The Complementarity between Cities and Skills
Abstract
There is a strong connection between per worker productivity and metropolitan area population, which is commonly interpreted as evidence for the existence of agglomeration economies. This correlation is particularly strong in cities with higher levels of skill and virtually non-existent in less skilled metropolitan areas. This fact is particularly compatible with the view that urban density is important because proximity spreads knowledge, which either makes workers more skilled or entrepreneurs more productive. Bigger cities certainly attract more skilled workers, and there is some evidence suggesting that human capital accumulates more quickly in urban areas.Download Info
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 15103.Length:
Date of creation: Jun 2009
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15103
Note: PE
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Related research
Keywords:Find related papers by JEL classification:
- D0 - Microeconomics - - General
- R0 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2009-07-03 (All new papers)
- NEP-GEO-2009-07-03 (Economic Geography)
- NEP-HRM-2009-07-03 (Human Capital & Human Resource Management)
- NEP-LAB-2009-07-03 (Labour Economics)
- NEP-URE-2009-07-03 (Urban & Real Estate Economics)
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