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Wages and the City. Evidence from Italy

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Author Info
Sabrina Di Addario (University of Oxford and Bank of Italy)
Eleonora Patacchini (University of Rome “La Sapienza”)

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Abstract

We analyze empirically the impact of urban agglomeration on Italian wages. Using microdata from the Bank of Italy\'s Survey of Household Income and Wealth for the years 1995, 1998, 2000 and 2002 on more than 22,000 employees distributed in 242 randomly drawn local labor markets, we test whether the structure of wages varies with urban scale. We find that every additional 100,000 inhabitants in the local labor market raises earnings by 0.1 percent. The use of a geographical approach enables us to state that this effect decays very rapidly with distance, losing significance beyond approximately 12 kilometers. We also find that urbanization does not affect returns to experience and that it reduces returns to education and to tenure with current firm, while providing a premium to worker supervisors and office workers.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Centro Studi Luca d\'Agliano, University of Milano in its series Development Working Papers with number 231.

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Length: 29
Date of creation: 01 May 2007
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:csl:devewp:231

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Related research
Keywords: Wages; Urbanization; Agglomeration Externalities; Population Clustering; Worker Mobility;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
R12 - Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)
J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
O15 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

References listed on IDEAS
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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Bratti, Massimiliano & Leombruni, Roberto, 2009. "Local Human Capital Externalities and Wages at the Firm Level: The Case of Italian Manufacturing," IZA Discussion Papers 4613, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  2. Croce, Giuseppe & Ghignoni, Emanuela, 2009. "Employer-provided training and knowledge spillovers: evidence from Italian local labour markets," MPRA Paper 14475, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jun 2009. [Downloadable!]
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