This report was jointly launched by the National Academy of Economic Strategy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and UN-HABITAT. Using the indicator system and objective data, the competitiveness of 1,035 global cities was evaluated in detail. The report measures the development pattern of global urban competitiveness as a whole, and the gap between the relevant parties and the ideal state. It has refreshed people's past perceptions of urban rankings and confirmed that the science and technology innovation center cities and central cities of emerging economies have begun to break the inherent global cities and they have entered the ranks of the most urban competitiveness.While paying attention to the comparison of competitiveness among cities, this report further promotes the perspective to the pattern and trend change of global economic and social development from the perspective of city. The followings are new findings: First, information technology has increasingly become the primary driving force for urban development; Second, it is the three meridians that divide the global urban population and economic differentiation; Third, the soft links between cities gradually dominate the global urban system; Fourth, the formation of new global cities is beginning.

This open access book discusses booming housing markets in cities around the globe, and the resulting challenges for policymakers and central banks. Cities are booming everywhere, leading to a growing demand for urban housing. In many cities this demand is out-pacing supply, which causes house prices to soar and increases the pressure on rental markets. These developments are posing major challenges for policymakers, central banks and other authorities responsible for ensuring financial stability, and economic well-being in general.This volume collects views from high-level policymakers and researchers, providing essential insights into these challenges, their impact on society, the economy and financial stability, and possible policy responses. The respective chapters address issues such as the popularity of cities, the question of a credit-fueled housing bubble, the role of housing supply frictions and potential policy solutions. Given its scope, the book offers a revealing read and valuable guide for everyone involved in practical policymaking for housing markets, mortgage credit and financial stability.

This year, the NBER Macroeconomics Annual celebrates its thirtieth volume. The first two papers examine China’s macroeconomic development. “Trends and Cycles in China's Macroeconomy” by Chun Chang, Kaiji Chen, Daniel F. Waggoner, and Tao Zha outlines the key characteristics of growth and business cycles in China. “Demystifying the Chinese Housing Boom” by Hanming Fang, Quanlin Gu, Wei Xiong, and Li-An Zhou constructs a new house price index, showing that Chinese house prices have grown by ten percent per year over the past decade. The third paper, “External and Public Debt Crises” by Cristina Arellano, Andrew Atkeson, and Mark Wright, asks why there appear to be large differences across countries and subnational jurisdictions in the effect of rising public debts on economic outcomes. The fourth, “Networks and the Macroeconomy: An Empirical Exploration” by Daron Acemoglu, Ufuk Akcigit, and William Kerr, explains how the network structure of the US economy propagates the effect of gross output productivity shocks across upstream and downstream sectors. The fifth and sixth papers investigate the usefulness of surveys of household’s beliefs for understanding economic phenomena. “Expectations and Investment,” by Nicola Gennaioli, Yueran Ma, and Andrei Shleifer, demonstrates that a chief financial officer's expectations of a firm's future earnings growth is related to both the planned and actual future investment of that firm. “Declining Desire to Work and Downward Trends in Unemployment and Participation” by Regis Barnichon and Andrew Figura shows that an increasing number of prime-age Americans who are not in the labor force report no desire to work and that this decline accelerated during the second half of the 1990s.

This in-depth volume explains China's residential construction boom and reviews how some established trends are likely to challenge its housing market in coming years. It draws on household surveys and public data in China and provides important lessons about housing policy for China and other countries.

The 13 volumes in this set, originally published between 1920 and 1991, draw together research by leading academics in the area of labour economics and provides a rigorous examination of related key issues. The volumes examine housing and labour markets, labour supply, and labour migration. This set will be of particular interest to students of Economics and Business Studies.

This important volume focuses on the sensitive issue of interrelationships between national parks situated near or within urban areas and their urban environment. It engages with both urban and conservation issues and and compares four national parks located in four large cities in the global South: Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town, Mumbai, and Nairobi. Though primarily undertaken as academic research, the project has intensively collaborated with the institutions in charge of these parks. The comparative structure of this volume is also original and unique: each of the chapters incorporates insight from all four sites as far as possible.The term “naturbanity” expresses the necessity for cities endowed with a national park to integrate it into their functioning. Conversely, such parks must take into account their location in an urban environment, both as a source of heavy pressures on nature and as a nexus of incentives to support their conservation. The principle of non-exclusivity, that is, neither the city nor the park has a right nor even the possibility to negate the other’s presence, summarizes the main argument of this book. Naturbanity thus blurs the old “modern” dichotomy of nature/culture: animals and human beings can often jump the physical and ideological walls separating many parks from the adjacent city. The 13 chapters and substantive introduction of this volume discuss various aspects of naturbanity: the histories of park creation; interaction between people and parks; urban governance and parks; urban conservation models; wildlife management; environmental education; and so on. This is a must-read for students and researchers interested in social ecology, social geography, conservation, urban planning and ecological policy.

First published in 1997, this study is one of the forerunners in the area of urban land market and land price studies on a Third World city, focusing on Lucknow City in Uttar Pradesh, India, and exploring house prices, economic changes and construction. Amitabh responds to the 2nd Habitat Conference of 1996, which realised that housing conditions for lower income group people in most Third World cities have not improved, especially with regards to tenure, affordability and overall housing quality.