Benjamin Leffel
Biographic Data
| ID | 328677 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Benjamin Leffel |
| GIVEN NAMES | Benjamin |
| FAMILY NAME | Leffel |
| SIGNATURE | LEFFEL B |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Nevada, Las Vegas |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2789-0977 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 67 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 12 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Destabilized growth in world-city formation
This study explores both the extraordinary growth processes that position a city as a leading international finance hub, and the conditions that destabilize this momentum, comparing the top two international gateway cities to the China market: Hong Kong and Shanghai during 2001–2024. We measure the presence and external connectivity of Multinational Corporations (MNCs) in both cities in tandem with their internal industrial composition across sec…
Explaining policy teaching versus learning in environmental transnational municipal networks
Filling the climate governance gap
Not so polycentric
Divergence of the world city system from national economies
This study shows that the position of cities in the world economy has diverged from national economies. Using data from 2016, we evaluate a network of 12,802 cities formed by the location decisions of 24,355 firms in terms of their point centrality, and show that the inter-city and inter-national systems have measurably decoupled, disrupting the previously-observed pattern in which the most powerful cities in the world city system were located in…
Toward Global Urban Climate Mitigation
Most research on global environmental change focuses on the national level, but the increasingly significant role of cities worldwide in climate change governance necessitates a global-scale understanding of urban environmental change. This study explains how greenhouse gas emissions reduction in 330 cities across 48 countries is affected by diffusion of normative expertise and political-economic forces. Specifically, polycentric systems comprise…
Climate consultants and complementarity
Metropolitan air pollution abatement and industrial growth
This study re-scales analysis of global environmental change down to the city-level, where it is becoming increasingly significant, to examine the relationship between air pollution abatement and industrial growth. Treadmill of Production theorists argue that economic growth leads to increased pollution, while Environmental Kuznets Curve research suggests that income increases initially lead to pollution increases, but begins to result in reducti…
Climate finance governance
This article consists of a critical review of the conceptual scholarship on the governance of climate finance and includes an overview of the institutional arrangements and governance logics that provide climate finance. New decentralized, polycentric structures allow for climate finance to more effectively reach the sub‐ and non‐state actors most directly implementing climate change governance. However, the expansion of climate finance into mark…
Understanding the global ecosystem of city networks
Cities are formalising collaborations across borders at an unprecedented rate: ‘city networks’ now form a wide ecosystem of global partnerships between local authorities that is often underestimated. It might be time to think of city networks more explicitly as institutionalised and presenting a challenging form of more-than-local urban governance. To do so, our essay mixes a review of the overall global landscape (beyond the environmental sector…
Animus of the Underling
This article explores the nature of city diplomacy using newly available archives chronicling the ‘municipal foreign policy movement’ of the 1980s, in which US city governments intervened directly in late Cold War foreign affairs issues. Cases covered include US city governments’ involvement in the nuclear free zone movement, the Central American crisis and the anti-Apartheid movement throughout the 1980s. A theoretical synthesis of literature in…
Economic Power Foundations of Cities in Global Governance
This study provides evidence that city government participation in global governance networks is explicable by the larger power hierarchy of cities in the global economy. Extant research on city government participation in global governance networks, or “transnational municipal networks (TMNs)” such as United Cities Local Governments, has largely ignored the relevance of research showing city-level connectivity to corporate and other economic net…
Understanding the global ecosystem of city networks
Cities are formalising collaborations across borders at an unprecedented rate: ‘city networks’ now form a wide ecosystem of global partnerships between local authorities that is often underestimated. It might be time to think of city networks more explicitly as institutionalised and presenting a challenging form of more-than-local urban governance. To do so, our essay mixes a review of the overall global landscape (beyond the environmental sector…
Climate finance governance
This article consists of a critical review of the conceptual scholarship on the governance of climate finance and includes an overview of the institutional arrangements and governance logics that provide climate finance. New decentralized, polycentric structures allow for climate finance to more effectively reach the sub‐ and non‐state actors most directly implementing climate change governance. However, the expansion of climate finance into mark…
Animus of the Underling
This article explores the nature of city diplomacy using newly available archives chronicling the ‘municipal foreign policy movement’ of the 1980s, in which US city governments intervened directly in late Cold War foreign affairs issues. Cases covered include US city governments’ involvement in the nuclear free zone movement, the Central American crisis and the anti-Apartheid movement throughout the 1980s. A theoretical synthesis of literature in…
Economic Power Foundations of Cities in Global Governance
This study provides evidence that city government participation in global governance networks is explicable by the larger power hierarchy of cities in the global economy. Extant research on city government participation in global governance networks, or “transnational municipal networks (TMNs)” such as United Cities Local Governments, has largely ignored the relevance of research showing city-level connectivity to corporate and other economic net…
Metropolitan air pollution abatement and industrial growth
This study re-scales analysis of global environmental change down to the city-level, where it is becoming increasingly significant, to examine the relationship between air pollution abatement and industrial growth. Treadmill of Production theorists argue that economic growth leads to increased pollution, while Environmental Kuznets Curve research suggests that income increases initially lead to pollution increases, but begins to result in reducti…
Divergence of the world city system from national economies
This study shows that the position of cities in the world economy has diverged from national economies. Using data from 2016, we evaluate a network of 12,802 cities formed by the location decisions of 24,355 firms in terms of their point centrality, and show that the inter-city and inter-national systems have measurably decoupled, disrupting the previously-observed pattern in which the most powerful cities in the world city system were located in…
Filling the climate governance gap
Climate consultants and complementarity
Animus of the Underling
This article explores the nature of city diplomacy using newly available archives chronicling the ‘municipal foreign policy movement’ of the 1980s, in which US city governments intervened directly in late Cold War foreign affairs issues. Cases covered include US city governments’ involvement in the nuclear free zone movement, the Central American crisis and the anti-Apartheid movement throughout the 1980s. A theoretical synthesis of literature in…
Economic Power Foundations of Cities in Global Governance
This study provides evidence that city government participation in global governance networks is explicable by the larger power hierarchy of cities in the global economy. Extant research on city government participation in global governance networks, or “transnational municipal networks (TMNs)” such as United Cities Local Governments, has largely ignored the relevance of research showing city-level connectivity to corporate and other economic net…
Metropolitan air pollution abatement and industrial growth
This study re-scales analysis of global environmental change down to the city-level, where it is becoming increasingly significant, to examine the relationship between air pollution abatement and industrial growth. Treadmill of Production theorists argue that economic growth leads to increased pollution, while Environmental Kuznets Curve research suggests that income increases initially lead to pollution increases, but begins to result in reducti…
Climate finance governance
This article consists of a critical review of the conceptual scholarship on the governance of climate finance and includes an overview of the institutional arrangements and governance logics that provide climate finance. New decentralized, polycentric structures allow for climate finance to more effectively reach the sub‐ and non‐state actors most directly implementing climate change governance. However, the expansion of climate finance into mark…
Understanding the global ecosystem of city networks
Cities are formalising collaborations across borders at an unprecedented rate: ‘city networks’ now form a wide ecosystem of global partnerships between local authorities that is often underestimated. It might be time to think of city networks more explicitly as institutionalised and presenting a challenging form of more-than-local urban governance. To do so, our essay mixes a review of the overall global landscape (beyond the environmental sector…
Toward Global Urban Climate Mitigation
Most research on global environmental change focuses on the national level, but the increasingly significant role of cities worldwide in climate change governance necessitates a global-scale understanding of urban environmental change. This study explains how greenhouse gas emissions reduction in 330 cities across 48 countries is affected by diffusion of normative expertise and political-economic forces. Specifically, polycentric systems comprise…
Climate consultants and complementarity
Not so polycentric
Divergence of the world city system from national economies
This study shows that the position of cities in the world economy has diverged from national economies. Using data from 2016, we evaluate a network of 12,802 cities formed by the location decisions of 24,355 firms in terms of their point centrality, and show that the inter-city and inter-national systems have measurably decoupled, disrupting the previously-observed pattern in which the most powerful cities in the world city system were located in…
Filling the climate governance gap
Destabilized growth in world-city formation
This study explores both the extraordinary growth processes that position a city as a leading international finance hub, and the conditions that destabilize this momentum, comparing the top two international gateway cities to the China market: Hong Kong and Shanghai during 2001–2024. We measure the presence and external connectivity of Multinational Corporations (MNCs) in both cities in tandem with their internal industrial composition across sec…
Explaining policy teaching versus learning in environmental transnational municipal networks
Political science (9 works) · Business (8 works) · Economics (8 works) · Corporate governance (7 works) · Geography (5 works) · Government (linguistics (5 works) · Climate Change Policy and Economics (4 works) · Economic geography (4 works) · Finance (4 works) · Global Urban Networks and Dynamics (4 works)