Well-Being in the Small and in the LargeAndrew K. Rose Is it better to live in a big country than a small one? In this paper, I examine whether economic and social conditions vary systematically with the population of a country. Economics provides a number of theoretical reasons why country size should matter, for instance, because of increasing returns to scale or because it is easier to provide public goods to a larger populace. However, there is little empirical evidence linking the scale of country size to any of a multitude of indicators of economic and social welfare. Key words: Population; Empirical; Data; National; Country; Scale; Size Views expressed in Monetary and Economic Studies are those
of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Bank
of Japan or Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies. |
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