SEMINAR: "Growth Strategies and Urbanization," April 17, 2008 at the World Bank

The Commission on Growth and Development, World Bank Urban Development Unit, and
InfoShop

invite you to a half-day seminar on

Thursday, April 17, 2008
8:45 am - 12:30 pm

Preston Auditorium
World Bank Main Complex
1818 H Street NW

For non Bank staff, please RSVP to infoshopevents@worldbank.org

Growth Strategies and Urbanization
Insights from the Commission on Growth and Development

Opening remarks by Danny Leipziger, Vice President and Head of Network, Poverty
Reduction and Economic Managment, The World Bank Group
Closing remarks by Graeme P. Wheeler, Managing Director, The World Bank
Group

Join Michael Spence, Nobel Laureate in Economics, and Chairman of the Commission
on Growth and Development, along with an eminent panel of commentators,
including:

Richard Arnott, Distinguished Professor of Economics, University of
California-Riverside
Augusto de la Torre, Chief Economist, Latin America and Caribbean Region,
World Bank
Gilles Duranton, Noranda Chair, Professor, Department of Economics,
University of Toronto
Richard Green, Professor of Real Estate, Finance and Economics, George
Washington University
Marja Hoek-Smit, Director, International Housing Finance Program, Wharton
School of Business
Sukkoo Kim, Associate Professor, University of Washington-St. Louis
Johannes Linn, Executive Director, Wolfensohn Center for Development, The
Brookings Institution
Mahmoud Mohieldin, Minister of Investment of Egypt
George Peterson, Senior Fellow, Urban Institute (ret.)
John Quigley, I. Donald Terner Distinguished Professor, University of
California at Berkeley

to discuss the role of urbanization in growth strategies, based on ?state of
the art? papers covering the following topics:

Urban Productivity, Agglomeration Economies and Growth
Geography and Regional Inequality
Urban Labor Markets and Growth
Urban Housing Policies
Lessons from the U.S. Subprime Mortgage Crisis

Agenda: (See attached file: Agenda.doc)

About the Commission on Growth and Development
The Commission on Growth and Development was established in April 2006 as a
response to two insights. First, poverty cannot be reduced in isolation from
economic growth?an observation that has recently been overlooked in thinking and
strategies for development. Second, there is growing awareness that knowledge
about economic growth is much less definitive than commonly thought.
Consequently, the Commission?s mandate is to ?take stock of the state of
theoretical and empirical knowledge on economic growth with a view to drawing
implications for policy for the current and next generation of policy makers.?

To help explore the state of knowledge, the Commission invited leading academics
and policy makers from developing and industrialized countries to explore and
discuss economic issues it thought relevant for growth and development,
including controversial ideas. Thematic papers assessed knowledge in several
different areas, among them urbanization.

The thematic papers on Urbanization cover the following areas: Urban
Productivity, Agglomeration Economies and Growth (Gilles Duranton, John
Quigley), Geography and Regional Inequality (Sukkoo Kim, Tony Venables), Urban
Housing Subsidy Policies (Richard Arnott), and The U.S. Subprime Mortgage
Crisis: Issues Raised and Lessons Learned (Dwight Jaffee).

The Commission?s work is supported by the Governments of Australia, the
Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, the William and Flora Hewlett
Foundation, and the World Bank Group.
For more information and the draft thematic papers, please visit:
www.growthcommission.org

About the InfoShop
The InfoShop is the public information center of the World Bank and serves as a
forum for substantial debate on international development. Our extensive events
program consists of more than 250 events over the past two years and has hosted
many internationally recognized speakers including Queen Noor, Francis Fukuyama,
Jeffrey Sachs, Amartya Sen, Joseph Stiglitz, Thomas Friedman, and Carly Fiorina.
The InfoShop functions as the only publicly accessible space at headquarters and
provides internal and external audiences with over 15,000 titles published by
the World Bank, international organizations, and other publishers on development
issues.
For more information, visit: www.worldbank.org/infoshop
Comments about the events program: http://go.worldbank.org/TDG9T8O9K0