The comparative advantage of cities

Davis, Donald R.; Dingel, Jonathan I.

doi:10.1016/j.jinteco.2020.103291

Cited by 45 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…As a first step, we investigate the role of urbanization (city size) in mobility reduction. An abundance of previous work has shown that city size is associated with economic prosperity-larger cities boast higher wages and GDP per capita, and a higher skilled as well as more formalized labour force working in more sophisticated sectors [16,17,[42][43][44][45][46]. These factors generally improve residents' capacity to work remotely and reduce their mobility [7,9,10,21,47].…”

Section: Effects Of Mobility Quota and City Size On Lockdown Mobilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

COVID-19 policy analysis: labour structure dictates lockdown mobility behaviour

Heroy

Loaiza

Pentland

et al. 2021

J. R. Soc. Interface.

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Countries and cities around the world have resorted to unprecedented mobility restrictions to combat COVID-19 transmission. Here we exploit a natural experiment whereby Colombian cities implemented varied lockdown policies based on ID number and gender to analyse the impact of these policies on urban mobility. Using mobile phone data, we find that the restrictiveness of cities’ mobility quotas (the share of residents allowed out daily according to policy advice) does not correlate with mobility reduction. Instead, we find that larger, wealthier cities with more formalized and complex industrial structure experienced greater reductions in mobility. Within cities, wealthier residents are more likely to reduce mobility, and commuters are especially more likely to stay at home when their work is located in wealthy or commercially/industrially formalized neighbourhoods. Hence, our results indicate that cities’ employment characteristics and work-from-home capabilities are the primary determinants of mobility reduction. This finding underscores the need for mitigations aimed at lower income/informal workers, and sheds light on critical dependencies between socio-economic classes in Latin American cities.

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Section: Effects Of Mobility Quota and City Size On Lockdown Mobilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

COVID-19 policy analysis: labour structure dictates lockdown mobility behaviour

Heroy

Loaiza

Pentland

et al. 2021

J. R. Soc. Interface.

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“…Results are unchanged if only the state and year fixed effect are taken out. 8 See http://michaelstepner.com/binscatter/ for a more in depth discussion. distribution of patent i produced in CSD s is below the median with respect to other patents of class c filed in year t, 9 δ t , δ c and δ state are a set of year, class and state fixed effects, density st is the population density in CSD s in year t and X st a set of controls at a CSD/year level.…”

Section: Fact 3: Unconventional Innovation Locates In High-density Areasmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Geography of Unconventional Innovation

Berkes

Gaetani

2020

The Economic Journal

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Using a newly assembled dataset of U.S. patents, we show that innovation activity is less concentrated in high-density locations than commonly believed. Yet, inventions based on atypical combinations of knowledge are indeed more prevalent in high-density urban centres. To interpret this relation, we propose that informal interactions in densely populated areas help knowledge flows between distant fields, but are less relevant for flows between close fields. We build a model of innovation in a spatial economy that endogenously generates the pattern observed in the data: specialized clusters emerge in low-density areas, whereas high-density locations diversify and produce unconventional ideas.

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“…Previous work documented that cities host different industries and occupations than more rural areas (see, e.g., Davis and Dingel (2020) and Duranton and Puga (2005)) and that firms located in bigger cities tend to be more productive (see, e.g., Combes et al (2012)). We provide evidence that jobs undertaken by our two groups of refugees differ by occupation, industry, and firm-type.…”

Section: Sorting Across Job Types In Copenhagen and Outsidementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Notable exceptions are Combes et al (2012), Mion and Naticchioni (2009), and Dauth et al (2018). For papers that highlight the importance of city industry structure in explaining the urban wage premium see Davis and Dingel (2020), Baum-Snow and Pavan (2013), and Kok (2014). 4 In fact, leading scholars on refugee dispersal programs argue that assimilation is enhanced by placement outside major cities (see, e.g., Damm and Rosholm (2010)), whereas we find that placement in a big city causes faster wage gains with experience.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For other papers studying transitions in cities, seeGautier and Teulings (2009), Harmon (2013),Bleakley and Lin (2012),Martellini (2019),Dauth et al (2018), andPapageorgiou (2017).38 For various theories of learning from other workers seeGlaeser (1999),Davis and Dingel (2020),Martellini (2019), andPapageorgiou (2014). For learning outside the city context, seeEeckhout and Weng (2010),Jarosch et al (2019), andPerla and Tonetti (2014).…”

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confidence: 99%

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The Return to Big City Experience: Evidence from Refugees in Denmark

Eckert¹,

Hejlesen²,

Walsh³

2019

Preprint

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We offer causal evidence of higher returns to experience in big cities. Exploiting a natural experiment that settled political refugees across labor markets in Denmark between 1986 and 1998, we find that while refugees initially earn similar wages across locations, those placed in Copenhagen exhibit 35% faster wage growth with each additional year of experience. This gap is driven primarily by differential sorting towards high-wage establishments, occupations, and industries. An estimated spatial model of earnings dynamics attributes an important role to unobserved worker ability: more able refugees transition to more productive establishments faster in Copenhagen than in other cities.

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The comparative advantage of cities

Cited by 45 publications

References 40 publications

COVID-19 policy analysis: labour structure dictates lockdown mobility behaviour

COVID-19 policy analysis: labour structure dictates lockdown mobility behaviour

The Geography of Unconventional Innovation

The Return to Big City Experience: Evidence from Refugees in Denmark

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