall, the results suggest that, at least for Morocco, changes in nighttime lights can help to detect the timing of changes in the direction of real GDP, but caution is needed in using lights data to derive precise quantitative estimates of changes in real GDP. -
Publication
When the Lights Go Out: The Economic Impacts of Covid-19 on Cities Globally
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-09)This paper uses high-frequency nighttime time lights data to estimate the impacts of the Covid-19 crisis on economic activity during the first year of the pandemic for a global sample of 2,800 cities, covering a total population of 2.5 billion people. Activity is found to be negatively affected by both the spread of the virus and the imposition of nonpharmaceutical interventions, but the negative impacts of the spread are large compared to those of nonpharmaceutical interventions. Large differences in city trajectories are also observed. Cities in low- and middle-income countries faced a significantly larger overall loss of economic activity compared to those in high-income countries. Additionally, cities with higher population densities are found to be more resilient in the face of the global shock as compared to less dense ones, but this difference is only observed in low- and middle-income countries. Taken together, the findings suggest that the Covid-19 crisis gave rise to divergence in urban economic trajectories, both across and within countries. -
Publication
Thriving : Making Cities Green, Resilient, and Inclusive in a Changing Climate
(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2023-05-18)Globally, 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions emanate from cities. At the same time, cities are being hit increasingly by climate change related shocks and stresses, ranging from more frequent extreme weather events to inflows of climate migrants. This report analyzes how these shocks and stresses are interacting with other urban stresses to determine the greenness, resilience, and inclusiveness of urban and national development. It provides policymakers with a compass for designing tailored policies that can help cities and countries take effective action to mitigate and adapt to climate change. -
Publication
Time to ACT: Realizing Indonesia's Urban Potential
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2019-10-03)In over 70 years since its independence, Indonesia has been transformed by urbanization, and within the next quarter of a century, its transition to an urban society will be almost complete. While urbanization has produced considerable benefits for Indonesians, urbanization has the potential to deliver more prosperity, inclusiveness and livability. Time to ACT: Realizing Indonesia's Urban Potential explores the extent to which urbanization in Indonesia has delivered in terms of prosperity, inclusiveness, and livability, and the fundamental reforms that can help the country realize its urban potential. In doing so, the report introduces a new policy framework - the ACT framework - to guide policymaking. This framework emphasizes three policy principles - the need to Augment the provision and quality of infrastructure and basic services across urban and rural locations; the need to better Connect places and people with jobs and opportunities; and the need to Target lagging areas and marginalized groups through well-designed place-based policies, as well as thoughtful urban planning and design. Using this framework, the report provides policy recommendations differentiated by types of place, grounded in solid empirical evidence